This is a concept that I’ve been bouncing around in my head for a while. As with any other ideas I have here, it must have been influenced by ideas of others and is utterly incomplete at this stage. However, I think I have a concrete enough picture of it to attempt to write about it.

I think ever since my teen years, I have been a relativist: I believed (and still do in a way) that “everything” is relative. I came to this “conclusion” because I noticed that everyone was interpreting what he/she experienced, relative to their situation at the moment and that these interpretations, or “filters”, are something we cannot remove from the whole equation because of what we, humans or any sentient beings, are.

The obvious problem with advocating “absolute” relativism (you will easily notice an obvious oxymoron) is that this credo, “everything is relative,” itself has to be relative and becomes self-conflicting. It is logically flawed and it will never be more than a incomplete belief.

Not only that, as much as I could not ignore the seemingly pervasive relativity caused by the interpretation filters, I felt uneasy about completely dismissing the idea of the absolute truth (or a god as some would say). Even a relativistic (or cyclic) belief such as Buddhism has an absolute concept such as Nirvana. So for a while, what I’ve often told was that if there was an absolute being, it must be the universe itself…

But recently, I’ve come up with a better explanation (it’s just a rhetoric anyway…): the relative truths/gods as projections of the infinite dimensional absolute truth/god. I really don’t care whether it’s called the truth or a god. I will just say “truth” to refer both from now on.

If you had taken some geometry classes at school, you might remember hearing about dimensions and projections to a lower dimensional space. For example, if you have a cube in a 3-dimensional space and project it onto a 2-dimensional space, you can get a square, a rectangle, or a distorted hexagon, of varying sizes depending on the positions of the object and the projection plane, and the projection methods. Another example… If you have a triangle in a 2-dimensional space and projected onto a 1-dimensional space, you will get lines with various lengths depending on the condition.

The thing I want to stress from the above examples is that although the original objects in their native dimensional spaces might have well-defined, fixed shapes, their projections onto lower dimensional spaces can take various, sometimes drastically different shapes. From the perspectives of the lower dimensional spaces, those objects look that way (nothing wrong with this), but they have no way to know for sure what the higher-dimensional original objects may look like.

So, applying this analogy, I am going to say that there is (probably) an absolute truth, but it’s in a higher dimensional space (actually, in an “infinite” dimensional space as discussed later). The “truths” we understand (or written down, talked about, etc.) are only its projections (or “filters” as I called above) into our lower dimensional spaces. Since our “positions” in these lower dimensional spaces are different from that of each other (and even from one’s own from different time), the projected shapes of the truth may and will differ.

For some groups of people, their positions maybe close enough that the projected shapes are similar. But the point is that these projected truths are relative to the projection planes, i.e., individuals, and that for us the actual shape of the truth in the higher original dimensional space is beyond our understanding.

One thing to note is that when I say a n-dimensional space, I am not just referring to the “popular” dimensional space of x-, y-, and z-axes. I don’t know exactly what each axis measures (it could even be a concept as vague as “love”, “happiness”, etc.) but it is something that will define each individual within its own understanding.

On a similar line, if you actually think of this dimensional spaces as the popular time-space continuum and its extension, we can think about “superhumans” and “gods.” To us, a being that’s bound by a higher dimensional space would be considered as a superhuman or a god since it can overcome the restriction of our time-space continuum. But to them, another being in an even higher dimensional space would be considered as a god. And if you keep following this, you will reach at a concept of a being in an infinite dimensional space, which one can say is the absolute god. And the truth there would be the absolute one.

Anyway, in one respect, the absolute truth may exist (in the infinite dimensional space). However, as far as our understanding goes, everything is still relative (as its projections onto lower dimensional spaces). So, this is how I “resolved” my relativistic beliefs with a concept of the absolute, and felt a bit better. :p

One of the frustrating things I see (not that I would really get frustrated or something) is that some people seem to believe that things can be only be one way or the other. Although sometimes I do envy some of their unwavering conviction, I can’t help but become sad and frustrated at their stubbornness and inflexibility.

I think these inflexible concepts and ideas are restricting people’s ability to understand. Their minds are already determined to believe and think the world as such without further inspection, when, in fact, those can be influenced and formed by other people’s interpretation of the world, experiencing very little of the world themselves. As I mentioned in another section, there is definitely a benefit to generalization and common sense (efficiency vs. flexibility). However, blindly believing that some opinions or something will be true all the time, seems simply just irresponsible (I think we have become quite too efficient at things).

I believe there is no absolute truth. There are facts and events, however, we will never get around to hearing or learning only those. They will always be filtered through someone’s interpretations. What I mean by “no absolute truth” (I do understand that it is self-conflicting) is that almost all the time, things can and will be interpreted differently. That is, even for the same events of things, they will have different circumstances or environments, which warrants different interpretations of the same events.

I think a lot of (most?) people seem to have difficulty carrying uncertainties and/or seemingly conflicting ideas without going insane. I think people like to generalize/categorize things because that way, they don’t have to think much and I guess, there are other things that are more immediate to their lives.

I think this ability to be comfortable with seemingly conflicting ideas can be very important. I think that might be the only way to be open to things beyond oneself.

I’ve always thought that things (or facts) can be interpreted differently. Initially, I couldn’t quite explain why I thought so. But lately one subject keeps coming to me that might explain.

It’s very simple. As I mentioned earlier in this page, it’s all because of us, humans. Humans can think of more things than any other beings in the universe (that we know of), to put “values” on. Actually on everything we interact with, not only in biological or physiological sense, but also in conceptual or mental levels. And these levels of thinking or putting “values” can be different.

For example, I “believe” that the universe itself is “indifferent” (or impartial) to anything that’s in it. On the other hand, humans have to put significance on their own existence because it’s a string that gets attached to the gift of thinking. One factual event can have different meanings on a different levels (these include time, space, individual, groups, and level of views). Let’s say a tree was cut in a forest. To the logger, it’s a good thing because it will provide him with food and shelter. To our next generation, it might not be so because of the environmental damages. To the universe, it’s just one event in its timeless and ever-expanding history.

My point isn’t about “everything is relative; there is nothing good or bad; who cares.” My point is that it is not and should not be hurried to pass judgment on anything, especially based on facts not evaluated by each individual often enough. In fact, we need to put great efforts defining our evaluation criteria and need to re-evaluate themselves frequently as ourselves and our environment changes. We should care more about how we form the criteria because we need to judge (or put “values” on).

Actually, I started thinking about this again when a frequent question of “can one person make the difference?” came up again in a conversation. I said there something like it didn’t matter to the universe. Someone said that was one very sad view of the world. I guess “the world” and “the universe” there don’t mean the same thing. On the human society level, I believe the collective efforts from each individual can over time. I also think that most of the initiator of some social movements don’t get to see the fruit of what they started. As I said, it all depends where you are looking from.