The "Freeola Customer Forum" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
I've been recently reading Stephen Donaldson's "Gap" series. First off, I'd like to say that this is an excellent series and recommend it to you all.
In this series, there is a character named Hashi Lebwohl. This man stands out as someone always interested in the relationship between the facts and the truth. You may not know it, but the facts are not necessarily the truth, in fact (no pun intended) facts only point to potential "truths".
Everyone is interested in the truth. What's really happening? That sort of thing. At one time or another, the truth becomes important to us about something, and the facts can't always conclusively provide the truth for us.
You only need to look at a Court of Law to see how different facts are from truth. Courts in theory are trying to look for the truth, but inevitably they resort to merely juggling facts and using them to present possible truths, regardless of whether what is being presented is what actually happened. The terrible thing there is that we rely on courts to convict criminals, but at the end of the day, they will believe whatever "truth" best suits the facts they have been presented. That may not, in fact often is not the case of the ACTUAL truth, just a well presented interpretation of the facts.
I'm sure you've all had an experience where you see something and you think "oh my god, x thing is happening!" where x is some event which is pretty bad, be it relationship wise, work wise or otherwise, only to find out later that what you saw, despite being fact because you SAW it, was in fact not the truth of the matter.
Again sticking with the whole law thing (since in theory the law revolves around the truth), recently having see Minority Report, it raises several questions about how the facts are interpreted. In this movie, a divined fact is taken as gospel truth by the "pre-crime" police and acted upon. The potential criminal is then sentenced without trial and locked away indefinitely.
The problem is, the police are only ever given one truth. The facts of the case could of course point at another which is never considered. Yes, you see someone murder someone else, and the pre-cogs give a little visual background to the "crime", but that doesn't necessarily point that someone needs to be locked away for the rest of their life. What about the reasons for the murder? Aggravated? Self-defence? Crime of passion? Euthanasia? Temporary insanity? In certain instances even today, a well argued case can end in a "killer" walking free simply because the incident isn't cold-blooded. But here the potential truths are ignored, and only the worst case is acted upon.
There is of course in this movie the massive issue I have with people who haven't *actually* commited a crime being locked away for life, when even today someone who attempts to kill somoene but fails recieves a much lighter sentence than someone who actually gets away with it. But that's going off the subject.
At the end of the day, courts are taking facts more seriously, and circumstances less so in the consideration of someone's guilt. But facts alone can rarely reveal the truth. Without the circumstances, how can you ever know what really happened? You can only know how how the facts can be interpreted, and while interpretation of the facts can turn possibilities into probabilities, they don't necessarilly point out the one real truth.
The moral here? Don't be quick to judge. Sometimes we see things that enrage us, things that make you want to act in one way or another. Don't do it. Impulsiveness is a weakness, and taking the facts you have and interpreting them yourself to design a "truth" which may not in fact be true can be damaging in the long run.
The truth IS out there, but then so are the facts. Don't make the mistake of thinking that they are one and the same.
IB
In this series, there is a character named Hashi Lebwohl. This man stands out as someone always interested in the relationship between the facts and the truth. You may not know it, but the facts are not necessarily the truth, in fact (no pun intended) facts only point to potential "truths".
Everyone is interested in the truth. What's really happening? That sort of thing. At one time or another, the truth becomes important to us about something, and the facts can't always conclusively provide the truth for us.
You only need to look at a Court of Law to see how different facts are from truth. Courts in theory are trying to look for the truth, but inevitably they resort to merely juggling facts and using them to present possible truths, regardless of whether what is being presented is what actually happened. The terrible thing there is that we rely on courts to convict criminals, but at the end of the day, they will believe whatever "truth" best suits the facts they have been presented. That may not, in fact often is not the case of the ACTUAL truth, just a well presented interpretation of the facts.
I'm sure you've all had an experience where you see something and you think "oh my god, x thing is happening!" where x is some event which is pretty bad, be it relationship wise, work wise or otherwise, only to find out later that what you saw, despite being fact because you SAW it, was in fact not the truth of the matter.
Again sticking with the whole law thing (since in theory the law revolves around the truth), recently having see Minority Report, it raises several questions about how the facts are interpreted. In this movie, a divined fact is taken as gospel truth by the "pre-crime" police and acted upon. The potential criminal is then sentenced without trial and locked away indefinitely.
The problem is, the police are only ever given one truth. The facts of the case could of course point at another which is never considered. Yes, you see someone murder someone else, and the pre-cogs give a little visual background to the "crime", but that doesn't necessarily point that someone needs to be locked away for the rest of their life. What about the reasons for the murder? Aggravated? Self-defence? Crime of passion? Euthanasia? Temporary insanity? In certain instances even today, a well argued case can end in a "killer" walking free simply because the incident isn't cold-blooded. But here the potential truths are ignored, and only the worst case is acted upon.
There is of course in this movie the massive issue I have with people who haven't *actually* commited a crime being locked away for life, when even today someone who attempts to kill somoene but fails recieves a much lighter sentence than someone who actually gets away with it. But that's going off the subject.
At the end of the day, courts are taking facts more seriously, and circumstances less so in the consideration of someone's guilt. But facts alone can rarely reveal the truth. Without the circumstances, how can you ever know what really happened? You can only know how how the facts can be interpreted, and while interpretation of the facts can turn possibilities into probabilities, they don't necessarilly point out the one real truth.
The moral here? Don't be quick to judge. Sometimes we see things that enrage us, things that make you want to act in one way or another. Don't do it. Impulsiveness is a weakness, and taking the facts you have and interpreting them yourself to design a "truth" which may not in fact be true can be damaging in the long run.
The truth IS out there, but then so are the facts. Don't make the mistake of thinking that they are one and the same.
