In any and every issue you need to know the truth if you are to stand any chance of success. Whether you are trying to lose weight, plan your financial security, trying to figure out how to be healthy and happy, you need to know the truth.

But what does it rest on? What premises must we hold to even form the concept meaningfully. What are the foundations on which the idea of truth rests? These are the questions addressed in this weeks episode of Living outside the Matrix. And knowing these fundamental ideas helps us identify which ideas destroy or undermine the concept of truth.

If you haven’t already read the post “What is truth?” It would be helpful to do so before proceeding here, or in conjunction with this Podcast Episode.

The word ‘truth’ is a linguistic label representing a conceptual idea. That conceptual idea is the identification of that which is real. In order to distinguish the real from the unreal you must necessarily begin with the idea of what is ‘real’. Only then can you distinguish it from the unreal. To ask ‘what is real?’ is to pose the most fundamental philosophical question. So we can see that truth is an inherently philosophical concept, and we must necessarily get philosophical if we are to discuss it and understand it, and therefore be able to discern it and use it.

The concept of truth necessarily rests on four antecedent concepts that together constitute its genetic roots. To  understand the concept of truth you must grasp, recognise and consciously accept these four foundational concepts. Conversely, the rejection of any one of these four ideas is to empty the concept of truth of any meaning.

1. Reality is an objective absolute

The concept of truth begins with the recognition of reality. Existence exists independent of your consciousness. It is not a swirling mist of chaotic probability in which your mind can influence the outcome. You do not create reality with your consciousness, it was here already before you arrived. And it continues to exist independent of any of your wishes or desires. It exists independent of any consciousness, human or supernatural. But this is not to say that your mind has no influence. It has a huge effect on your experience, and it also has a profound effect on water.

This issue is the very first question in philosophy. Either reality is objective or it is subjective, no other alternative is possible. Either it is the object of consciousness or it is the subject. This is also stated as the primacy of existence versus the primacy of consciousness.

You would have a hard time demonstrating that consciousness creates reality because it doesn’t, and very few philosophers would even attempt to claim it. But this is not to deny that the mind has some degree of control over the body and your experiences. However, many refute the objective nature of reality without acknowledging that subjectivism is the only alternative. Subjectivism is not embraced openly as a philosophy, but rather implicitly as a vague and undefined psychological escape clause that enables people to deny that facts are facts and that actions have consequences when it is convenient to do so.

These days it is very popular to believe that consciousness creates reality, that you create your own reality, but the major problem with this idea is that it destroys the concept of truth! Why? because if it were so, then everybody’s claims would be true, Which would have to mean that contradictions could exist. But we know that contradictions cannot exist in Nature – only in the minds of men.