We learn things in school only to learn at the next level of school that what we had learn was not exactly true. Each time, our simplistic view of reality gets increasingly replaced by a more sophisticated and nuanced view of the world. But not just that; there are ‘truths’ we learnt in school that eventually gets surpassed by new findings and they become untrue.
Or take for example some theories and ideas in social sciences; they evolve with our understanding of society, culture and economics – which means they’re not as timeless and can shift from being once true to becoming untrue. (In economics, an example would be the Phillips curve relationship between inflation and unemployment – a relationship that broke down the more Central Banks tried to take advantage of it.)
So how do we know and observe when a piece of idea, knowledge or conventional wisdom makes that transition from being truth? What measures can we take to insulate ourselves from that? How should we think about ‘truths’ we hold dear to our hearts or subconsciously in our minds?