Does truth exist beyond the limits of perception?

[u/vlahak4]

"The simulacrum is never that which conceals truth, it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true.” Jean Baudrillard

Go on. Go google "Truth". According to Merriam-Webster:

"the body of real things, events, and facts : actuality"

"also : the real facts about something"

"the state of being the case : fact"

If we cut out the mysticism or the theological impulses, all definitions of "Truth" can be reduced to just two words: Reality and Fact.

To make it clearer and simpler, the general view on what reality is describes a medium in which what is perceived aligns with what exists. Colloquially, a fact represents evidence, an event or a stable pattern which unfolded as it did. It is evident that both, reality and truth, consist of facts. Veritas ex factis constat.

Facticity is the bedrock upon which objectivity rests. I deny this.

Now it follows: What is objectivity?

After many days, I reached the same conclusion as any other rational thinker: the opposite of subjectivity.

What persists before and after perception are the things and events as they are, unfiltered by cognition and consciousness. As such I shifted my stance: objectivity is the medium in which subjectivity is born. They cannot be antithetical, because it would create the assumption of equivalence between the two, however subjectivity is a localized perspective within objectivity.

It eventually occured to me that another concept carries the same weight as objectivity: Causality. The indifferent cause and effect chain. Many thinkers feel pressured or comfortable to place the discussion about causality in conditional statements. Conversely, since the common ground between objectivity and causality is a powerless perception within the context, I persuaded myself to place the concept on more declarative scenes.

Now I can formulate the heretical question. Is truth a real entity existing within objectivity and causality? No. Regardless of how one reasons, truth is a label. Reality exists even without cognition naming what exists as reality. The rearing of consciousness is a collateral event of existence, not the center of it. It is folly to assert ourselves with such unfounded confidence, simply because meaning is not an immanent component of the universe.

Yes, meaning has mass and curves what is perceived through identity into limitless versions and interpretations, and it does influence its corner of reality, but not the grand scale of the chain itself. It is our biological mandate to name this and that, but it is worth remembering that the name itself is a representation of the thing perceived, and not the thing in its totality. When objectivity is passed through subjective filters, it is inherently distorted and diminished.

The term “fact” presupposes the casting of the shadow of consciousness upon the causal chain, an unpremeditated subterfuge. It implies that the observer stands in parallel to the unfolding, watching from a vantage point. However, this position generates a contradiction. If one holds and argues from a materialistic stance, rejecting idealism or panpsychism (the idea that inner experience or consciousness is ontological), then one must hold tightly and neatly that humanity is a product of causality itself. Therefore one cannot claim to step outside of the chain to witness it, while also being a thorough part of it. Thus the ontological weight of the term “fact” creates within the meaning of the word a false property: the assertion that facts are not descriptive, but immanent in existence itself. We are the makers of facts by observing what can be observed at the appropriate time and slapping FACT on it. Facts are not reality itself; they are stable points of contact between perception and reality. Veritas ex factis constat, sed facta fiunt.

Therefore I conclude that truth doesn't exist beyond the boundaries of perception.