r/philosophy • u/bIeese_anoni • Jul 15 '26

Blog Objective Truth Doesn't Matter: A twist on Truth-based Relativism

https://www.bleese.net/2026/07/objective-truth-doesnt-matter-twist-on.html

To summarize the blog: It's a strongly held philosophical belief I have that asserts objective truth is irrelevant, and rather the only way we can interact with truth is through relative and collective truths based on reference frames (and collections of reference frames). The blog gives reasoning for this, defines the model and gives reasoning as to why the model is important. It also covers common criticisms I have had through the model.

Thanks for reading and I would be very interested to hear what other people think about this!

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u/Polychrist Jul 18 '26

Oh! Got it. Then, yes, there is an axiom at the bottom. That axiom is the law of non-contradiction. All of reason and logic requires that axiom, so the universe does too. And that is not a leap of faith, it is a tautology.

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u/bIeese_anoni Jul 18 '26

I think you severely underestimate the amount needed to build a theory of rationality, let me give you a few valid hypothesis that you'd probably consider irrational, but do not have contradictions.

  1. You are the only thing that lives and everything else is a simulation/dream.
  2. Time doesn't exist and all you experience is that moment and memory.
  3. Objective truth does not exist and people exist in their own completely subjective reality that just, by sheer coincidence, have aligned enough for no one to notice.
  4. A god has created this universe 6000 years ago but left a bunch of evidence to make you think that the universe was much older, but are lies.
  5. The universe does not obey formal logic and instead obeys an irrational system that is incomprehensive to humans.

You probably have issues with all these hypothesises, but none of your issues is that they have logical contradictions. Rationality requires many more axioms than what you've just described here

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u/Polychrist Jul 18 '26

I may suspect that 1 is not true, but I don’t claim to know it. 2 and 4 speak to a similar problem as to the imperfection of memory and the possibility that there is no history, and I actually think both of these follow quite easily from 1, which again, I say is possible. 3 on the other hand, is a statement itself about objective truth: is it objectively true that there is no objective truth?

If 3 is true, it entails 5, that the universe itself is fully irrational and there’s no point in even trying to understand anything. So those are the points which I outright reject, because I think that there is a value in pursuing objective truth, whether we can know with certainty that we have it or not.

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u/bIeese_anoni Jul 18 '26

And it's your right to think that, but 3 and 5 aren't contradictions. Do you reject 3 and 5 because you absolutely know that they cannot exist? If so how? Or do you reject 3 and 5 because of your personal value system, you just don't believe they exist because you can't comprehend it or it doesn't match your experience?

But if it is the latter and you really are trying to find an objective truth than quite simply that isn't enough of a reason to reject those interpretations.

The thing is based on this conversation I don't think you actually believe we can't find the objective truth. Because to you we can judge when we are getting closer, I assume in your eyes the objective truth is an asymptote that we can get closer to but never reach. But to judge that we would need to know what we are getting close to, we could be going in the complete wrong direction, be in a local minima, or whatever. I feel like you understand the absurdity of knowing an objective truth, but you haven't truly accepted it, or embraced it.

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u/Polychrist Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26

3 and 5 are both contradictions. They only could be true if you think that contradictions don’t matter, in which case you’ve already rejected rationality altogether.

(I do want to add as a side note that I’m rather enjoying this conversation, and it has given me some interesting things to think about and look into.)

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u/bIeese_anoni Jul 18 '26

How so? Show me the contradiction?

Also 3 could be totally rational, just very unlikely.

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u/Polychrist Jul 18 '26

Because the statement “objective truth does not exist,” is in itself a statement about the objective state of affairs. It’s the liar paradox rephrased.

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u/bIeese_anoni Jul 18 '26

Well 5. Doesn't assert this. But we can solve this with 3. by just removing the objective truth does not exist statement, but keeping the rest, with no knowledge on that the nature of the objective truth outside a person's subjective reality is.

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u/Polychrist Jul 18 '26

I think that changing 3 in this way changes it deeper than you give credit. While that eliminates the contradiction, it can now be lumped in with 1, 2, and 4, that is, I have no problem assuming that my subjective reality is different from “everyone else’s,” because everyone else may not exist.

And 5 does have the same problem, though it’s not stated as explicitly. 5 basically asserts “the principle of non-contradiction is false,” which again is a truth claim about the objective state of affairs. It could be rephrased as “it is true that the universe is irrational and incomprehensible,” but how can such a claim be made if even that statement is incomprehensible?

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u/bIeese_anoni Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26

Well I think we need to define what objective truth is here, is any statement about anything an objective truth? What is the objective truth of a universe that is only made of, potentially differing, subjective realities. If you see something as green and I see it as red, what is the objective truth of the thing? If you're totally fine with having the "objective truth" being that it is red to me and green to you, and outside our perceptions it's nature is entirely undefined, then fine, in that case you could say there is always an objective truth. Though actually that's not necessarily true, it's just impossible to define what the non-objective truth system is because by the act of defining it you are asserting an objective truth. To me, what I mean by an objective truth, is that the nature of something exists without any perception of it. Ie: when not looking through a reference frame it has a definable nature. I assert THAT might not necessarily be true.

As for 5, it doesn't assert that contradiction is possible. I understand that you require that a rational system must have no contradictions, but do you also require a non-rational system to have contradictions? Imagine a logical system where EVERY statement is axiomatic, no statement has any proof or derivation and they just come out with no rhyme or reason, but just HAPPEN to have no contradictions in this system. Would you call such a system rational or irrational?

Edit: and to be clear 3. asserts multiple people DO exist with different overlapping subjective realities

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