Hmm. Your right, I dont have the experience to properly show you why you are wrong. However, I am still right. This is getting very tiresome, so excuse me while I borrow a certain persons reasoning of why you are wrong.
" Let me propose my definition of objective reality:
Definition 1: Objective reality is whatever remains true whether you believe in it or not.
Many people may claim that the above definition is insufficiently precise, or perhaps even circular: for instance, what do you mean by “true”? And what do you mean by “believe”? For that matter, what do you mean by “mean”?
For the purposes of my argument, ultimate precision in the meanings of the terms is not important—their common, everyday meanings, with their common, everyday precisions, are good enough. In mathematics (and engineering), there is the concept of sensitivity analysis: a result is often more crucially dependent on certain input parameters than on others, so more imprecision can be tolerated in the less crucial parameters. Later on, I will give a sensitivity analysis to demonstrate that the truth of my argument is not crucially dependent on the precise meanings of any of the above terms.
Another point is that I will be using the terms “objective truth” and “objective reality” completely interchangeably: as far as I’m concerned, what’s true is real, and what’s real is true.
Proof of Objective Reality
This proof is about giving a definite answer to the following question Q:
Q: Is there such a thing as objective reality?
Objective realists would say that the answer A to question Q is:
A1: Yes.
while the cultural relativists would say that the answer is:
A2: No.
So let us ask the meta-question Q':
Q': Is there an answer to question Q?
To which both objective realists and cultural relativists would agree that the answer A' is definitely:
A': Yes.
All parties must be united in accepting that this answer is objectively true, not a matter of someone's individual or cultural belief, for if they did not, then there would be no basis for their dispute. Therefore answer A' is itself an example of objective reality—something that remains true whether anybody believes in it or not. Therefore the answer to question Q is A1 (yes)—there is such a thing as objective reality.
That, in a nutshell, is the basis of the proof of objective reality. But some may argue that the above conclusion is too pat. What if there isn’t a definite answer to meta-question Q'? So now we have a dispute over the answer to meta-meta-question Q'':
Q'': Is there an answer to question Q'?
to which the objective realists say the answer is “yes”, while the meta-cultural-relativists say the answer is “no”. However, all have to be in agreement that the answer to meta-meta-meta-question Q''':
Q''': Is there an answer to question Q''?
is
A''': Yes.
which itself becomes an example of something objectively true, from which the answer to the original question Q is again A1 (yes).
It is clear that the above sequence can be extended ad infinitum: the objective realists always answer “yes” to every question, while the meta-cultural relativists (n = 0, 1, 2 ...) answer “no” to the first 2n+1 questions, and agree with the objective realists thereafter.
Objections to the Proof
What Do the Terms Mean?
I promised above that I would present a sensitivity analysis to demonstrate that the validity of my proof is not crucially dependent on the meanings of any of the terms used in Definition 1.
Let us assume that some reader of this Essay (let us call this individual “A. Reader”) uses some definitions of one or more of the terms used in Definition 1 such that my proof is invalid. For the purposes of this argument, it doesn’t matter what those definitions are, how different they are, or how exactly they result in the proof becoming invalid. In all cases, we can simply sum up the conclusion of A. Reader’s argument as follows:
Hypothetical Refutation 1: A. Reader uses definitions of one or more of the terms mentioned in Definition 1, perhaps together with variant forms of logical argument, that render the objective-reality proof invalid.
In order for this to be a valid objection, it must be objectively true. It shouldn’t matter whether or not I believe that A. Reader uses such definitions or forms of logical argument; it must be true regardless. (After all, if it were possible for me to invalidate the refutation simply by disbelieving it, then I do.)
It follows from this that Hypothetical Refutation 1 itself becomes an example of objective reality. Which means there is such a thing.
The Law of the Excluded Middle
My proofs rely heavily on the reductio ad absurdum technique—that is, assume a proposition is false, show that this leads to a contradiction, therefore the proposition must be true. Implicit in this is what’s called the “law of the excluded middle”—that is, if a proposition can be shown not to be false, then it must be true, and vice versa. But some people might object: “what if the law of the excluded middle is not valid?” To which I have only this to say: even if the law of the excluded middle is not true, that doesn’t mean it’s false.
Alternative Logics?
The law-of-the-excluded-middle objection is just one of a family of objections based on the idea that there are other kinds of logical reasoning besides the traditional, two-valued, either-true-or-false kind that I have used in my proof. And under these alternative kinds of reasoning, it is claimed, my argument might not necessarily be valid.
Trouble is, these objections are all based on a fallacy. To expose the fallacy, consider the following question:
Question L: Are there other kinds of equally valid logical reasoning besides traditional two-valued logic?
Now, those who believe in the validity of multiple kinds of logical reasoning still think of the answer to this question as either yes or no. That is, either it is, or it isn’t, valid to reason in other ways besides that of traditional two-valued logic. It’s got to be one or the other. Thus, even when reasoning about alternative forms of logical reasoning, there is still a special reliance on two-valued logic. No matter how you try to argue otherwise, you cannnot escape from the fact that two-valued logic is more basic, more fundamental than any other kind of reasoning—that it in fact underlies all other forms of reasoning.
To put it another way, consider the difference between logic and mathematics. Mathematics is about exploring the consequences of axioms: given a set of axioms (starting assumptions), which are accepted without proof, a mathematical theory is built by following the chains of deduction that follow logically from those axioms. Different mathematical theories are built from different axioms: thus, the theorems of topology are very different from those of geometry, which are in turn different from those of number theory, and so on.
But regardless of the different axioms which are used as starting points, all mathematical theories are built by following the same kind of logical reasoning. In order to be universally applicable, this logical reasoning must be independent of any particular axioms—otherwise, it could only be used to build certain mathematical theories, but not others.
Thus, the difference between logic and mathematics is that mathematics is always built on axioms, but logic is not. And so those “alternative logics”, which are supposedly built on different starting points from conventional logic, are not really logics at all, but are mathematical theories. True logic has no axioms.
No Logic At All?
This would seem to be a fatal objection: how do you know that logical reasoning is valid at all? Aren’t you simply assuming that it is so?
In fact, it is possible to prove that logical reasoning is valid, in a non-circular fashion (that is, without having to assume that it is valid to begin with). Here is the proof:
1. Assume that logical reasoning is invalid to begin with.
2. Since logical reasoning is invalid, it follows that illogical reasoning is valid.
3. Therefore, since logical reasoning is invalid, it must illogically follow that logical reasoning is in fact valid.
4. QED.
Note that any attempt to poke logical holes in this proof implicitly assumes that there are logical steps that I am not correctly following. In other words, all objections must themselves be based on the assumption that logical reasoning is valid. "
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