Is truth subjective or objective?

Well...I would like to do this less "pretentiously"...but after reading your lasts paragraph, I see that you still are unable to differentiate between the "truth" and "perceptions of the truth."

Fact is...the "truth" is the "truth" without regard to anyone's perception of it.

Essentially...the "truth" is what IS...and the truth remains the truth regardless of what people suppose (or guess) it to be.

<<Essentially...the "truth" is what IS...and the truth remains the truth regardless of what people suppose (or guess) it to be.>>

Hey Frank thats pretty close to a bit of fundamentalist preaching !

I agree that there is ONE reality, whatever that may be, but there are many interpretations of facets or aspects of that one reality. These are the subjective truths of Minty....I would agree with Frank except he is equating truth with reality. To me, as I've said elsewhere. Truths are propositions about the nature of aspects of reality. Reality, on the other hand, cannot be the object of our inquisatorial efforts because it includes such efforts.

As Quantum physics would indicate, reality is indeed both that which happens and that which has a probability of happening; or, what exists within my interpretation and what exists independent of it.

JL Nobody

Once again, I must disagree. I don't see what kind of reality you are talking. You mean something like Kant's "noumena"? Although a great part of my philosophical ideas are based in the "Critic of the Pure Reason" I think Kant made a mistake insisting of the "ding ins sich" - but that mistake is understandable, since Kant had a newtonian vision of the world.
To me, there is no reason to speak about the "one and only Reality". We have the reality of our experience. How can we go further and talk about something we are not able to experience? Kant saw that we can only experience the world in three space dimensions and in time. And if another entity could experience more dimensions, that would not be a "greater experience of reality" but only the reality experienced by that entity.
The idea of a objective reality, that is "outside", some sort of "essencial reality" in contrast with "aparences" is an old and persistent theory, since Parmenides. I reject it. We can not go "outside" our experience and see that glorious (?) REALITY.
I insist, Nobody, we must see reality within our experience - I am not talking only of perception - and that is why I think Heidegger's philosophy (although it is not a philosophy in the traditional way) is so important.

What IS...is, folks.

It doesn't matter whether we realize it...or even if we CAN realize it...WHAT IS...IS!

That is the reality!

consider a 'matrix' like environment where there is a 'mingling' of distinct realities; all emanating from separate, distinct sources, and blending into a combined reality 'soup'!

[if we can think of a new reality, we can in effect 'create' it.]

we can have realities of every conceivable colour, flavour, direction...........

[the possibilities are 'unreal'!]

BoGoWo, then THAT soup is what IS.
Val, I have to get back to your last thought later.

BoGoWo:
"if we can think of a new reality, we can in effect 'create' it"
[and]
"we can have realities of every conceivable colour, flavour, direction"

The first statement informs me that your futuristic slant in philosophy is a kind of engineering exercise. A good reason to anticipate future possibilities is that to do so is more than idle speculation: we can actualize our created possibilities.

The second statement suggests your acknowledgement that the CONTENT of reality is our construction. That, it seems to me, is what you are referring to as "a new reality" and "realities". The issue of Reality, the foundation or ultimate existence, of what is--as opposed to nothing--is not addressed by your statements.

Val, you raise what is to my mind the central problem of philosophy, the ultimate nature of Reality, of what is the case.
I also do not agree with the dualism of Kant. I do not see a metaphysical bifurcation of Reality into two realms, Noumena, the objective "thing-in-itself" and Phenomena, our experience of that which stands behind experience. In that sense Kant was a metaphysician, even though he thought he put an end to metaphysics. As I recall, for him God had no place in the realm of phenomena. No "evidence" of Him is possible since He is beyond empiricism: He resides in the objective and hidden realm of Noumena.
I see, like you, only the world of appearance--subjectivity is the case, but that is an objective fact. To my speculative mind, Reality consists of an ultimately mysterious but real existent in which your experience of what is, and my experience of what is, and all other possible perspectives are real in so much as they exist. If this is so, my favorite nondualist metaphor for Reality would be an infinite diamond in which all possible perspectives occur like facets of the Single Reality. In this "middle way" one can acknowledge the mulitiplicity we observee (after all, you and I are presenting different perspectives here) while recognizing our unity. Tat tvam asi: Val is me (and at the same time, Val is Val, and I am me).
There is no Noumena APART FROM phenomena; They are ultimately one, like the Diamond and its many facets. The major problem with my metaphor is that fails to include the fact that Reality is a process rather than an thing.

Very well put, Nobody.
I still don't agree, because we have two different philosophical perspectives - in your example, I would deny the "diamond": as you see, when you speak about the multiple facets of the diamond you are already assuming it's existence. But I respect your position.
To me, we cannot speak of anything that is external to our experience, because our experience is - TO US - the ultimate reality.We live in existence, in the "da-sein" - "to be there", that means, to be always in relation with things.
To you, we live in a reality as a "construct" of our minds - and senses?- that is a facet of an absolute Reality. That is not far from Plato. I sincerelly respect that point of view, although very far from mine.
The only problem I see is this: how do you know that ultimate reality? Sure not by rational means, nor by perception. Perhaps by mystical intuition?

Why would it be necessry to "know" the Ultimate REALITY?

Frank-

It is necessary to know the ultimate reality in order to turn it into hard currency without the bother of getting any serious work done.As in all cases of this type an inclusive language is developed which shuts out dissent and at the same time creates a sense of awe and wonder.These result in a distortion of the process of scarce resource allocation which is,of course,the general idea.

spendius

BOTTOM LINE:

The "TRUTH" is objective.

Anything else is merely an impression or perspecive of the truth.

Spendius,

Isn't that what Chairman Mao said when he marched the academics off to the fields ?

Val, yes, only by mystical intuition. But this "realization" of the nature of Ultimate Reality is not "knowledge" in the sense of having some kind of mathematical or verbal description of the nature of an objective condition. This realization is essentially about one's own true nature. You cannot intuit what's going on at the planet Jupitor, but you can know YOUR portion of Reality, your facet of the Diamond, in my metaphor. In this you are seeing into the true nature of your being (your reality), which is experience pure and simple (as opposed to the culturally constituted meaningfulness of its content). We realize that we do not experience Reality as something apart from us; we realize that our experience, as it flows, IS Reality, and it is US.
So, to answer Frank's important question, "Why is it necessary to 'know' the Ultimate REALTY?" We don't need to have knowledge of Ultimate Reality, if by that we mean an intellectual grasp of the ENTIRE situation. I think that is neither necessasry, possible, nor meaningful. But to realize our one-ness with experience, to realize immediately and concretely (i.e., intuitively) that we ARE our experiences, not some ego-thing that they are 'happening to', is a "spiritually" healthy state of being, one that is liberating, freeing us from the existential terrors born of our alienation by ego.

Sorry about the lag, but I'm not able to visit my computer as frequently due to my vacation, so I can't check this as often. That being said:
JL: I like your inclusion of subjective experience into objective experience, since we are perceiving in the objective universe. Well done.
Frank: I would say that we do "know" the ultimate REALITY, if only in a probable sense (i.e., I'm 99.99999% sure I'm typing right now), but I think you and I have already tackled this point on this thread and others in the past. SO, I'll just say...I agree!

Kant said of truth:
"If truth consists in the correspondence of a cognition with its object , then this object must thereby be distinguished from others; for a cognition is false if it does not corre-spond with the object to which it is related, even if it contains something that could well be valid of other objects. Now a general criterion [Kriterium] of truth would be that which was valid of all cognitions without any distinction among their objects. [c] But it is clear that since with such a criterion one abstracts from all content of cognition."

There now. That clears that up.