The Travelling Salesman Problem and the Truth In Mathematics, there is a classic conundrum called "The Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP)" : "Given the positions of N cities, what is the shortest Many cities mean exponential combinations exist to traverse those cities. But there is only one route, only one solution to the problem. This mathematical conundrum has been used in a lot of real world
applications, specially in computer science. But let us try it on a book that
is prominent in the bookshelves of mankind - the Bible. If we treat each verse
of the Bible as different cities, imagine the exponential amount of permutations
that would result from man's attempt to "interpret" these verses and
weave them into one wholistic picture to find the great "theological"
solution. This sheds some light on the phenomenon of how and why religion, denominations,
and cults arise. Those that deviate from discovering the one true "solution"
are just seeing "mutations" of the truth even if they profess that
they base their dogma or belief on Bible verses. Although they contain
subsets of the truth, their overall profile does not manifest the genuine truth,
and their integrity to represent or lead men to the truth is questionable. This
makes them even more lethal, akin to a malevolent social virus or meme - snagging
minds and spirits away through deception. As expressed by Henry Ford, "An
error is the more dangerous the more truth it contains." Any idea, doctrine or interpretation that
fails to start from a core truth is an error, growing deadlier each time
it patches itself with fragments of sub-truths which then creates a half-truth memeplex. "I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me." Jesus is the one path that weaves all of the verses into one unified
whole. Consistent, optimized, solid and undeniably true. Algorithms and heuristics
are used to find "the way" for The TSP. Religion and/or science is society's algorithm
to find the truth. The paradigm
shift in this case is that Jesus Himself is the Truth and the Way all in
one person.
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