This is an exploration into epistemology, the science of knowing.

The question is: "What can we be certain of?"

I am, therefore I think. Being must precede analysis of it. Descarte's famous statement "I think, therefore I am" can be misleading and could be more clearly stated as "I think, therefore I know I am".

Shortly after conception, the human infant emerges from total ignorance. At birth the child has unitary consciousness. If we define living as experiencing unity with external phenomena, then the best possible value is the choice to continue living.

Hopefully, the Mother or guardians of the child have this value, which I call the Grand Value, and express love to the child by touching, feeding and talking to it. To accept the the material world (the world of apparent seperation) every child needs ATTENTION.

Thus the foundation of human values is the love between the Mother and Child. This quality is what religions call God.

Scientists claim that, without sufficient touching and eye contact, infants will die.

"I am part of my mother" is all we know at first.

As we grow, we can learn what phenomena around us are consistent and can be approximately called real. This process is by trial and error.

This is best done by practical experience, as opposed to hearsay. We should not be too quick to affirm or deny what we have not experience.

We soon learn that for all practical purposes, matter and beings, with which which we can communicate, exist.

We can learn from the nature of our own bodies (for example, willing your eyes to move accross the page or eperiencing sexual arousal from nothing but a photo) and from Nature, through the seasons, the cyclic movement of the stars and the law of gravity that laws or principles exist, though they are intangible or invisible.

If these principles are not subject to contradiction we can call them real or true. Those that serve the Grand Value of wilful unity with life are part of what we may call truth. The fact that all concious beings need attention is a truth.

One description of what I consider the highest or grand value is: all that fosters unity and compassion.

To have this value is an experiential knowing independent of knowledge of facts.

Value or Truth is essential, facts are not.

We judge facts by the scientific method, which cannot be infallible.

The fact that sny living being exists is because Actuality has brought it here. The connection between the being and Actuality is compassion. Of this we may be certain.