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Absolute

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The best representation of a thing is the thing itself and yet there are things that we experience great difficulty recognizing in their true form. The truth is one of those things. In speaking of the truth, what we have is a word - and as a representation of a thing, a word provides a label for a concept that is meaningless without an accurate understanding of what the concept represents. Understanding the true meaning of truth is a challenge because it calls upon itself for validation, which is a logical fallacy. Or is it? Is it illogical to state that the truth is self evident? Is this an irrational assertion? If it is, then even science is based upon the fallacy of truth because it relies upon self evident truth in objective measurement as the ultimate test of observable fact. Even though science does not attempt to define truth, concerning itself entirely with facts, leaving questions about the truth and meaning of existence to the disciplines of philosophy, art and theology, science is often used to challenge the truth of our beliefs and assumptions. All too often, people overlook the limits that science imposes on itself, and as a result upon knowledge itself.

Knowledge and understanding are two different things. Knowledge is a body of concepts supported by quantitative and qualitative facts - descriptions, definitions and observations of abstract and concrete phenomena - and understanding is the meaning, or truth, we assign to them. The truth of knowledge is certainly conditional, and we can make quantitative and qualitative assessments of the relative truth of facts and ideas, but facts and ideas are not the truth. Even the concept of truth is not the truth, and as a result the concept of truth can be used conditionally. This is where most of the confusion about the truth originates. The problem is that we try to interpret the truth, resulting in derivatives of the truth distorted by the limits of our understanding and ability to articulate that understanding. Through the ages, people have struggled with knowing the truth, but before the truth can be known it has to be understood. It is necessary to experience the truth, to perceive it and recognize it for what it is. It could be said that understanding is the condition of being conscious of the truth.

The problem that many people have with that kind of assertion is that it implies that the truth is subjective, and if it is subjective then it cannot be absolute. If truth was contained in the understanding,

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