I think were living 'the truman show' (media controlled reality)

[cduggles]

^^ I agree that we don't need to engage in graduate degree comparison or resumé wars in national and international policy affairs knowledge or positions held in American or foreign governments. It's about content.

I'm moderate, slightly left (I agree with liberals, conservatives and libertarians on certain issues so it averages out).

Just so we are clear, I loathe Bill Clinton and believe he's a thoroughly disgusting man in many ways. He's much more politically savvy and intelligent than Trump, but they're equally classy and shady. I think we both know what "is" is, and I'm not talking about an intern. And yes he is very charismatic in person but pleeze!

I'd love to see a woman in the White House as well and I didn't think Secretary Clinton was the strongest candidate in the world, but if you don't like being lied to then I think we are talking about the lesser of two evils.

I await your response.
Best, CD

 

[jammin83]

For the most part I'm with you, jammin.

To the concept of screens, may I introduce into the thread the classic concept of the black mirror, or scrying mirror: http://occultopedia.com/m/mirror.htm

More than relevant at this moment it seems.

funny you mention that actually. recently i was able to see some things in a mirror after some night before use of mdma. it wasnt particularly gratifying. but there was an alternate dimension. entities and stuff. i kinda liked not knowing about some of this stuff tbh.

 

[drug_mentor]

The other vital thing that a lot of people don't seem to get is that there is simply no such thing as "reality" or "truth" beyond what we personally - and subjectively - experience.

Two or more people can witness the same incident and have highly conflicting interpretations and understandings of what happened - even if they are all being completely honest.
This plays out all the time in history and in legal settings.
Perception, memory and interpretation of events are all subject to people's inherent biases and fallibility.

There is no one single truth for any event or social/cultural/historic/political perception of the world.
There are many truths, and many subjective perceptions of 'reality' that can then be easily moulded and manipulated by powerful forces.

You made a great post and I agree with most of it. However, I think the postmodern/post-structural relativistic conception of truth is problematic for a number of reasons, and there is a certain irony in the fact that this kind of thinking is arguably being implicitly appealed to by the people spreading 'alternative facts'.

It can be argued that an objective reality outside of human perception is totally inaccessible from an epistemological perspective (though, it seems to me that for this to be a tenable view one must maintain a level of skepticism so extreme that the skeptic would be open to a non-fallacious ad-hominem response: the skeptic would seem to be making a claim about reality which they take to be objectively true, despite maintaining that such claims are unknowable). But, it seems to me that to endorse a subjective/relativist ontology one must presuppose some form of idealism about reality. Memory is much more unreliable and malleable than most people are aware, but just because two people remember an event differently doesn't mean that there is no fact of the matter about what occurred.

I used to be fairly into 911 conspiracy theories, now I think they are pretty much nonsense. Whether someone believes the US government took those buildings down, or al-Qaeda, or some other ominous group, the fact is that there is a particular party who is directly responsible for these attacks. I don't know who is responsible, what I do know is that it is not the case that the US government both is and is not directly responsible, depending on whose perspective we adopt (unless one equivocates on the meaning of 'directly responsible' when referring to different perspectives).

If truth is subjective, and there is no objective reality, then I don't see how anybody could ever be wrong about something. Unless we want to say that some truths are more true than others, and personally, I am not sure there is an intelligible way to interpret that proposition, it seems that postmodernism collapses truth into belief. Not only does such a view undermine the notion of human intellectual progress, but it has serious shortcomings when it comes to giving an adequate account of a great deal of linguistic behaviour. If truth is just belief and facts are just opinions, most people on earth are using these terms incorrectly.

 

[turkalurk]

You made a great post and I agree with most of it. However, I think the postmodern/post-structural relativistic conception of truth is problematic for a number of reasons, and there is a certain irony in the fact that this kind of thinking is arguably being implicitly appealed to by the people spreading 'alternative facts'.

It can be argued that an objective reality outside of human perception is totally inaccessible from an epistemological perspective (though, it seems to me that for this to be a tenable view one must maintain a level of skepticism so extreme that the skeptic would be open to a non-fallacious ad-hominem response: the skeptic would seem to be making a claim about reality which they take to be objectively true, despite maintaining that such claims are unknowable). But, it seems to me that to endorse a subjective/relativist ontology one must presuppose some form of idealism about reality. Memory is much more unreliable and malleable than most people are aware, but just because two people remember an event differently doesn't mean that there is no fact of the matter about what occurred.

