Are we living in a post-truth era?

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2Dbunk
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Are we living in a post-truth era?

Post #1

Post by 2Dbunk »

I just came from a philosophic enclave where this question was discussed.

The answer to the above sub-question was unarguably: NO!

Several points were brought out:

1. In all vocations and aspirations in the USA only the police were allowed to tell untruths (that is to shake the alibis of perpetrators). I interjected that there was yet one person who could say whatever he wished -- that being the president (who cannot be indicted while in office). No one argued the point, though I was censured for being "political."

2. The definition of truth hasn't been redefined in dictionaries in the past 50-75 years.

3. The laws of the natural sciences as established by the Scientific Method are the undeniable truth (until another "discovery" is made to farther tweak that/those truth(s)).

4. The views of two opposing attorneys in a courtroom reduces "truth" to the most effective argument and the whims of 12 jurists.

5. Falsehoods can come in varying degrees of acceptable and innocuous form: white lies; fibs; alternate facts; little white lies; many repetitions of a blooper; fish stories; creation stories; and fairy tales.

Generally, the consensus of the group was "truth" had to be separated from the chafe by intelligent, educated investigation of ALL sources. There is no other easy way to sort the truth out.

So I ask, is truth a vanishing attribute?
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Re: Are we living in a post-truth era?

Post #2

Post by Divine Insight »

2Dbunk wrote: So I ask, is truth a vanishing attribute?
I believe it is indeed a vanishing attribute of modern day society.

Unfortunately, I also believe that the evolution of scientific knowledge since the discovery of Quantum Mechanics actually plays a major role in this. The discovery of Quantum Mechanics was a major problem for theoretical physics and that hasn't changed since Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr had their famous debates. Albert Einstein was arguing for a more practical and common sense notion of reality, while Niels Bohr was basically arguing that we have no choice but to accept that it's all a mystery that cannot be explained in any logical way that makes any sense to us.

And then came John Bell who was able to propose an experiment that would settle the argument, and that turned out to favor Niels Bohr's position.

And this continues to this very day. As Richard Feynman famously said, "Nobody understand Quantum Physics", and this holds true to this very day.

This has left much of modern science open to many different interpretations. From things such as the "Many Worlds" interpretation of Quantum Mechanics that is strongly supported by Sean Carroll today. To the multiple universes predicted by things such as String Theory. And there are even scientists who are talking about the physical world possibly being a hologram or a computer simulation, etc.

In short, the scientific community itself has given the public a very strong message that even scientists have no clue what's going on anymore. And this has caused many people to even then question the validity of Evolution Theory, etc.

So people can no longer turn to science for trustworthy truth since the scientific community itself appears to be in a state of total chaos and speculation where it's often difficult to find any two scientists who share the same speculations.

And with the sciences being seen as having "broken down" (probably far more so than they actually have), the idea that anyone has a handle on any truth is brought into question. Philosophy rises, and speculation becomes the norm.

"My speculations are as good as yours" <--- this become the general mindset.

Now with this failure of science to be able to maintain rock solid truths, the idea that anyone has any truth quickly becomes debatable.

And this of course then spills over into politics and polices.

Perhaps the science of climate change is also wrong?
Perhaps everything's wrong, including old values and constitutional law?
Perhaps the president is right when he claims the media, the democrats, and a deep state is out to get him?

At this point anything goes. Truth has been lost. Science apparently no longer has a handle on it. And if science can't be trusted to know truth, then who can be?

So yeah, truth has taken a major landslide to be sure. And the failure of modern science to explain Quantum Mechanics and the nature of reality has most likely played a major role in the erosion of people's faith that anyone actually knows what true anymore.

If the Many Worlds interpretation of reality that Sean Carroll supports could be taken seriously as a possible truth of reality, then surely anything goes!

The world is a hologram or computer simulation. The Matrix is real, etc, etc, etc.

Oh, and by the way, now we even have the USA military releasing videos of UFOs that they cannot explain and that appear to defy all known laws of physics.

Yep, today ANYTHING GOES. And the idea that anyone has a clue what is actually TRUE is laughable. There's just no reason to think that anyone knows what's going on.

Scientists clearly don't know what's going on.

The Military clearly doesn't know what's going on.

And politicians have been lying to us for decades so who know which of them (if any) are telling the truth about anything?

So yes, I'd say that truth is a very illusive concept today.

And it's only going to get worse.

We're also seeing A.I. and Video manipulations that cannot be told apart from the real thing. So we are about to be bombarded with purposeful false information that we won't even be able to distinguish from truth.

So yep. Truth is a concept of the past. It may never return. In fact, things are more than likely to get far worse. Especially considering the current political environment we find ourselves.

Purposeful falsehoods are going to become far more prevalent than ever before.

So now we won't only be faced with things we can't know, but we be faced with a barrage of purposeful deceit and lies on top of that.

So yes, truth is on its way to it's final resting place to be seen no more.
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Post #3

Post by ElCodeMonkey »

Well, seeing as we're not holding book-burnings and torturing those of dissenting opinions as in the past, I'd have to say we're at least better than history. People are still people and suck at facing facts that disagree with them, though. Polarization makes us all the more likely to ignore truths as we jump on our favorite band-wagons. I might argue than a culture that throws around the accusation and fear of post-truth, is itself clearly concerned with truth, but of course that might just be a cleverly disguised insult for the "other" that they don't like truth and we do. While the polarization makes things more challenging, I think there is little reason to believe truth itself is under attack or that we live in a world where truth is no longer desired. People simply suck at finding it because of their predisposition to blind loyalty of their favorite groups. I think that is what, perhaps, causes a post-truth era, but I'm not sure how exactly we'd define that.

