this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2026
360 points (95.9% liked)

Science Memes

20399 readers
1997 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 2 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

truth=facts. facts are objective. it’s a fact that the USA is a country in north America. there is no disputing that.

Not trying to say that everything is subjective, but that in particular is kind of a bad example.

Countries are socially constructed. The US is something that only exists so long as people agree that it does. There is no objective, material way of determining where one country ends and another begins.

In fact, there was quite a bit of disputing that historically. Prior to the American Civil War, lots of people said that the US was not a country but a union between countries, they were called "states" after all, and it was common to say "The United States are" rather than "The United States is." There are still successionists today who argue for that interpretation. To say that the US is objectively a country means that there must be something in material reality that we can point to to prove that one interpretation is correct and the other is incorrect. What is that thing?

Whatever that thing is would have significant implications for how we see the world and look at other disputes, whether we're talking about Spain and Barcelona, the UK and Scotland, China and Tibet, or Israel and Palestine. For example, if you say that historically, most US secessionists supported slavery and therefore they lacked moral character and the position is illegitimate, then it follows that what states exist is a function of the moral character of their supporters, and that seems to be adding lots of assumptions and moving away from any sense of objectivity.

"The US exists" is much more subjective than something like "This chair exists." With the latter, you could argue that grouping a collection of atoms into the category of "chair" is arbitrary and there's no way of determining when an atom stops being a part of "chair," but that's much more pedantic than socially constructed concepts that don't really have a physical essence.

[–] BloodMuffin@lemmy.ca 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

people created the ideas of countries, then made a list of them. USA is on that list.

if you really want to get philosophical about it, you can say the only fact that anyone knows for sure is that they are experiencing something. Nobody knows for sure that everyone else in the world isn't an NPC, nor whether this world is real or a hallucination.

I'm trying to keep it simple for the purposes of this argument

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

people created the ideas of countries, then made a list of them. USA is on that list.

People? Which people? If I get a bunch of people and declare a micronation within what the US considers it's borders, is that objectively a country or not? Or suppose I convince a bunch of Americans that Germany isn't really a country, does it then cease to be a country despite what the Germans themselves believe?

In any case, I would think that if something falls under the standard of, "This is true because a bunch of people say it is, even though there's nothing physical you can point to to prove it" then it seems somewhat absurd to call that an "objective fact" What do "objective" and "subjective" even mean, then?

[–] BloodMuffin@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I'm not interested in arguing semantics or philosophy. you can disagree with my example, I don't care.

the point is, there are objective facts and subjective opinions.

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

I see, so you're only interested in asserting your own philosophical positions, not examining or defending them in any way.

[–] BloodMuffin@lemmy.ca 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

ohh sorry, is this a philosophy group?

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Apparently? You keep making philosophical assertions.

You don't get to assert your philosophical views and then say, "I'm not interested is discussing philosophy" to avoid examination and criticism of those views.

[–] BloodMuffin@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

do you agree with my assertion that some things are objective facts and some are not?

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Yes.

Not trying to say that everything is subjective, but that in particular is kind of a bad example.

I just think you're being dismissive, while setting your own ideas as being apart from philosophy.

[–] BloodMuffin@lemmy.ca 0 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

i know that any example I could give could be argued against, and I really don't wanna dive into that because it has no end.

like I said, the only thing anyone knows for sure is that they're experiencing something, call it consciousness or whatever. however, that is not a great example of fact vs fiction, and this isn't a philosophy debate sub, so I tried to keep it simple.

there are better examples, but I'm just trying to explain a simple concept, not get into the bottomless argument of philosophical truth

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

But you're explaining it with such a bad example that it undermines the whole point, it's like if you said, "Some things are just objective facts, like which poems are good." That to me indicates that it's not really a simple concept at all, you just don't see the depth because you haven't examined it. Being unwilling to examine it, framing that examination as "the bottomless argument of philosophical truth," only reinforces that. If you're not willing to examine the question, then don't assert that you know the answer in the first place.

[–] BloodMuffin@lemmy.ca 0 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

i don't care.

have a good one

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 0 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Don't try to explain things you neither understand nor care about then.

[–] BloodMuffin@lemmy.ca 0 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

you're not my real dad! you can't tell me what to do!

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 hours ago

I can only lead a horse to water, I can't make you think.