Responding again to the Phenomenal Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Understand that this response it given within the context of profound respect and gratitude for Dr. DeGrasse Tyson. Thank God, as it were for Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

Nonetheless, Dr. Tyson, if the goes by that, insists again and again that the conclusions of science are facts about objective reality. There are testable propositions and if the tests confirm, inductively, through experiment, again and again, the validity of the proposition that proposition enters the realm of objective fact, or, as I’d say, fact. It’s a truth, a truth established by science, one we have to agree to or suffer being wrong.

The earth goes around the sun would qualify as an objective truth, a fact, as would E=MC2. It would be unscientific to say that later data could not call these facts into question, but it would have to be data of a certain type, of the type that made it not just possible but necessary to prove Newton’s assertion that gravity is a force exerting its influence upon objects at a distance. That was a scientifically verified objective fact—i.e. a fact—from the time of Newton until the time of Einstein. I’'s no longer a fact. To be more precise, it appeared to be a fact in those years and proved not to be a fact upon further investigation. That’s how science works. That’s how science establishes “objective truth.” Therefore in principle we could upon the accumulation of more and better data prove that the earth doesn't orbit the sun, but we have no reason to pursue the question and can foresee no circumstances in which we would. There are no phenomena that this description fails to account for. Until such time, which is unlikely ever to arrive, when it becomes necessary to question the assertion that the earth goes around the sun we must accept as fact that the earth orbits the sun and whenever the question arrives use that established fact as objective truth.

He's certainly correct that in all our dealings with the sun concerning with the relationship between the earth and sun matters we have to work within the framework of fact created by the proposition—or better to say conclusion—rigorously established that the earth goes around the sun. There’s no reason to doubt it and overwhelming evidence to believe it.

Nonetheless, I say again, I have to question not whether the sun is orbited by the planets but whether it is accurate to use the phrase “objective truth,” or, rather “truth” defined as “fact.”

I will grant the proposition the the universe exists. It is the equivalent of the Cartesian “I am,” but without the “I think therefore…” It has to be granted not because it’s true but because nothing else can be said if it isn’t granted. We cant prove it. But we’d be no where if we didn’t grant it. We can call “self-evident,” in that ancient phrase, but I’m not sure it is self-evident. It’s not evident in itself, but only to myself. But that’s the question we’re dealing with, does evident to myself or any self mean true in fact?

Can a subjective being claim to have access to objective truth? Does the concept in fact have any meaning—any objective meaning?

What Professor Tyson calls an objective truth is, at best, what every human being using the criteria of truth codified by science would have to give their assent to. That’s all it is. Given the assumptions or axioms of science, we draw certain conclusions about certain phenomena. Anything that falls outside of the realm of what science can be certain about remains outside. And even within the discursive realm of science, the possibility must always be maintained that there is yet a perspective according to which the earth does not orbit the sun, that the very concepts of “earth” and “sun” don’t make sense, let alone orbit. We don’t have to admit that that perspective is likely—although I think it is—but we do have admit that it is possible. There may be a perspective from which string theory is testable or so obvious that testing it would be like testing whether water is wet.

The very idea of “objective” reality implies that reality is an object, but not just an object, an object capable of adequate representation. In even here on earth we have strong reason to question that assumption. There are any number of us who believe we can prove it false—which is to say can see it from a perspective whose assumptions are as rigorous at the assumptions of science and according to which it doesn’t make sense. The thing represented is never the thing. An equation that perfectly captures the regularity of a phenomenon given the totality of the narrow range of conditions in which the phenomenon exists is not the law according to which that phenomenon operates. Things moving around in space do not follow laws. There’s no law of gravity, and apparently no force of gravity. But there is a phenomenon of gravity which, if you treat it like a law, and call it a force, you can make accurate predictions about.