I don’t think we can reach the essence of the world or of things; that vision is theological, although it often finds reflection in modern science and thought. Ontologically speaking, the only way we can give meaning to things is always through interpretation. The nature of interpretation is to be multifaceted, and that is why we are free. Making a choice is a meaningful action; without any act of choice, we have no meaning — and without meaning, no option to make a choice, and thus no real freedom. By real freedom, I mean not judging ourselves by what we have, but by our ability to say “no,” the possibility of following our “yes,” and the power of our will.
Urðr – Verðandi – Skuld
Ódin, Óðinn Alföðr, the allfather, norse god, sacrificed one of his eyes at Mímir’s well, a place of deep wisdom, to gain knowledge of the cosmos and urðr (wyrd/fate).
Knowledge is a quest. Experience is the road. Perspective highlight certain elements while obscuring others. The quest of knowledge comes with the cost of blindness, such is the non-dual world. Knowledge ecapulated in written language, comes as static, reality is dynamic. Try to see all means seeing nothing.
For the heathens there are more than anthropomorphic truths, such as : zoomorphic,
Phytomorphic, biomorphic – animistic truths. Some birds connected the world of the living with the world of the dead, bogs were gateways to the world of the dead, trees were gates to other world and also a symbol of a high principle of growth and the origin of the world, creation itself.
Vision, what we actually see, is a reconstruction of the world around us, an actively maintained and constrained hallucination. It is a process no only sensory but mental, a matter of focus, perspective.
What can validate an opinion ?
Knowledge in old societies : being able to tell a good story.
Knowledge in modern-religious society : eschatology.
Knowledge in scientific society : experimentation and verification.
Knowledge in technological society : working with tools.
The old nineteenth century model of truth/verification and twentieth/falsification : allowing an horizon of consensus. Not every consensus is a sign of truth, but the truth of a statement would draw a consensus. Research as the verification of statements through experience/experiment. Competence is being benchmarked through the statements and their validations.