Imagine a world where this is all that exists. Now in this mini-world, how many objects are
there?
You might say, “That’s easy. One, two, three. But what if I said, “No, no no! There’s
seven: one, two, three, four—because objects are often composed of smaller objects. Like
this axe. It's an object. But if we took it apart, so is this axe handle, and this axe
head. They're objects. So like I said: one, two, three, four, five, six...and seven. So
are there three objects or seven?
It seems there’s no objective right answer here. You are right relative to your concept
of objects and I am right relative to my concept of objects. We’re just thinking of objects
differently. So whether the correct answer is three or seven.. just depends on us.
Arguments like this have convinced many people that reality is socially constructed, or that
there’s no absolute, objective truth about reality. Everything is relative or subjective
or something like that.
I think this is all a big mistake. Objective truth stands undefeated in the face of such
arguments, and here I’m going to try to show you why.
We'll come back to it, but for now, set aside the mini-world argument. It will help to start
afresh and begin with some basics.
All beliefs are either true or false.
Okay, there are a few technical complications with this basic claim. So I’m gonna steal
an idea from the Big Joel YouTube channel and place a footnote in the video description,
in case you want the nitty-gritty details. But even if you skip the footnote, it’s
fair to say… all beliefs are either true or false.
A belief is true when it says reality is a certain way and reality is in fact that way.
A belief is false when it says reality is a certain way and reality is not in fact that
way. It’s our job as truth-seekers, to make sure our belief is tethered to reality. When
belief loses connection to reality, that's falsehood. And when you hold on tight to that
belief anyway... that's delusion.
The general picture here is like map and landscape. It’s the job of the map to get the landscape
right. If our beliefs don’t match reality, then they need to be updated, just like a
map needs updating when it no longer correctly represents the landscape.
So we have two things in play here: belief and reality. But to be a clear thinker on
these matters, you’ve got to keep in mind how different they are.
Beliefs depend on us. If there were no conscious creatures, there would be no beliefs. In other
words, beliefs are ontologically subjective. Their existence depends on a conscious subject,
like you and me.
But most of reality does not depend on you and me. That is, it’s ontological objective.
If all of us went extinct tomorrow, the vast majority of reality would just keep on being
real. Mountains would stand, oceans roar, stars and galaxies continue their cosmic dance.
For the most part, reality is the way it is independently of you and me, and it just doesn’t
depend on what we think or what we feel.
So here’s the overall picture: There is a reality “out there”, independent of
us. This ontologically objective reality is the way it is whether we like it or not, whether
we believe it or not. This reality makes our beliefs true when our beliefs accurately describe
the way things are. And reality makes our beliefs false when things are not the way
our beliefs say they are.
All this is just what we mean by objective truth. And it all sounds so obvious and so
straightforward, you might wonder how anyone could ever deny it. But people do deny it.
Maybe you've heard that reality is just the stories we tell one another. Or that truth
is whatever fits your experience. This is a rejection of objective reality.
And we've already seen one reason why people might be tempted to do that: the mini-world.
How can we talk about beliefs matching objective reality when there doesn’t seem to be a
single reality for our beliefs to match. Like we said, there could be 3 objects here or
7 and that just kinda depends on us, not any objective fact about reality. And lots of
people think that actual reality, that is, the world we live in, is just like the mini-world.
There is no objective truth about it. All truth just depends on us and how we view things.
Here's a real-life example taken straight from a discussion in my philosophy class.
To demonstrate objective truth, I said: "Everest is the tallest mountain on Earth." A student
spoke up and said, well, actually, no, Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador is the tallest mountain
on Earth. And to her credit, she referred me to this article from Science Alert.
I was astonished. I mean, this was big news! Had I been wrong about Everest all these years?!
But as it turns out, the article just pulled the old switcheroo, switcheroo, switcheroo.
Instead of using the standard measurement from sea level, where Everest clearly wins,
they measured from the center of the earth. And because the earth bulges out at the equator,
this is due to the earth's rotation, and since Chimborazo is near the equator and sits atop
this bulge, it’s actually farther from the center of the earth to the top of Chimborazo,
then it is to the top of Everest.
This is exactly like our mini-world: if you think about the concepts of “mountain”
or “tall” in one way, you get one answer, but if you think about them in a different
way, you get a different answer. What did the student conclude from all this? There
is no objective truth about the tallest mountain in the word. It all depends on how we think
about things. Reality depends on us.
Now that’s the argument. But I think it fails. Here’s why:
Yes, language depends on people. How tall is a mountain? Well, by 'tall' we might mean
from sea level to summit or we might mean from the center of the earth to summit. But
the word 'tall' gets its meaning from a community of speakers. If people had never existed,
the word 'tall' would never have existed, and it wouldn’t mean anything at all. This
much is obvious.
Same goes for 'mountain'. Imagine a culture where the concept of 'mountain' excludes any
formations created by volcanic activity. Now that's not so weird. It's just a culture that
draws a hard line between the concept of 'volcano' and the concept of 'mountain.' So in that
culture, Ranier, Shasta, and Chimborazo are not mountains. But Everest is because it was
formed by tectonic plates. So here we have another example of how the concepts we use
depend on us.
But here’s the thing. It's a nothing-burger! There's just nothing in any of what we've
said so far that is even remotely a threat to objective truth. Look, we use language
to describe reality, and we have concepts about reality—and yes, language and concepts
depend on us—they’re subjective or socially constructed, or however you want to put it.
But that in no way shows that actual reality is subjective, or socially constructed, or
anything like that.
Think about our mini-word again. It was just a big confusion to say there’s no objective
reality here. There is! It’s just that objective reality can be carved up in different ways,
with different concepts. When you say “object” you might mean a simple unit, so that this,
or this, doesn’t count as an object. Fine! But if that’s what you mean, then the question:
“How many objects are there?” has an absolute, objective answer: 1, 2, 3. Of course, my concept
of “object” might be more broad, so that this, and this do count as objects. That’s
fine, too! But it means that we now have a slightly different question. And there is
nothing surprising about different questions having different answers, each objectively
true.
Look at it this way. I weigh 155 pounds. That's objectively true. But someone might argue,
no, no! The only reason you say 155 is because you’re American and thinking in terms of
pounds. But if you were from a different culture, you’d say you weigh 70 kilos. So obviously
weight is not objective... it's a social construct or relative to your culture or something like
that.
But I hope you're starting to see the problem. The force with which our planet is pulling
me toward its center, has nothing to do with language or society or anything having to
do with us. Gravity is just doing its thing, and it doesn’t care what we call it or how
we measure it. Do you want to know my weight in pounds or kilos? Either way is fine. But
either way, I can give you an absolute, objectively true answer!
Now you can probably see how to cut through the confusion about the tallest mountain on
earth. Which is taller? Well, the answer, is that we just need to be clear about what
exactly we’re asking. If we mean from sea level to summit, then Everest is objectively,
absolutely the tallest mountain on Earth. But if we mean from the center of the Earth
to the summit, well, then Chimborazo is objectively, absolutely the tallest mountain on Earth.
And that's all there is really to it.
My conclusion: the reasoning of the mini-world argument fails. We've just seen no good reason
to object the existence of objective truth.
One last thing. You might say, "This is all fine and good for mountains and orange dots
on a blue screen... but what about things like race or gender? Are these part of objective
reality?" Well, I turn the question back on you. In what way is race or gender different
from the examples we discussed here? In what way is the reasoning about the nature of race
and gender, different from the kind of reasoning we criticized here? I guess you could say
that our mini-world left us with some big questions.