IB
There have been no replies to this thread yet.
I've been recently reading Stephen Donaldson's "Gap" series. First off, I'd like to say that this is an excellent series and recommend it to you all.
In this series, there is a character named Hashi Lebwohl. This man stands out as someone always interested in the relationship between the facts and the truth. You may not know it, but the facts are not necessarily the truth, in fact (no pun intended) facts only point to potential "truths".
Everyone is interested in the truth. What's really happening? That sort of thing. At one time or another, the truth becomes important to us about something, and the facts can't always conclusively provide the truth for us.
You only need to look at a Court of Law to see how different facts are from truth. Courts in theory are trying to look for the truth, but inevitably they resort to merely juggling facts and using them to present possible truths, regardless of whether what is being presented is what actually happened. The terrible thing there is that we rely on courts to convict criminals, but at the end of the day, they will believe whatever "truth" best suits the facts they have been presented. That may not, in fact often is not the case of the ACTUAL truth, just a well presented interpretation of the facts.
I'm sure you've all had an experience where you see something and you think "oh my god, x thing is happening!" where x is some event which is pretty bad, be it relationship wise, work wise or otherwise, only to find out later that what you saw, despite being fact because you SAW it, was in fact not the truth of the matter.
Again sticking with the whole law thing (since in theory the law revolves around the truth), recently having see Minority Report, it raises several questions about how the facts are interpreted. In this movie, a divined fact is taken as gospel truth by the "pre-crime" police and acted upon. The potential criminal is then sentenced without trial and locked away indefinitely.
The problem is, the police are only ever given one truth. The facts of the case could of course point at another which is never considered. Yes, you see someone murder someone else, and the pre-cogs give a little visual background to the "crime", but that doesn't necessarily point that someone needs to be locked away for the rest of their life. What about the reasons for the murder? Aggravated? Self-defence? Crime of passion? Euthanasia? Temporary insanity? In certain instances even today, a well argued case can end in a "killer" walking free simply because the incident isn't cold-blooded. But here the potential truths are ignored, and only the worst case is acted upon.
There is of course in this movie the massive issue I have with people who haven't *actually* commited a crime being locked away for life, when even today someone who attempts to kill somoene but fails recieves a much lighter sentence than someone who actually gets away with it. But that's going off the subject.
At the end of the day, courts are taking facts more seriously, and circumstances less so in the consideration of someone's guilt. But facts alone can rarely reveal the truth. Without the circumstances, how can you ever know what really happened? You can only know how how the facts can be interpreted, and while interpretation of the facts can turn possibilities into probabilities, they don't necessarilly point out the one real truth.
The moral here? Don't be quick to judge. Sometimes we see things that enrage us, things that make you want to act in one way or another. Don't do it. Impulsiveness is a weakness, and taking the facts you have and interpreting them yourself to design a "truth" which may not in fact be true can be damaging in the long run.
The truth IS out there, but then so are the facts. Don't make the mistake of thinking that they are one and the same.
IB
In this series, there is a character named Hashi Lebwohl. This man stands out as someone always interested in the relationship between the facts and the truth. You may not know it, but the facts are not necessarily the truth, in fact (no pun intended) facts only point to potential "truths".
Everyone is interested in the truth. What's really happening? That sort of thing. At one time or another, the truth becomes important to us about something, and the facts can't always conclusively provide the truth for us.
You only need to look at a Court of Law to see how different facts are from truth. Courts in theory are trying to look for the truth, but inevitably they resort to merely juggling facts and using them to present possible truths, regardless of whether what is being presented is what actually happened. The terrible thing there is that we rely on courts to convict criminals, but at the end of the day, they will believe whatever "truth" best suits the facts they have been presented. That may not, in fact often is not the case of the ACTUAL truth, just a well presented interpretation of the facts.
I'm sure you've all had an experience where you see something and you think "oh my god, x thing is happening!" where x is some event which is pretty bad, be it relationship wise, work wise or otherwise, only to find out later that what you saw, despite being fact because you SAW it, was in fact not the truth of the matter.
Again sticking with the whole law thing (since in theory the law revolves around the truth), recently having see Minority Report, it raises several questions about how the facts are interpreted. In this movie, a divined fact is taken as gospel truth by the "pre-crime" police and acted upon. The potential criminal is then sentenced without trial and locked away indefinitely.
The problem is, the police are only ever given one truth. The facts of the case could of course point at another which is never considered. Yes, you see someone murder someone else, and the pre-cogs give a little visual background to the "crime", but that doesn't necessarily point that someone needs to be locked away for the rest of their life. What about the reasons for the murder? Aggravated? Self-defence? Crime of passion? Euthanasia? Temporary insanity? In certain instances even today, a well argued case can end in a "killer" walking free simply because the incident isn't cold-blooded. But here the potential truths are ignored, and only the worst case is acted upon.
There is of course in this movie the massive issue I have with people who haven't *actually* commited a crime being locked away for life, when even today someone who attempts to kill somoene but fails recieves a much lighter sentence than someone who actually gets away with it. But that's going off the subject.
At the end of the day, courts are taking facts more seriously, and circumstances less so in the consideration of someone's guilt. But facts alone can rarely reveal the truth. Without the circumstances, how can you ever know what really happened? You can only know how how the facts can be interpreted, and while interpretation of the facts can turn possibilities into probabilities, they don't necessarilly point out the one real truth.
The moral here? Don't be quick to judge. Sometimes we see things that enrage us, things that make you want to act in one way or another. Don't do it. Impulsiveness is a weakness, and taking the facts you have and interpreting them yourself to design a "truth" which may not in fact be true can be damaging in the long run.
The truth IS out there, but then so are the facts. Don't make the mistake of thinking that they are one and the same.
IB