ABSTRACT
A brief Hindu narrative describes how the world is structured: everyday life lies at the top and it rests upon a platform, held up by gigantic pillars, carried on the backs of enormous elephants, who stand upon the shell of a gigantic turtle swimming in the cosmic ocean. The Turtle Tower provides striking visual metaphors about how each basic comprehension mode operates. For instance, underlying everyday life is a platform, which we can interpret as a stage. The latter divides the world into the virtual realm of a drama, and the real world of the audience watching the play. This is divergence, the core logic of the virtual mode. The pillars, for their part, are constructed by gathering stones, judging which are strong enough, carving the stones, and then assembling the resulting blocks to form a pillar which stands on its own. This is how the factual mode of comprehension operates. Scientists gather evidence, judging which are reliable, and then integrate everything into a coherent story, namely a factual conclusion, which others can rely on. Understanding the logic, the structure and operation, of each comprehension mode allows us to judge truth in each mode, independent of culture.
