Jean Buridan: A 14th century Philsopher who enjoyed paradoxes.
Buridan’s Bridge is a paradox that involves the following proposition:
Socrates wants to cross a river and comes to a bridge guarded by Plato, who says: “Socrates, if in the first proposition that you offer you speak the truth, I will permit you to cross, but surely if you speak falsely, I shall throw you into the water”.
Socrates replies: “You will throw me into the water”.
Either way Plato’s statement becomes untrue and so does Socrates reply.
The dichotomy is created by the belief that both Socrates and Plato share the same truth and the same reality.
When I believe that there is only one true reality, I believe that everyone else shares my true reality.
When I create a distinction between ‘truth’ and ‘reality’, I can allow another to hold their own truth within my own reality.
Whatever I state to be my truth manifests as my perspective of reality and so does everyone else’s.
The Reality of a Space-Time-Continuum holds the potential for all possible truths to exist simultaneously.
The truth of reality lies within the perspective of the beholder that is creating it.
Whatever Socrates states as his truth becomes his reality irrespective of any proposition presented to him.
Only when I know my Truth can I state it with confidence.
Without confidence it is not a Truth, just a belief.