Fact is a matter of correct definition: things that are known to have happened or exist. Some children and trivia buffs love to memorise facts of measurement, “Did you know that the tallest…”

Truth is more emotionally meaningful. “How do you truly feel about me?” is a question you can answer, perhaps with difficulty. “How do you factually feel about me?” is a question that hardly makes any sense.

Court witnesses do not swear an oath to “tell the facts, the whole facts, and nothing but the facts.”

As we grow older and more complex it can become harder to sense facts but easier to sense the truth. To sense the truth, as if we can somehow feel it and grow more sensitive at doing so. A truth-sense could confer an evolutionary advantage, but how that could work is debatable: we don’t know the facts.

I prefer to think that consistent exposure to things that are true in our life allows us to learn the shape of reality – to live a real life.

What is the alternative?

What happens to us when we are consistently exposed to things that are labelled “true” but are not true, and what would such a world look like?