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I believe that whatever can be perceived through body and mind, though subjective as per the subject’s own perceptions, is true to that extent. Obviously, since perceptions of the same thing/situation vary with individuals, what’s true/absolute are not the perceptions/ideas themselves, but the thing/circumstance which remains as it is. What’s true/absolute are not the minds and the thoughts emerging therefrom which you know keep on varying on different occasions, but the one which powers this mind and body. As any student of Science would agree that nothing can be without a cause, that principle works everywhere. The truth is not the effect which is a varying entity, but the cause behind it. One could argue Ok, if that be so, our mind/thoughts govern our body /actions, so mind is true and actions are not. Had that been the case, one could justify any thought/idea (so called ethical or unethical, good or bad) emerging from the mind to justify one’s actions. Fortunately, the laws of nature and the universal/supreme intelligence working behind nature, which we call GOD/Truth/Absolute Reality or whatever you wish to call it, do not work that way. In my opinion, the biggest hurdle the human individual mind/intelligence faces in realising the absolute truth is its inability to realise that in essence we all (i.e our bodies and minds) are made up of the same physical and ethereal matter existing in the universe (though, in varying forms, but essentially with same finest units of matter, i mean electrons, protons, neutrons etc.) and are governed by the same universal laws (known and unknown) of nature. That being so, it should be easier, at least intellectually, to see that essentially it is all ONE despite there appearing different forms and bodies in the universe. Once we increasingly realise this essential ONENESS in seeming diversity, we automatically progress to the principles of ethics preached by one and all. The question is why should I do good to others and not bad if it pleases me? The answer is why not because if it is all ONE where is the question of disparity and discrimination and whiose good or bad I am going to do except my own real SELF, where I will be solely responsible for my own actions whether I perceive them as good or bad. However, all this is easier said than actually realised. Realising and attaining such a state of perception, the highest and the purest one, is the aim of all beings. Sooner or later, slowly or fast but surely, we all are moving there only. Only thing is that with mindful and properly directed efforts, one can accelerate the progress towards the Ultimate.

Absolutely not!

Oh, um, wait a minute…

Yes. Yes it does. Everything we say that we can prove by integration sense perception and logic in our day to day life is absolute truth. We take “absolute” to mean “transcendental,” but that’s the fraud of mystifying certainty and absolutism that most philosophy has perpetrated for us, rooted in the mind-body dichotomy.

All we know, all that our words refer to, is the world around us, and no matter what else we discover, what we know is still true here. We can find universe where the laws of physics are different, but the laws of physics will have always been true here and now. Absolute truth is quite available to us, and mystifying it is one of the deadly frauds we have perpetrated on us my the intelligentsia.

We’ve discovered with science the world of subatomic particles and the world of galaxies. But there’s nothing to make these scales more “absolute” than the scale, than the level we see things on. Of course we see things in our terms, but so long as we’re aware of that, there’s nothing subjective about that, nothing non “absolute” about it. Your knowledge of the layout of your house is absolutely true even if you just moved in and forget what street it’s on for a moment. Our knowledge of the material world as we see it is true no matter what else we discover.

As for the whole “oneness” thing, yeah, there’s important in the sense that there’s only one existence and all truths integrate, which we should remember, and keeps our objectivity. But we, as individuals, are distinct entities from the other particulars that we see, and really knowing that we are not omnipotent and can’t be is how we stop our “subjective” qualities from actually being distortions.

Hi Lucy,

I think that absolute truth does exist. I also think that “absolute” is a word that can also be substituted with “objective”. Objective truth is something that exist just the same for all beings, not depending in a direct way with each person’s eyes and experience.

I have one example to offer you about this idea of mine: imagine to stand up just in front of a huge tree! The tree in front of you and in front of each one of us is really big, the same one big tree, so very large that our individual sight is not able to embrace it all in one sight only. It will be necessary to observe the tree in a careful way walking around it, more and more.

So try to imagine that the view of the big tree will be different from each other of the many persons just watching it: there will be the one looking at its roots, another person by its body, another one being attracted by its leaves, another one by its fruits and so on, each person being able to fix on a different detail of the tree.

So, if the big tree is the objective reality of things, the inner true existance of reality, it will be easy to understand that each small part of the tree will be a true part of the tree, but still different by the other pieces of tree that other persons will be able to catch. Which one will be the real one, the true one? Why each single view will be so much different by the views of other watchers?

You know it: the tree is really big! hahahaha

Marco

@Marco – That’s an awesome analogy! I never, in a million years, would have thought of it that way. But how do you know the tree is really big? How do you know that your opinion or that everyone’s opinion is right? What if some of us can’t see the tree as clearly and just believe what other people tell us the tree looks like? Do I make sense?