But of course truth is what is still there despite what you say about it. A post-truth world must fail. — Banno

Truth that is there despite what you say or think about it, would be objective truth.

In light of the fact that all humans experience the world through their senses and the resulting subjective interpretation of what they perceive through their senses, how is objective truth even possible in the first place?

lol
Well it is not objectively true that there is no objective truth.
So what is the problem?

Well it is not objectively true that there is no objective truth. — m-theory

Sure, but that that doesn't make it objectively true that there is objective truth.

If you can't know that there is or is not objective truth then you can't claim that something is or is not objectively true.

You can only say that you don't know.

you can't claim that something is or is not objectively true. — m-theory

Yeah that was my point in the first place, that you can't make any statements about anything which are objectively true i.e. objective truth isn't possible in the first place.

Hopefully, you're not employed as an actuary. X-)

You can't know if objective truth is possible or not.
By definition, from you foundational assumptions, you can't know if something is or is not objectively true.
It may well be objectively true and by your assumptions you can't know.

Your assumption is not very useful either, because it does not explain how we can believe things which turn out to not be true.
How can we have mistaken beliefs if there is no objective reality?

How can we have mistaken beliefs if there is no objective reality? — m-theory

Mistaken beliefs could be explained without referring to an objective reality.

There is an extent to which we can subjectively experience the world around us, and a mistaken belief is uncovered when we encounter something new in this subjective domain that does not conform to our previously held belief.

For an example, suppose you held to the belief that all dogs are black in color. One day, if you were to see a brown dog walking along, this would just be simply a new component of your subjective experience that would falsify your previous belief. I don't see how this could be evidence for the objectivity of reality.

I'm a skydiver:D

Is this all an issue of the population or something more explicit like not having some incentive for not bullshitting or lying? — Question

One thing that has changed is our belief in our authorities in general, which even if it sounds illogical, does actually give room to this post-truth environment and for blatant propaganda to be quite successfull. I should clarify what I mean with this.

Public perception of our government has changed a lot. You can take for instance the historical scandal of the Dreyfuss Affair in France or the Watergate scandal in the US. All those have shaken the general populations belief in their government. Yet it isn't only about scandals. Especially in the US I think this is because of the constant and never ending mud-slinging of the two party system. This means that allways the current administration is viewed in a negative light ...as extremely rarely both sides come together on issues. Add to this the constant message of a media bias. Now for somebody who would take the time to compare the reporting and things that are said, that bias can be easily noticed. And actually it's natural, for example in editorials, for some newspaper to take a stance on some event.

Yet how this "media bias" is intrepreted is that the reporting is totally false, that it simply isn't true at all. This creates the atmosphere where fake news can become an issue and where obvious facts can be said to be just opinions, or to be simply not true. Because in truth a conspiracy theorist isn't at all someone who is basically critical of all things, but someone who is very open to the most lurid and outrageous claims there are and hence to traditional blatant unadulturated propaganda.

You have not really explained why your initial belief, that dogs are black, was mistaken. You simply gave an example of a belief that turned out to be mistaken, you did not explain why it was mistaken.

Also you can't know if mistaken beliefs are evidence of objective reality or not.

By your assumption something could be evidence of objective reality and you would not know if it is or is not.

There's more truth at our fingertips than ever and there's more bullshit around than ever. We're not post-truth (any more than we ever were), we're info saturated.

You have not really explained why your initial belief, that dogs are black, was mistaken. — m-theory

The belief that dogs are black is mistaken because you have now encountered a dog in your subjective experience of the world, which is brown and hence, not black.

Also you can't know if mistaken beliefs are evidence of objective reality or not. — m-theory

Exactly. So why did you cite mistaken beliefs as evidence for objective reality?

For an example, suppose you held to the belief that all dogs are black in color. One day, if you were to see a brown dog walking along, this would just be simply a new component of your subjective experience that would falsify your previous belief. I don't see how this could be evidence for the objectivity of reality. — hunterkf5732

It would falsify nothing. How dare they start to color the fur of dogs!!! Dogs should be left alone in with their natural fur color: and that is black, as everybody knows!

The belief that dogs are black is mistaken because you have now encountered a dog in your subjective experience of the world, which is brown and hence, not black. — hunterkf5732

Yes but subjectively it was true that there were no brown dogs, how should you have encountered a brown dog if that was in fact true?
Subjectively there were no brown dogs, that is what was true, except it wasn't true was it.
Are you saying that you simply changed your mind and decided that dogs could also be brown, and that was why you encountered a different color?
Forgive me if I regard this as a not very reasonable explanation.

Or do you agree that subjective beliefs can be mistaken, because there are things which are true irrespective of subjective beliefs.

Also of our two options which one seems the more reasonable beliefs.
That reality changes to suit what we are willing to believe, or that some things are true irrespective of given subjective beliefs?

Exactly. So why did you cite mistaken beliefs as evidence for objective reality? — hunterkf5732

I site objective reality as an explanation for mistaken belief.
It does a better job of explaining the phenomena than your assumption does.

There's more truth at our fingertips than ever and there's more bullshit around than ever. We're not post-truth (any more than we ever were), we're info saturated. — Baden

Saturation and confusion is another important factor. As is to have the emphasis on getting news out the fastest and that the discourse constantly changing. Who cares about things that happened six months ago?

