Truth/objective

About

Objective truth (aka "objective reality") can be described as:

• the hypothetical reality in which we all must exist
• a set of rules enforced by nature, constant and unchanging, the exact definition of which we can never know precisely and can only approach asymptotically as we better understand the mechanisms by which it operates
• a set of ideas which appears to most accurately describe the nature of objective reality

Although it is possible that there is in fact no such thing as objective truth, there is no point in attempting to operate as a society in its absence. If there are no constraints or effects that apply to everyone, then there is no point in even attempting to create public policy as there would be no way of enforcing it even if it made sense to do so universally.

The evidence accumulated over thousands of years of civilization suggests strongly that the nature of reality is immutable, but that our understanding of it is almost always imperfect and may in fact never be perfect. Even in mathematics, for example, it's been proved that we can never be sure we know everything that's true about mathematics.

Successive Espistemology

The general tendency, where scientific methods are allowed to dominate over powermongery, has been for our understanding to approach objective truth ever more closely, in a form of successive approximation:

• flat Earth models...
  • were replaced by geocentrism, which
    • was replaced by heliocentrism
      • (which was replaced by the understanding that we're at the edge of a galaxy which is not anywhere special in our local galactic cluster which is also not anywhere special with relation to the rest of the universe)
    • and the epicyclic model of the solar system, which
      • was replaced by Newtonian orbital mechanics, which
        • was refined by Einsteinian relativity