229. What is Objective Reality?

Shownotes: What is Objective Reality?

A major problem I see in our society is that we've divorced objective reality and subjective experience. Instead of recognizing the world around us as it is and trying to relate to it, we do one of two things. We either fall into a Newtonian idea that we're determined and only science is real, or we rebel against this idea and recognize only our subjective experience.

I want to tackle this problem, so I'm going to walk through how I understand reality, as well as how I think we ought to relate to it. In today's episode, I start with what objective reality is.

Does objective reality exist?

My theory of truth holds that truth is based on objective reality. There is a world around us that actually exists. Our experience of the world is also real, and can be trusted, although it's not infallible. In this episode, I intend to demonstrate that we can trust our notions about the world. We see a world around us that is real - with which we can interact.Where do we see this most obviously?

Here are a few areas of our lives that we can look to in order to understand objective reality:

1. Simple things like setting a glass on a table
2. Mathematics
3. Courts of law
4. Philosophy & logic

What about when it’s hard to know the truth?

Does the fact that knowing the truth can be hard actually mean truth is changing or that it's relative?

1. Not knowing it doesn’t mean it isn’t there
2. Too much to know
3. Truth is an asymptote
4. Disagreements on moral law

Objective reality vs subjective reality

As I mentioned above, we often hold two opposing ideas. One is that science is real truth, and objectively true. But at the same time, we reject any notion of objective truth when it comes to questions of morality. How can objective reality exists sometimes, but not others? I think what happens is that we confuse our experience of the world with the world as it is.