I used to be fairly into 911 conspiracy theories, now I think they are pretty much nonsense. Whether someone believes the US government took those buildings down, or al-Qaeda, or some other ominous group, the fact is that there is a particular party who is directly responsible for these attacks. I don't know who is responsible, what I do know is that it is not the case that the US government both is and is not directly responsible, depending on whose perspective we adopt (unless one equivocates on the meaning of 'directly responsible' when referring to different perspectives).

If truth is subjective, and there is no objective reality, then I don't see how anybody could ever be wrong about something. Unless we want to say that some truths are more true than others, and personally, I am not sure there is an intelligible way to interpret that proposition, it seems that postmodernism collapses truth into belief. Not only does such a view undermine the notion of human intellectual progress, but it has serious shortcomings when it comes to giving an adequate account of a great deal of linguistic behaviour. If truth is just belief and facts are just opinions, most people on earth are using these terms incorrectly.

The truth is something to seek but rarely find. We can gain knowledge about the world without knowing an objective holistic version of it. Your afraid of changing a label into something more accurate because of some effect you have imagined it to have. You do realize science already operates on this principle. Our facts aren't absolute objective truths. We seek truth not in absolutes but in probability. Some beliefs have a higher probability of being true because they have been rigorously tested and have not been proven false yet. What you suggest would actually seem more likely to stifle progress because people would assume their stongly held beliefs are equally factual with scientific theory. If science was ever wrong, who would attempt to figure it out? We would all accept it as actuality and it would remain a falsely held fact.

 

[drug_mentor]

The truth is something to seek but rarely find. We can gain knowledge about the world without knowing an objective holistic version of it.

I don't believe I ever stated that in order to gain knowledge about the world it needs to be holistic. In my view, knowledge presupposes truth. You can't know something which is false.

Your afraid of changing a label into something more accurate because of some effect you have imagined it to have. You do realize science already operates on this principle. Our facts aren't absolute objective truths. We seek truth not in absolutes but in probability. Some beliefs have a higher probability of being true because they have been rigorously tested and have not been proven false yet.

Here is a fact: 2+2=4; in what meaningful sense is this fact not an absolute objective truth?

I object to the relativising truth for a good number of reasons, the most prominent of which is that doing so seems to be a self-refuting thesis. It isn't clear to me what effect I am 'imagining' such a view to have, and you haven't bothered to articulate why the concerns I raised in my previous post are unfounded.

You seem quite confused about a number of things. First, lets grant arguendo that scientific truth is relative (I take it that you are driving at temporal and/or sociological relativity here), does it follow from this that (scientific) truth is subjective? I understand the word subjective to relate to the experience/feeling/belief of the individual, the subject, if you will. There is no doubt that science is fallible, but I don't see how scientific consensus can be accurately described as subjective in the way I understand the word. Lets now suppose subjective has a broader definition, one which can include an entire community as the subject. Now, in what interesting sense might we then say that what science tells us is subjective? I can not think of any, so long as we are willing to eschew conspiracy theories and identity politics. It is, however, trivially true that what science tells us is determined by the scientific community; if this is all it means to say that science is subjective, then I don't disagree.

Second, scientific theories are not facts. Admittedly, this definition is not entirely uncontentious, but I take facts to be true propositions (if you disagree, I would be interested how you define a fact). The post of mine which you responded to was talking about truth. There is no inconsistency in saying that it is rational to believe that our best scientific theories are true, even though they may turn out to be false. Actually, in your post you seem to be confused between scientific theory and scientific fact. That space and time are relative is a scientific theory, that water boils at 100 degrees celsius at sea level in the atmospheric conditions present on earth is a scientific fact.

Third, there are non-scientific facts. I cited one at the beginning of this post (assuming mathematics is not a science), there are many others. Unless you want to trivialise science by suggesting that every empirical fact is a scientific one then I think you must admit that many facts are non-scientific, for example, the fact that I presently live in Australia. So, even if my previous points about scientific truth are invalid, the argument which you have presented does nothing to show that truth simpliciter is relative; at best, you could say scientific 'truth' (by which it seems you actually mean 'theory') is relative.