I disagree.
With the likes of google, facebook, and other online companies, they will place you in a filter bubble where you are exposed to things which are consistent with your patterns of suffering.

If you surf BS, you are more likely to be exposed to BS as a recommendation or search result.

This was not necessarily true before the age of targeted advertising and the gathering of big data.

Yes but subjectively it was true that there were no brown dogs, how should you have encountered a brown dog if that was in fact true? — m-theory

It was subjectively true only until the time at which you first met a brown dog. It was falsified afterwards because then, a brown dog entered your subjective interpretation of the world.
The mistake here is that you seem to think that subjective truths are not subject to change.

Are you saying that you simply changed your mind and decided that dogs could also be brown, and that was why you encountered a different color? — m-theory

Here you seem to be thinking that a subjective reality must reside entirely inside your own mind. My contention all along was that there exists a world around us which is independent of us, but which we can only know of through our subjective experience of it through our senses.

So there was never any question of changing your mind. A novel phenomenon just appeared in your subjective interpretation of the world, which meant you had to change your belief accordingly.

It was subjectively true only until the time at which you first met a brown dog. It was falsified afterwards because then, a brown dog entered your subjective interpretation of the world.
The mistake here is that you seem to think that subjective truths are not subject to change. — hunterkf5732

This is a great description of being mistaken, but it doesn't explain why you were.
I am not asking for a description of being mistaken, I was asking you what could explain it.

I offer the explanation that this happens because things can be true irrespective of subjective beliefs.
To me that is the most simple explanation, and the most reasonable.

Here you seem to be thinking that a subjective reality must reside entirely inside your own mind. My contention all along was that there exists a world around us which is independent of us, but which we can only know of through our subjective experience of it through our senses. — hunterkf5732

I don't agree that we only have access to subjective, that amounts to solipsism.

One side of the coin. The other side is that there are more facts available to those who want to find them than at any other time in history. I mean, it may be that we were better off without filter bubbles, and targeted advertising etc. but the difference now isn't of such qualitative magnitude to justify calling this is a "post-truth" era. That's just a way to sell newspapers (mostly to pissed-off progressives, I presume).

Not that I'm optimistic about the future or anything. It may be we've just about reached the peak of progress and are beginning the slide backwards. But that's another debate.

I am not asking for a description of being mistaken, I was asking you what could explain it. — m-theory

The explanation is that our subjective interpretation of the world changes according to the data the world provides to our senses.

So while our earlier subjective experience led us to the assumption that all dogs are black, a new experience was provided to us by the world (in the form of a non-black dog) which showed that this belief was a mistake.

I don't agree that we only have access to subjective, that amounts to solipsism — m-theory

Could you name anything that we have access to, which is not subjective?

Well that was sort of my point.
Facebook and google can stick you in a filter bubble where you are not exposed to the fact that the BS you are consuming is BS.

It is important, but I bet if you did a poll here to ask people if they felt they were less able to dig up facts now than before, you'd get a majority negative response. It seems to me people are always worried about others being "post-truth" while they have it covered.

Do you feel like you are stuck in such a filter bubble that you can't manage to find out facts about stuff? Is it such an effort to circumvent? It just seems highly exaggerated to me. Or again, is it just others who are too dumb to figure it out?

The explanation is that our subjective interpretation of the world changes according to the data the world provides to our senses. — hunterkf5732

Yes but it changed because something other than what we believed was the case irrespective of that existing belief.

Simply saying that beliefs change does not explain why beliefs turn out to be mistaken.
It is not that beliefs change randomly.
There is a pattern to the change, you believe a thing that turns out to not be the case.
The explanation for this is because something else was the case irrespective of your prior beliefs.

I think a lot of people are not aware that they are in a filter bubble when they search or browse.
So it is an issue.
As for myself personally, I am not sure to what extent the evil corporations have entangled me in their vast and ever reaching tentacles.

The explanation for this is because something else was the case irrespective of your beliefs. — m-theory

In the dog example, the belief that all dogs are black is absolutely correct until you meet, hear about, or in some other way subjectively experience that it is not so. Or in other words, your beliefs are correct until you encounter a new experience which is contrary to them.

Besides you didn't answer my last question. Could you name something we have access to, which is not subjective?

In the dog example, the belief that all dogs are black is absolutely correct — hunterkf5732

I disagree.
It was not absolutely correct, if it were absolutely correct there should not have been any encounter with a brown dog.
It was only absolutely believed.
But the belief was mistaken.

Let's try a different approach.
Do you agree that mistaken beliefs are most often, if not always, involuntary.
That is to say we do not choose to have our beliefs be mistaken?

Besides you didn't answer my last question. Could you name something we have access to, which is not subjective? — hunterkf5732

Refuting solipsism is a topic for another thread.

Do you agree that mistaken beliefs are most often, if not always, involuntary.
That is to say we do not choose to have our beliefs be mistaken? — m-theory

Yes. We believe things which the greatest amount of evidence in our experience support.

That is good enough for me.
That you agree that is not within our subjective control what is true and what is not true.