"When you look for truth, do not use your eyes, but look inside yourself, for there lies the truth."

Essay by maxhackHigh School, 11th grade June 2004

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"When you look for truth, do not use your eyes, but look inside yourself, for there lies the truth." Discuss this advice from the point of view of the scientist, the artist, the historian, and the writer.

What is truth if we are to look inside ourselves instead of trusting out senses? The scientist, the artist, the historian, and the writer all must evaluate different truths. However, each one of them must devise a way to determine whether something is true or false. Each of these people must go through many stages in determining truths and yet we can see that in each and every case they must look inside themselves, at their own perceptions and conceptions, to arrive at a truth.

The scientist's truth is one based on data and observations; one based on experimentation and verification. It often takes a scientist decades to prove something. The stereotypical scientist has no beliefs that are not based on absolute, tangible facts.

However, it is seen many times over that scientists must look within themselves to find truths. Scientists do not look for absolute truths within themselves. Instead, they seek ideas that will ultimately lead them, or even someone else, to a truth. Some scientists spend years of their lives in poverty, striving to discover or develop some obscure constant or law that they know must exist. A perfect example is George Simon Ohm. "Ohm was born in Bavaria, the son of a master mechanic who was interested in science and saw that his son received a proper scientific education." (Martindale et al.) Ohm spent years of his life researching in the area of electrical conduction. "After his discovery of Ohm's Law, he received so much public criticism that he was forced to resign even from his high school (teacher) position."...