What you suggest would actually seem more likely to stifle progress because people would assume their stongly held beliefs are equally factual with scientific theory. If science was ever wrong, who would attempt to figure it out? We would all accept it as actuality and it would remain a falsely held fact.

How, exactly, do you conceive that my stating neither beliefs or perception are necessarily true entails that beliefs are "equally factual with scientific theory"? My statement and the conclusion which you have drawn from it are totally inconsistent.

 

[jammin83]

THE TRANSPOCALYPSE

i recommend watching this video on at least 1.5 speed

 

[cduggles]

^^ Are Charles Manson and George W. Bush supposed to be related or did Manson get a nose job and that swastika lased off and become leader of the free world?

And was OJ rightly acquitted because his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson got a new chin and became a newsperson?

Please explain.

 

[jammin83]

Im not really understanding your questions.

Im throwing the idea out there that whats on the screen is being played by actors. like a bad reality tv show to manipulate us. but theres more than one angle to the thread. its just ideas. dont get too invested in it or overworked.

 

[cduggles]

I'm not overworked, I'm just not sure what the similarities meant. It was a sincere question and I'm chill.
Please elaborate?

 

[jammin83]

if you think about it, do you think that a state or a federal prison would allow a TV camera crew to stop by and ask you a few questions because youre such an interesting guy? they would make special arrangements, all because you are a popular cult leader? thats not how prisons operate. they don't give a shit about who you are bc you are scum and they dont treat you special, breach security protocols (for a serial killer), have guys come in on their day off, or have the intellectual capacity to arrange something like that. esp multiple times.

NSFW:

i mean his appearance seems to change a lot but thats just how it looks to me.

megyn kelly, i don't know. its possible the whole scenario was a hoax. a distraction of sorts, something to keep you tuned in, throw shade at the black man. i think its possible that they are the same person and OJ is paying golf somewhere right now.

there are other instances of similar things so this isn't just a couple coincidences.

was justin bieber a rags to riches american dream or was he an invented celebrity? is the american dream even real? can someone who is genuinely talented be famous and in the public eye or do you have to promote the right type of agenda? if you watch that video i posted and keep an open mind, a lot of the people on the screen are transgendered which makes it seem like some sort of tranny club at best. really once you start looking at it, freaking trannies everywhere man. they don't all look like caitlyn if you get them started before puberty. some even speculate as early as in the womb. i think we may have already had our first woman president and didnt even know it. a win for the feminists.

is it possible to even get anywhere close to the top by just working really damn hard? notice that most of hollywood and entertainers make similar political statements and that the entertainment industry is getting pretty dark and even satanic.

 

[Scrofula]

I'm disappointed, truthers. You who see through the media fog, and you didn't jump on an easy one?

Charles Manson sentenced to life in prison. Why not death? CA has the death penalty. Oh yeah, cause:

He never killed a single person (look it up)
He wasn't a cult leader either, never ordered anybody anything.
But he was charismatic, and kinda scary, cause all the girls at the place they were squatting in seemed to enjoy him. The media ate him up. And the prosecutor wrote a book about it to jump start his career. Just about everything you know came from the prosecutor talking to the media.

Jails and prisons let camera crews in all the time, you just need to go through a lot of hoops, like contributions to the local sheriff's office, maybe. There are TV series going inside, tons of documentaries. It's not about the inmate, guards wanna be on TV too.

But I could see how Justin Bieber might not be The Official, but he might be its One Son, come soon to take the Throne.

 

[psy997]

Jammin isn't exactly laying out the best reasoning here for a discussion but Scrofula you're not exactly contributing either with your already decided and snarky attitude.

Let the man discuss as he pleases, what's the point in making jabs and insults if he and his subject matter is so crazy.

 

[Scrofula]

Jammin isn't exactly laying out the best reasoning here for a discussion but Scrofula you're not exactly contributing either with your already decided and snarky attitude.

Let the man discuss as he pleases, what's the point in making jabs and insults if he and his subject matter is so crazy.

