In this methodology, our understanding of reality is refined by first describing what appears to be objective reality (the thesis). Once the thesis has been explicated, its opposite (the antithesis) can also be described. True reality may be assumed to lie somewhere between these two extremes. By critically comparing thesis and antithesis, a truer understanding of reality may be achieved and described (the synthesis). The synthesis then becomes thesis upon which the next round of the exercise is based, and the process is continued in asymptotic fashion to progressively narrow the gap between human understanding and objective reality. Hegel referred to the elusive, ultimate truth towards which this search was directed as the "absolute idea."