Lucas Stopper: What is "true?" (outside reading discussion)

 Throughout the first few class discussions we have had, we discussed how myths are ways for people to understand truths about the world through a different lens. This topic reminded me heavily of how people in medieval times theorized about and understood how the world works. In my history class about the Black Death, we have discussed at length how medieval people, specifically physicians and academic scholars, came to the conclusion that God had the power to control the movement of the planets and that the movement of the planets in relation to Earth caused things such as earthquakes, disease, and weather phenomena. I thought this connected well with our discussion of myth, as medieval people also assigned sort of personalities to the planets, usually associated with the Greco-Roman gods they were named after. I also thought it connected to our discussions because, although we would now consider these interpretations of the world to be “wrong,” at the time, it was a sound argument that was supported with as much evidence as medieval scholars had access to. They believed that if a person was throwing up, it was the body's way of trying to expel a toxin, and that throwing up should be treated with more throwing up, in order to get rid of the toxin. While we now know that may not be the best treatment for an ill person, one can also see how that argument is sound and true in its own way. In that way, their beliefs were not ‘wrong,” but instead, their “true” ways of viewing and interpreting the world.