User:The Ungovernable Force/Objective Truth and World Views

Warning: Insane rant ahead, proceed with caution! This is a topic that has gotten me into numereous debates with others, both here and in the real world. I think I should do what I can to clarify and explain my position on the idea of truth. I would love to discuss/debate these ideas with others, so if any of this interests you at all, please drop me a line on my talk page.

First off, I am merely an amateur philosopher, with little formal training (a summer introductory course in philosophy at a community college, and a month in my high school philosophy club, if you can call that formal). I do however have a good deal of interest in many areas of philosophy and spend way too much time thinking of weird things. These are my thought on epistemology (and perhaps some other stuff).....

I do not believe there is any objective truth. As far as I'm concerened, nothing can be proven beyond any doubt. As such, it is pretty hard to say something is definetely true. Most people reading this can confidently say "wikipedia exists" and believe this to be objective truth. But is it? Are you sure you're not just dreaming? Or perhaps this entire world is a fabrication designed to deceive you (ever seen The Matrix?).

In no way does this mean that I do not make judgments about the truthfulness of things, or that I never take positions on debated topics--I'm taking one right now, and as you might be able to tell from the rest of my user page, I am highly opinionated. To not make decisions regarding what is and is not true will lead to an absolute lack of anything--everthing will be so uncertain that there would be no point to anything. Obviously this causes serious problems. Basically, we do need to make numerous judgments on what is and isn't true, but we should be careful with our conclusions and should question everything. Nothing should go without a serious examination (of course this is impossible, we have to take some things for granted, but this idea should always be kept in the back of our minds). We need to be mindful of why we believe what we believe, and should try to understand why others believe what they believe. We should also be willing to reevaluate our decisions on things and should try to keep an open mind.

A common argument on wikipedia is that _____ should not be included because it is "merely an opinion". As far as I'm concerned everything is an opinion. A fact is nothing more than an opinion that most people agree on (or an opinion where the people holding it are viewed as superior to the people holding a competing opinion--in other words, an opinion held by the elite). Conservative Christians hold that creation is a fact, whereas scientists hold that evolution is a fact (btw, I agree with the scientists). Both groups are just as convinced that they have truth on their side. So who's right? I think society as a whole (at least in my cultural and geographic region) would agree with the scientists, since most people hold that opinion and because scientists are often viewed as an elite class, higher than you're average fundamentalist Christian. But what's the real difference? The answer comes down to world views. Christians have one whereas scientists have another. The scientific worldview is based on what can be perceived and quantafied in our world, whereas the Conservative Christian (and religous worldviews in general) are based more on qualitative assumptions of varying degrees of reliability. Neither is perfect--religion (especially fundamentalist religion) makes absurd claims with no perceivable proof, whereas science will overlook anything that is currently unable to measure or see. Personally, I would err on the side of science in this case, since there is some rationality to it, as oppossed to most religious worldviews which are often based on nothing but sheer speculation and crazy claims (though there are some exceptions in my opinion, including shamanism, core shamanism and various branches of neopaganism, all of which do seem seriously concerned with the pursuit of knowledge). The more fundamentalist the religion, the more absurd the justifications for it are (c'mon, do you really want to base everything you beleive on a book that has been compiled, edited and translated by countless human beings, often with clear intent to influence society and politics, for roughly the last 2000 years?)

The question then becomes, "what worldview is wikipedia operating under?". As far as what we consider "true", we tend to present what most academics would consider to be the truth. Our worldview is an academic one. Is this right? I can't say for sure, but I do think it's better than what it could be.