Pot meet kettle, holy shit boys. And not nice either considering there may be an organic mental illness going on in Jammin's case. I haven't found the truther's etiology yet though. He gets a pass, you don't.

And if my "jab" was that comment you quoted, you know where it came from:

The devil is in the details, Scrofula.

How else am I supposed to take that? The same way you made it.

I am happy to stick to philosphy, which includes logic and rhetoric here, I'm already forgetting what pissed me off.

 

[psy997]

You seem to have missed the sarcasm in my post.

If you are so correct and the crazies so wrong, why do you feel the need to continue derailing the thread? Does it make you feel warm and fuzzy inside knowing you're right while others are wrong?

 

[Scrofula]

You seem to have missed the sarcasm in my post.

Llllllllllllikewise.

If you are so correct and the crazies so wrong, why do you feel the need to continue derailing the thread? Does it make you feel warm and fuzzy inside knowing you're right while others are wrong?

I'm the only one keeping this train on anything resembling tracks. Maybe I will stay then. Truthers already have a good fourteen percent of the entire internet, go play over there.

 

[zephyr]

When that movie came out it was essentially the beginning of reality tv shows like Big Brother.

Then reality tv became just following fame hungry talentless losers around.

Now media is tapped into everything we do.

Wars are fought like they are scripted for some faux reality tv show.

And with politicians wasting their time on twitter instead of doing their jobs yeah it is very much like reality tv has taken over.

Its something to be aware of but just mot being sucked in to it gives some hope humans will get back to reality.

 

[vortech]

When that movie came out it was essentially the beginning of reality tv shows like Big Brother.

Then reality tv became just following fame hungry talentless losers around.

Now media is tapped into everything we do.

Wars are fought like they are scripted for some faux reality tv show.

And with politicians wasting their time on twitter instead of doing their jobs yeah it is very much like reality tv has taken over.

Its something to be aware of but just mot being sucked in to it gives some hope humans will get back to reality.

Yeah, basically. This may be the most succinctly on-topic reply in awhile.
As more people wake up to the madness of the 'opiate of the masses' TV-watching-itself trend that endlessly perpetuates low-vibrational energies and petty endless distraction though over-dramatized pseudo-reality TV that preys on basic emotional response and has absolutely no intellectual value, the better chance humanity has at breaking free from this prison that spreads virally, manifesting as a void of creative spirit, draining the culture of our grassroots foundation that made this 'free' country so great to begin with. The system is making us as a society depressed, sick,endlessly running through a repeating maze like a rat,
and generally speaking does nothing but implant the will of a controlling elite so they can continue undisturbed without the majority catching wind of their 'conspiracy theories'

 

[turkalurk]

I don't believe I ever stated that in order to gain knowledge about the world it needs to be holistic. In my view, knowledge presupposes truth. You can't know something which is false.

we are talking about objective reality which to me would imply holism. For absolute objectivity, one would have to exist outside of their experience. How can an absolute objective perspective be achieved from a limited point of view?
As observers, we can only project ourselves to more objective perspectives. But, no matter how far away from our biases we imagine ourselves to be, we will always be an observer of reality. We gain knowledge about objective reality but can only access this reality through perception

So I am taking the stance that objective reality can't be perceived without being subjected through the filter of one's perspective. Whether we can know false things is irrelevant because the point is that people often believe to know things that they simply can not know. I'm not sure what you mean by knowledge presupposes truth.
Sounds like some bullshit statement that doesn't mean anything. Of course people think of knowledge as truth but its clearly not the same thing. I have knowledge of christianity but that doesn't mean its truth. We can gain an understanding of reality without knowing if what we have learned is actually true or not.


Here is a fact: 2+2=4; in what meaningful sense is this fact not an absolute objective truth? because it takes a subject's ability to perceive objects in order to make any sense of your statement in the first place.

I object to the relativising truth for a good number of reasons, the most prominent of which is that doing so seems to be a self-refuting thesis. It isn't clear to me what effect I am 'imagining' such a view to have, and you haven't bothered to articulate why the concerns I raised in my previous post are unfounded.

