I received a summons to do Jury Duty. A juror is expected to be able to come to a conclusion of guilt, or innocence, beyond a reasonable doubt. But I can not do that.
During the last four years, I have been writing my book, which clearly defines the difference between truth and belief. Also, I have a perception-bias, created by my research of court trials. Because a person's freedom is at stake, I strongly feel that I can not come to a conclusion of guilt, or innocence, without extreme doubt.
My Rational:
Truth is defined as my conscious contact with primary sense information describing a thing. Sense information includes sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. A thing can be a crime event, location, person, object, idea. The Truth is consistent with physical and psychological laws of cause and effect, observed and validated by primary experience.
When I first experience a thing, my brain reacts with hormone flow, which is my emotional reaction, recorded as my triggered hormone reaction to the thing. This positive or negative emotional reaction defines my thought of the thing, which is my description of truth, because it is attached to primary sense information. My hormone reaction makes the thing feel real in my brain and guides how I think of it.
Belief is not conscious contact with the primary sense information that describes a thing, such as a crime event, which is presented and argued in court.
Belief is Trusting Another to think a thing is true. If someone tells you something is true, then you are taking their word for it. It may be their truth, but if you did not consciously experience and validate it, then you can only accept it as a belief. If I do not know the person who is presenting a belief, then I have no certainty to trust their belief is the truth, so I must consider it is a distortion of objective truth.
In writing stories to develop into films, my research includes watching investigative programs of court cases in which innocent people were prosecuted, declared guilty for crimes they did not commit, because witnesses thought they were right, when they were wrong.
I have seen examples of Prosecutors argue their believed perception, based on their conclusion of an assumed reality, that was actually an incorrect distortion of objective reality, resulting in an innocent person punished.
Defense Lawyers have to work with the assumed belief their client is innocent, so I can never feel I am hearing truth from them.
Science has discovered that eye witness testimony is unreliable. Well-intentioned people will tell what they think is true, but what they tell is a distortion of objective reality. Memory is not video. Witnesses have malleable memory. Memory is not reliable. It is fragile and it can be easily contaminated and manipulated by other people. A witness will have a sincere conviction, and believe they know the truth, as they testify, even though they are completely wrong. And an innocent person is found guilty.
I do not trust Authority and Witnesses.
Truth is a memory that is malleable and can easily be changed by unintended manipulation. If there is too much detail to remember, a witness will more likely get pieces of information wrong.
Your primary experience of a thing provides a limited truth, as humans can only consciously process a subset of the vast amount of sense information they are exposed to.
Even Video evidence only captures a subset of available visual data, which is therefore a limited truth, that is extrapolated into a belief.
In court, a belief of guilt versus innocence, is argued with ‘evidence’ creating a story, to be deduced and believed.
As a juror, I can be presented with 'evidence', things (people, objects) that I can see are real (Truth), but I do not perceive them in the context of the primary crime experience, so I am faced with having to accept a belief.
If I allow myself to listen and react to what I hear and see, then that belief-story is programmed in my brain as a neural network that triggers particular hormone reactions and thought. That hormone feeling causes the belief to feel real.
Both truth and belief, are a neural net that triggers a hormone reaction, that causes the truth or belief to feel real.
People mistake the feeling triggered by their programmed belief as meaning the belief is truth, when in fact, it is just a neural net triggering a hormone reaction.
Can I accept a belief as truth, because a self-convinced authority thinks it is true?
I can create a theory about the truth, based on the arguments presented by both sides, but what I deduce to see, is only a subjective perception of belief, which I know is very likely a distortion of objective truth.
Capitulating to a belief as a judgment of guilt, would be dishonest and betray my perception, my truth.
To capitulate to a belief is to live with uncertainty.
I can not in good conscience, come to a verdict based on programmed belief. My belief is not a substitute for Truth.
- Peter Feuersenger
