[khalic]

Are you arguing against the existence of an objective reality? Seems a little extreme. There are countless facts, indisputably so. Gravity, death, the fact you wrote me an answer, the fact I'm writing you an answer. These aren't opinions

[jnd-cz]

Objective reality is complex and hard to explain or list all the facts in a single argument session. People are also good at cherry picking the facts they agree with and disregarding other related facts. As others wrote, there are also bunch of trade offs, not many subjects have clear and low amount of facts that everyone can agree upon. People tend to argue most about society rather than theoretical math or physics. Like you can argue about what is the perfect form of government but you also have to account for the people who are part of the governing and being governed, they are not ideal actors, so the practical reality isn't straightforward.

Coming back, what is objective reality, anyway? Each person perceives the reality differently. And if you go down to measure single basic part of the reality you will find out the act of measurement already changes the outcome. Or we can agree about the final, ideal state but not how to get there.

[dahart]

> There are countless facts, indisputably so.

True, but isn’t the problem here that even though there are many facts, no one of us knows most of those facts with absolute certainty, and we learned them from other people, therefore we primarily hold opinions about facts as opposed to know them first hand.

My experience of gravity correlates with the explanation I was given in physics class, but I haven’t myself proven anything about it, and I just trust other people’s stories when they tell me gravity affects light or time.

I think about this often when contemplating arguments; there’s almost nothing I personally know first hand. Like you I believe in facts, but I recognize that I’m not the source of most facts, and I’m relaying a story someone else told me. I’m guessing this is one of the reasons facts can be so easily argued, because there are gaps between facts being established and facts being told and shared. Like, it’s pretty common for scientific research results to be oversimplified and told & shared in a way that doesn’t capture the entire truth, right?

[JumpCrisscross]

> Are you arguing against the existence of an objective reality?

I’d argue against absolute certainty in any knowledge. That isn’t a statement about reality, just our measure of it.

[prmph]

I can be absolutely certain of my perception and recollection of what my consciousness is experiencing and has experienced.

Note that the truth of this statement does not depend on any certainty about external reality, nor does it depend on certainty that what I perceive or remember is happening or actually happened.

[JumpCrisscross]

> nor does it depend certainty that what I perceive or remember is what is

It absolutely assumes a unitary conscious experience versus what increasingly seems to be the case, a bunch of narratives our brains thread into a cohesive story ex post facto.

Put another way, there very well may be hard limits to how much a human-like consciousness can understand itself.

[prmph]

> a bunch of narratives our brains thread into a cohesive story ex post facto

That is exactly the reality I am asserting, whether or not they actually describe an "external" reality

[JumpCrisscross]

I guess my argument is you can’t be absolutely certain about what your internal reality is. Perception, as a measure, even when pointed entirely internally, is fundamentally fuzzy.

[prmph]

My internal reality I hope tracks external reality.

And what I can be certain about is what my internal reality is.

And if you think I cannot be sure of that, I think I can be certain about I think my internal reality is.

And if you think I cannot be sure of even that, I think I can be certain about I think what I think my internal reality is.

It's perception all the way down, recursively. The reality is result of this taken to infinity.

[dctoedt]

> I can be absolutely certain of my perception and recollection of what my consciousness is experiencing and has experienced.

There's abundant evidence to the contrary — at least as far as your recollection of what your consciousness previously experienced.

(IOW: Memory is extremely fallible.)

[prmph]

Way to miss the point.

I said I can be sure of what I am recollecting, not whether the my recollection actually matches what happened.

[dctoedt]

Please reread my comment — yours has two possible meanings.

[bdangubic]

There is of course absolute certainty and there is a lot of it, absolute and unquestionable

[JumpCrisscross]

About abstract notions, maybe. About anything physical or emergent from physical processes, I don’t think so.

[auggierose]

> Are you arguing against the existence of an objective reality? Seems a little extreme.

No, I am not arguing against the existence of an objective reality. I argue against the capability of most people to accurately assess what that objective reality is. You for example apparently cannot even assess the meaning of my clear and simple sentence, why would I trust you to be able to assess any more complex situation?

[khalic]

Nobody’s asking you to trust peoples’ assessments, this is why reproduction exists in science.

Your sentence was very much ambiguous, you should think before writing

[auggierose]

There is nothing ambiguous about my sentence. Once you learnt thinking, read it again.

[khalic]

If you can't find the issue with your statement, you should probably not be giving anybody lessons about thinking or learning...

[croes]

There people that gravity doesn’t exist and it’s some kind of buoyancy. Death as the final end of existence? There are many religions that claim that isn’t true. Nowadays it’s even harder who wrote what but next week if I don’t find that text again, can I be sure it was written or could be just in a dream?

[khalic]

1. yes they are objectively wrong, a persons belief does not need to be tied to a fact

2. death as in death of the body, it's very much inescapable

3. the last part is just uncertainty, hardly an argument against objective reality

[jnd-cz]

Ad 2, How do you define it, precisely? Today we have the technology to keep the body alive even if it would stop functioning long time ago on it's own. Is the person still alive? Is the body still alive? Some bodies need permanent technical devices to be able to live, yet they can reach high age. Is it cheating or not?

[lowbuzz]

Let me be annoying and tell you about your second point as I don't really understand your first one. Your perspective is that of a living looking at a dead body. Death itself though isn't an experience of life, Meaning that we can't really talk about what happens after we die. We just don't know and we probably can't know what or how death is. So any answer goes, really. I mean you are right uncertainty doesn't exclude objective reality, but my question in an argument would be: What do you even mean by objective reality?