You seem quite confused about a number of things. First, lets grant arguendo that scientific truth is relative (I take it that you are driving at temporal and/or sociological relativity here), does it follow from this that (scientific) truth is subjective? I understand the word subjective to relate to the experience/feeling/belief of the individual, the subject, if you will. There is no doubt that science is fallible, but I don't see how scientific consensus can be accurately described as subjective in the way I understand the word. Lets now suppose subjective has a broader definition, one which can include an entire community as the subject. Now, in what interesting sense might we then say that what science tells us is subjective? I can not think of any, so long as we are willing to eschew conspiracy theories and identity politics. It is, however, trivially true that what science tells us is determined by the scientific community; if this is all it means to say that science is subjective, then I don't disagree.

Second, scientific theories are not facts. Admittedly, this definition is not entirely uncontentious, but I take facts to be true propositions (if you disagree, I would be interested how you define a fact). The post of mine which you responded to was talking about truth. There is no inconsistency in saying that it is rational to believe that our best scientific theories are true, even though they may turn out to be false. Actually, in your post you seem to be confused between scientific theory and scientific fact. That space and time are relative is a scientific theory, that water boils at 100 degrees celsius at sea level in the atmospheric conditions present on earth is a scientific fact.

Third, there are non-scientific facts. I cited one at the beginning of this post (assuming mathematics is not a science), there are many others. Unless you want to trivialise science by suggesting that every empirical fact is a scientific one then I think you must admit that many facts are non-scientific, for example, the fact that I presently live in Australia. So, even if my previous points about scientific truth are invalid, the argument which you have presented does nothing to show that truth simpliciter is relative; at best, you could say scientific 'truth' (by which it seems you actually mean 'theory') is relative.



How, exactly, do you conceive that my stating neither beliefs or perception are necessarily true entails that beliefs are "equally factual with scientific theory"? My statement and the conclusion which you have drawn from it are totally inconsistent.

You're silly to invest so much time on a casual prodding. The truth is always true, its our perspective of the truth that is relative to our subjective experience of reality. The question is how does one know with certainty that their facts are true?
Sure, you can play with numbers and make true statements all day long, but the answer to the big questions aren't that easy. Reality beyond our experience of it is a mystery.

My point is that science already operates on the principle that our facts aren't always certain truth. (Hume) what we often hold as facts aren't absolute certainty but rather correlations with previous experiences that indicate universal associations. As we realize how far our biases extend, we have adjusted our language to leave room for skepticism. Truth isn't actually collapsed into belief. Our beliefs about truth are recognized for what they are. What we have our versions of the truth in which we postulate which possibilities have the highest probability of being true. We look to logic, reason, observation, etc to justify our belief in our version of reality, but whatever version our minds conceptualize can only function to symbolize a version of reality that may or may not be true. So, what you imagine as "truth being collapsed into belief" is really just the recognition that what is thought to be true isn't necessarily the same thing as being certainly true. In other words whatever is true doesn't collapses into just a belief because it is also true. We just may not know whether it is actually true or not. Only a belief that is not true would be collapsed into just a belief. I doubt I am making sense to you anyway. You either get what I am saying or you don't, and I am not even sure why you'd attempt to. Sorry you wasted so much time on me. I am sure you proved a good many points to yourself. Don't forget to pat yourself on the back. I felt I owed ya some kind of waste of my time so here is enough of it wasted for you

 

[drug_mentor]

we are talking about objective reality which to me would imply holism. For absolute objectivity, one would have to exist outside of their experience. How can an absolute objective perspective be achieved from a limited point of view?

You don't necessarily need an absolute objective perspective to know some things about objective reality, it depends what conditions you think are necessary and sufficient for knowledge. The 'traditional' account of knowledge is, S knows that P if and only if:
(1) P is true.
(2) S believes that P.
(3) S's belief that P is justified.

It seems quite clear (to me, anyway) that there are cases in which peoples beliefs are justified by their subjective experiences. If you grant this, then it seems there is nothing in this analysis of knowledge that implies one must be able to adopt an absolute objective perspective in order to have knowledge about objective reality. There are problems with the traditional account of knowledge, and I am not here endorsing it, but it conveniently illustrates my point.

