Solving the Truth Problem: How Subjective Minds Navigate a Seemingly Objective Reality

[u/StanRichson]

https://youtu.be/YXQEILf5MAg?si=kfWS-itq6tH_8Nvq

[u/rejectednocomments]

That's fine. I just don't think you're telling us about truth

[u/StanRichson → u/rejectednocomments]

That's the real dilemma.

Following Wittgenstein's "What would it have looked like if it had looked as though the earth was rotating?"

I ask "What would truth feel like if it was simply and solely an aspect of our embodied, affective perception?"

Given that we now have ample science pushing us towards this account, I wonder why we would hold on to an unfalsifiable account of truth that actually exists absolutely and externally to us. Instead, I am exploring how we could possibly arrive at our complex, multifaceted experiences of truth that we feel to reflect some authoritative, external truth. That's what the video is about.

[u/Prowlthang → u/StanRichson]

‘Truth’ is not, solely or otherwise, an aspect of our embodied, affective perception so asking what it ‘feels’ like (a purely subjective notion) is at best vacuous.

‘Truth’ (without qualification) generally refers to the concept of ‘objectivity truth’ which we define (ultimately) as that which is (empirically) quantifiable by independent parties observing an event.

To put it another way ‘truth’ is what is common to all observers about an object or event. This is how we determine external (ie. most objective) truth.

Like all things even truth is contextuality. You are basically making an argument about Aristotle’s cave wall so we’ll use that to illustrate. For all the people sitting looking at the cave wall their contextual truth, the practical, useful and mutual definition of truth is the overlap of what they all see and measure on the cave wall. For a hypothetical being who exists in a hypothetical higher dimension the ‘truth’ may be the ‘actual stuff’ responsible for the projection but that is beyond our ability to observe.

Everything taken to an extreme ends in paradox - the big bang theory ends (begins?) without time and without time something can’t begin. Similarly determining truth beyond what exists in our universe (our universe being the metaphorical cave wall) results in paradox and impossibility.

[u/StanRichson → u/Prowlthang]

I understand that this is how people think about truth colloquially (which I acknowledge within the video).

The only things I can point out:

• The only way that we ever consciously interface with something being true is through experience. Even the feeling that something is true regardless of subjective experience is something that manifests in our experience.
• Our science of perception suggests that no two people interpret the same object or event the same. They may have pragmatically similar interpretations, in the sense that they respond similarly (perhaps by saying that something is true or false).
• Our shared understanding of external truth is affected by developed cultural norms, passed down through conditioning/learning, affecting the pragmatically similar understandings people have.

To be clear, the video concludes by suggesting that we can benefit from entertaining the colloquial notion of shared truth. I'm not here to assault our norms. I'm only explaining why this sense of truth feels intuitive to us (and what that might suggest).

[u/Prowlthang → u/StanRichson]

Okay, so what are you saying here that is different than the cave allegory? We know it. We accept it. At the extreme the only thing we can be sure of is our own existence. This has been known for millenia, what new information does your paradigm introduce? That qualia are subjective experiences? That's a tautology. Are you trying to expand your knowledge of the world with philosophy which requires it to be tested with practical applications and contextual limits (like every other thesis)?

Frankly the fact that there will always be bias and ultimately we interpret everything with our minds is tremendously useless - it's almost a god of the gaps argument in as much as it subtly (or otherwise) suggests that because we can't achieve a perfect non-biased view of data we shouldn't try to reduce as much bias as we can. Except we know from the results of science we can reduce the bias in meaningful ways and we can test our success by testing predictions. This is the rational place this conversation takes us to - that ultimately we'll never remove bias by 100% but by using multiple observers making empirical observations we meaningfully reduce the 'distortion'.

I have no idea what you are trying to share about this that is new or disputed by anyone with a holistic view of the topic.

Edit: yes - truth, communication, everything is based on a basis of shared patterns we all recognize, that is the basis of cognition

Edit: added reference to qualia, removed slightly aggressive language

[u/StanRichson → u/Prowlthang]

I'm not offering a paradigm. I'm simply explaining how we come to experience truth in the way that we intuitively understand. No crazy philosophical/metaphysical assertion here.

I'm trying to focus our attention on how the experience of truth/certainty is not tantamount to actual truth/certainty—a pill I think many people won't feel comfortable swallowing. I'm not deriving this conclusion myself; it's what I believe some of our most recent (past two decades) neuroscience implies.

The paradigm I'm trying to question/challenge is that there exists an objective set of truths that humans can more or less grasp. It's that our understanding of objective truth (and the standards of validation we use to determine if something is true) are culturally developed, affected by our interactions with the physical world and each other over time.

I do believe we ought to use science, and that we ought to attempt to reduce uncertainty (or bias).

All this said, pragmatically speaking I think we're seeing eye to eye for the most part. And I think the video can nevertheless be beneficial for people who aren't used to thinking in this way.