Further, most of the divisions (not all) are focused on differences of opinion and both sides have a certain amount of logic from a different perspective. They simply can't see each other's logic because they're blinded by their in-group's perception of the other's argument rather than hearing the actual argument being made. They're quite often not even arguing the same things but build up straw-men to attack.

Perhaps I don't understand what post-truth would truly look like though.
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Re: Are we living in a post-truth era?

Post #4

Post by 2Dbunk »

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]
Divine Insight wrote:
2Dbunk wrote: So I ask, is truth a vanishing attribute?
I believe it is indeed a vanishing attribute of modern day society.

Unfortunately, I also believe that the evolution of scientific knowledge since the discovery of Quantum Mechanics actually plays a major role in this. The discovery of Quantum Mechanics was a major problem for theoretical physics and that hasn't changed since Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr had their famous debates. Albert Einstein was arguing for a more practical and common sense notion of reality, while Niels Bohr was basically arguing that we have no choice but to accept that it's all a mystery that cannot be explained in any logical way that makes any sense to us.

And then came John Bell who was able to propose an experiment that would settle the argument, and that turned out to favor Niels Bohr's position.

And this continues to this very day. As Richard Feynman famously said, "Nobody understand Quantum Physics", and this holds true to this very day.

This has left much of modern science open to many different interpretations. From things such as the "Many Worlds" interpretation of Quantum Mechanics that is strongly supported by Sean Carroll today. To the multiple universes predicted by things such as String Theory. And there are even scientists who are talking about the physical world possibly being a hologram or a computer simulation, etc.

In short, the scientific community itself has given the public a very strong message that even scientists have no clue what's going on anymore. And this has caused many people to even then question the validity of Evolution Theory, etc.

So people can no longer turn to science for trustworthy truth since the scientific community itself appears to be in a state of total chaos and speculation where it's often difficult to find any two scientists who share the same speculations.

And with the sciences being seen as having "broken down" (probably far more so than they actually have), the idea that anyone has a handle on any truth is brought into question. Philosophy rises, and speculation becomes the norm.

"My speculations are as good as yours" <--- this become the general mindset.

Now with this failure of science to be able to maintain rock solid truths, the idea that anyone has any truth quickly becomes debatable.

And this of course then spills over into politics and polices.

Perhaps the science of climate change is also wrong?
Perhaps everything's wrong, including old values and constitutional law?
Perhaps the president is right when he claims the media, the democrats, and a deep state is out to get him?

At this point anything goes. Truth has been lost. Science apparently no longer has a handle on it. And if science can't be trusted to know truth, then who can be?

So yeah, truth has taken a major landslide to be sure. And the failure of modern science to explain Quantum Mechanics and the nature of reality has most likely played a major role in the erosion of people's faith that anyone actually knows what true anymore.

If the Many Worlds interpretation of reality that Sean Carroll supports could be taken seriously as a possible truth of reality, then surely anything goes!

The world is a hologram or computer simulation. The Matrix is real, etc, etc, etc.

Oh, and by the way, now we even have the USA military releasing videos of UFOs that they cannot explain and that appear to defy all known laws of physics.

Yep, today ANYTHING GOES. And the idea that anyone has a clue what is actually TRUE is laughable. There's just no reason to think that anyone knows what's going on.

Scientists clearly don't know what's going on.

The Military clearly doesn't know what's going on.

And politicians have been lying to us for decades so who know which of them (if any) are telling the truth about anything?

So yes, I'd say that truth is a very illusive concept today.

And it's only going to get worse.

We're also seeing A.I. and Video manipulations that cannot be told apart from the real thing. So we are about to be bombarded with purposeful false information that we won't even be able to distinguish from truth.

So yep. Truth is a concept of the past. It may never return. In fact, things are more than likely to get far worse. Especially considering the current political environment we find ourselves.

Purposeful falsehoods are going to become far more prevalent than ever before.

So now we won't only be faced with things we can't know, but we be faced with a barrage of purposeful deceit and lies on top of that.

So yes, truth is on its way to it's final resting place to be seen no more.
I think you go too far! There are some aspects of quantum mechanics that have been predicted -- and more are sure to come. Given, it is a menagerie of convoluted phenomena but mankind has been there before: lightning, rainbows, earthquakes, the plague, etc.

But your input is well thought, and may well be the harbinger of things to come -- let's hope you are wrong.

The Scientific Method is not dead. Truth is still defined like it has been through the 20th century. And we've had demagogues distorting (you name it) through all of history, especially thirteen years in the first half of the 20th century. These same demagogues don't know the meaning of quantum mechanics any more than they do the well-intentioned goals of political science.

However, it is fair to be cynical about "truth's' future. Present leadership is in the toilet concerning positive advancement of same. Perhaps we are entering a period of "Dark Age" that if prolonged could be our demise.
What good is truth if its value is not more than unproven, handed-down faith?

One believes things because one is conditioned to believe them. -Aldous Huxley

Fear within the Religious will always be with them ... as long as they are fearful of death.

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