Does objective truth exist? (Answering two e-mail questions)

Replying to two mail questions I received at the end of last month:
Does objective truth exist?
Is consciousness a product of evolution?

[calcifiedinnerbaldur]

Great way of putting it, "is consciousness a product of evolution?" "It's probably the other way around. Evolution is a product of the consciousness." Although I'd say it's definitely is the other way around.

[marlonbrando]

I guess how I've always looked at this question on "objective truth, " is that there is a bit of a misnomer in the question. The differentiating term on truth "objective" implies an overriding power on the term of truth, where truth is more fundamental than any subject and object distinction. This tends to get people into saying these absolutist absurdities like there is only perspectives or there's only one "objective truth." Yes there is objective and subjective truth but we need to be more careful when explicating such concepts or else we tend to run into absurdities and unnecessary perplexities. When we're saying an objective thing or an objective phenomena and by extension an objective truth we are talking about anything which doesn't come down to a subject but an object(in some way) whereas what is subjective comes down to a subject. A true proposition like 'water expands when it freezes' doesn't come down to a perspective or a subject but rather objects and laws of the world. A true proposition like 'It hurt when I bit my tongue' does come down to a subject and subjective experience. There is no contradiction between both these being true, and a concept of truth that only recognizes the former leads to many laughable theories like behaviorism. When it comes to subjective truths however there isn't any contradiction between intersubjective truths but only in a strict intra-subjective (i.e. within the same subject) sense. For example, saying 'X was hurt when he bit his tongue' and 'Y wasn't hurt when she bit her tongue' don't contradict each other. But saying 'X hurt himself when he bit his tongue' and 'X didn't hurt himself when he bit his tongue' do contradict one another, and if one's true the other's false (as long as the sense in the propositions are the same).

Another distinction I think it prudent to make would be between truth and goodness (or truth and morality). There does seem to be a non-coincidental connection between the two but 'Good and Bad', and 'Truth and Falsehood' don't seem to be the same phenomena. One can take any subjective moral proposition and coincidentally put it as true or false, but this is not looking at them in the same sense (i.e. I can say that the proposition 'X thinks this tastes good' is true but that is different than saying that 'X thinks this taste good' and 'X thinks this tastes true' are the same). I can already feel myself going down a rabbit hole but the overall point is truth isn't the same as goodness.

But the contrary between 'objective' and 'subjective' doesn't seem to exhaust the kinds of truth or the nature of truth. It seems that eidetic and abstract truths either can't be reducible to subjective or objective, or is something in-between, a mixture, higher or altogether different truth. For example the laws of mathematics don't really concern objects unless we're talking about them as objects in some other way (e.g. as like platonic forms), but rather as building off of axioms, postulates, and building off the perfectly simple unit. It seems that these truths are more important to understanding than objective and subjective truths and might more properly be called truths. But I don't think they reduce down to either objective and subjective. It seems such truths would be the ones that could be called eternal, or universal, or common but I'm having trouble myself understanding them. It also seems that there are many more difficulties that arise in terms of the mind comprehending such truths which speaks to there being a limit between the mind and comprehending such truths. It could also be that the nature of our minds is in someway able to participate or represent or in some other fashion connect with these truths but in an imperfect or roundabout way leading to such difficulty. If we're trying to think of truth at it's most fundamental level it seems to me that thinking in this subjective and objective dichotomy gets us nowhere and is frankly uninteresting.

Anyway those are just some of my thoughts when it comes to this questions, wonder if you have any inputs or critiques?

[randletaylor]

My view is in alignment with the author of "The God Series" books: Mike Hockey, that existence is not a monism nor a dualism but rather a dual aspect monism with syntactic form as one aspect and semantic content as the other. With that perspective I would argue that there's one objective truth but many subjective experiences of that truth where the objective truth is the syntactic form of the semantic subjective experience. In other words truth is the (Parmenidean) eternal unchanging and necessary scaffolding upon which the (Heraclitean) contingent and changing qualitative experience is formed around.

[calcifiedinnerbaldur]

If objective truth didn't exist, it would be subjectively the case that objective truth didn't exist making it not an objective truth that objective truth was subjectively the case. So in other words it's self refuting, and that makes objectivity proven to be true by the impossibility of the contrary.

[moriresvivir]

The simple answer for this complicated questions it's more than often yes and no at the same time.
There are clearly objetive truths such as 2+2=4 (there is no way around it)
But there are also subjetive truths and most of then come from the concept of good and bad. Like you said it, there is no good or bad art, that is just subjetive.
I don't even belive that consciousness comes from the "physical realm" so thinking that evolution of dead matter created consciousness is just ridiculous.

[cristianlopez]

Are these examples of what you mean by "sensitive causality"? Like someone is about to be punched and they feel fear so they react with a block? Or maybe they feel love for someone and that brings up the idea of buying a gift? The possibility or feeling to do so? Or even me listening to the idea of "sensitive causality" lead to a sense of curiosity and confusion which lead to the idea of commenting?