I'm not sure what you mean by knowledge presupposes truth.
Sounds like some bullshit statement that doesn't mean anything. Of course people think of knowledge as truth but its clearly not the same thing. I have knowledge of christianity but that doesn't mean its truth. We can gain an understanding of reality without knowing if what we have learned is actually true or not.

I mean that the concept of knowledge already has the concept of truth built into it; you can't know something which is false, but obviously you can believe something which is false. P's being true is a necessary condition of someone knowing that P. This is not to say that knowledge and truth are the same thing, you can fail to know something that is true, but something you know can't fail to be true.

Here is a fact: 2+2=4; in what meaningful sense is this fact not an absolute objective truth?

because it takes a subject's ability to perceive objects in order to make any sense of your statement in the first place.

The fact that some persons belief in a proposition is justified through subjective experience does not rule out the proposition (and therefore the belief) being objectively true.

The truth is always true, its our perspective of the truth that is relative to our subjective experience of reality.

This is trivially true; by 'perspective of the truth' it seems you must be talking about belief. Of course our beliefs are relative to our subjective experience of reality, that's a lot different to saying that truth is relative to our subjective experience of reality, which is the claim I initially objected to.

My point is that science already operates on the principle that our facts aren't always certain truth. (Hume) what we often hold as facts aren't absolute certainty but rather correlations with previous experiences that indicate universal associations.

Science operates on the principle that our best scientific theories could be wrong, which is to say that what those theories tell us is not true. If we observe some phenomenon which contradicts what some scientific theory T predicts then we must either revise or discard T. In other words, some of the things we currently believe to be facts might not actually be facts.

We look to logic, reason, observation, etc to justify our belief in our version of reality, but whatever version our minds conceptualize can only function to symbolize a version of reality that may or may not be true. So, what you imagine as "truth being collapsed into belief" is really just the recognition that what is thought to be true isn't necessarily the same thing as being certainly true. In other words whatever is true doesn't collapses into just a belief because it is also true. We just may not know whether it is actually true or not. Only a belief that is not true would be collapsed into just a belief. I doubt I am making sense to you anyway.

You aren't making much sense to me here, to be honest. I objected to the following claim:

there is simply no such thing as "reality" or "truth" beyond what we personally - and subjectively - experience.

You seem to agree with me that this is wrong, since you are implicitly appealing to absolute truth and raising epistemological issues about how we can know that what we believe to be true is actually true. In my initial post I acknowledged there are epistemological problems about objective reality, but pointed out that raising these problems is distinct from the ontological claim that there is no such thing as objective reality or truth; it is the latter claim which I have challenged. You are mostly talking past me, and you seem not to appreciate that your perspective more closely aligns with my own than it does with the view I was critical of.

 

[spacejunk]

^ d_m i appreciate your detailed criticism of my post-modernist take on 'conspiracry theories'.
it has been over a decade since i studied this sort of stuff, so i must confess to being a little rusty. but from a historical perspective, i'm absolutely dubious of the word "truth" and how it is used.

my issue with "truthers" generally is the frequent attempts to reverse the onus of proof onto those that question their assertions.
for example, this "pizzagate", uh, theory - we are offered a bunch of very dubious pieces of circumstantial 'evidence' to support these claims that the world is run by elite paedophiles - then asked to prove that it isn't true.

it's interesting, then, being accused of being of being 'smug' for suggesting that "truthers'" "truth" may not be, in fact, true at all.
most of it seems to come from the good ol' USA; the biggest war machine on the planet.
i'm simply suggesting that a great deal of this conspiracy stuff is probably disinformation for the purposes of not letting the population get in the way of the untold death, destruction, cruelty and chaos that the US military inflicts on innocent people every day.

if i seem "smug", it's because i don't appreciate being told to accept absurd fiction.
i questioned the christian creation myth when i was 6 years old, because it seemed like utter bullshit - and i have conitinued to question pretty much everything else i'm presented with since then.
just because it's in the mass media, doesn't mean it's true. but it doesn't mean it is some elaborate illuminati mind control project either.

if this all-seeing overlord of media communications is a real thing, why are we - and published conspiracy writers permitted to reveal this "truth"?
that bit makes no sense.

seems legit