Another 'advaitist' here (Strong atheist and a Hindu), trying to clarify things from our side.
Yo!
Closer or farther, inside is the same as outside.
Well, as a concept, 'near' implies and requires the concept 'far', and both are aspects of the concept 'relative distance'; and 'inside' implies and requires the concept 'outside'; and both are aspects of the concept 'relative enclosure'. But I can't see how they're the same thing, since then 'closer' and 'farther', 'inside' and 'outside', would be synonyms, and they're not.
What if 'what exists' arises from 'absolute void' - Ex-nihilo? Science at the moment cannot definitely say anything about that.
In a true nothing are neither entities nor phenomena nor dimensions, no where and no when; so how can there be change without anything to change, and without time to change it in? So my favorite hypothesis is the idea, expressed as monism to keep things clear, that what exists is mass-energy, and that time, space and everything else are properties of mass-energy ie exist because mass-energy does, not vice versa. (Pity I can't demonstrate its correctness ─ it'd save a lot of theology.)
Absolute Truth, we are not yet there unless science answers the 'Ex-nihilo' problem, but we are getting close.
There are many problems with the notion of absolute truth. First, there is no final demonstration that a world exists external to the self (that solipsism is wrong), or that we're not elements in a hyperbeing's tron game (or, some say, dream) or that the universe, with us in it, was not Last Thursday'd ─ in each case the contrary is an assumption. Second, scientific method proceeds by empiricism and induction, so the conclusions of science are never final, in that nothing protects them from a counterexample we may find tomorrow, or never find. (As Brian Cox put it, a law of physics is a statement about physics that hasn't yet been falsified.) And so on.
That is what we humans can observe with our senses in daily life and generally term it as truth, which it is not.
It is, according to my definition: a statement is true to the extent that it conforms with / accurately reflects / corresponds to (external) reality.
What definition are you using? When you say there are two levels of 'truth', what do you mean by 'truth'? What test shows whether any statement about reality is true or false?
Our friend Atanu may have something to say about it (he has more scriptural knowledge), but I do not think it matters much in our discussion.That is simple - 'What is not falsifiable'. It must have scientific sanction.Now you have put a spanner in the works. What is reality (as if we know it!)? Do you think existence is the reality? Buddha said 'no'. 'Anicca' (non-permanent), 'Anatta' (non-substantial).
I respectfully disagree with the Buddha, though I like quite a bit of what he said. I start with three assumptions (which I have to do, since I can't demonstrate that any of them is correct without first assuming it's correct) ─ that a world exists external to the self, that our senses are capable of informing us of that world, and that reason is a valid tool. (Anyone who posts here thereby demonstrates agreement with the first two, and I have to hope with the third.)
And having done that (and cutting a long story short), I find I'm a materialist because so far nothing else makes sense. (By 'materialism' I mean the view that only those entities and processes which are recognized by physics from time to time are real, as the metaphysician Jack Smart, with metaphysician David Armstrong, put it. That is, 'reality' is the same thing as nature, the realm of the physical sciences, the set of all things with objective existence.)
The idea of truth is therefore not fixed, but at any time it has an objective test, the correspondence-with-reality that I mentioned above.
