How to get post-modernists/relativists to stomache Absolute Truth??

[TimStr]

A big part of my social circles worldview is steeped with post-modernism. And this especially come to light when I talk about Truth to them.

Basically, their main argument is: All I have is a perspective, all other people have is a perspective. That means that there are only different perspectives out there and therefore, there is no absolute truth / absolute truth cannot be known. When asserting that there is such a thing as Absolute Truth they tend to fall into a pre-trans fallacy: "Oh, you're argumenting for Absolute Truth, therefore you are not acknowledging different perspectives. Another person has another perspective, ‘truth‘ can be entirely different." Essentially putting me into a (pre-)modernist camp while I am arguing from a post-postmodernist perspective. They try to discredit Absolute Truth based on relativism.

How would you argue against that? How to make them construct aware of their post-modernism?

And how would you actually open those peoples minds up to the possibility that absolute truth is out there?

I guess the only get them "convinced" is for them to have a direct experience of truth. But how can they even have that, when their worldview doen't hold such a thing possible?

[zurew]

You dont necessarily need to argue for it, you can just stay inside their frames and let them explain why they go with certain perspectives over other perspectives and then after that you can lay down your version and frame it as a perspective and then check if they would buy into it or not and if not ask them why not.

The only thing you need to establish is some hierarchy of perspectives (you dont need to necessarily establish that there is some kind of top to that hierarchy), and the case that certain perspectives are more inclusive and take more other perspectives into account. Perspectives dont necessarily need to be mutually exclusive, they can be inclusive.

You can also remind them that they already take it that certain truths are not perspective dependently true-  for instance, the claim that "all or most truths are perspective dependently true" cant be perspective  dependently true or if it is, well then you can ask them why they buy into that rather than into the negation of that claim (and then whatever process or epistemology they will describe or appeal to there, you can just use that as a ground to build your case on).

But I often times dont like these talks, because its unclear what they mean by perspective and most of the debate is dependent on clarifying that phrase and often times people have a hard time explicating what they even mean by it.

Edited Tuesday at 04:01 PM by zurew

[TimStr]

8 hours ago, zurew said:

the claim that "all or most truths are perspective dependently true" cant be perspective  dependently true or if it is, well then you can ask them why they buy into that rather than into the negation of that claim

Yeah, get it. So this seems to be the typical fallacy of the postmodern worldview. To put it in my own words:

Postmodernism claims, that everything is a relative perspective. Yet it holds this very claim as true / epistemically given and not a perspective. It misses, that relativity is just a relative perspective, too, and in that way overlooks the possibility of the absolute. 

8 hours ago, zurew said:

You dont necessarily need to argue for it, you can just stay inside their frames and let them explain why they go with certain perspectives

Yeah, thats what I usually do in most normal conversations. However. at times, I want to make an argument, that requires me to leave that frame and whenever I trie to do that, they usually discredit me arguing in some way with relativity.

Besides that, I also want to see this more clearly within my own mind, too.

[Hojo]

Just say its like a hivemind ,thats just the hivemind. The fog of war outside the hivemind dosent exist to the hivemind.

That they point towards others experiences its pointing toward the hivemind. Hes the hivemind saying there are other hiveminds and thats a contradiction.

Edited yesterday at 04:29 AM by Hojo

[Basman]

Your essentially arguing against people who don't believe in universal truth. There are various arguments you could make for universal truth. 

There are hard limits to what you can imagine and it being true at the same time, which is proof of universal truth. Just because you can think it doesn't mean its true, like thinking your immune to bullets or that you can fly.

If truth doesn't exist then there are no such thing as lies, just different perspectives. To see that someone is lying you have to distinguish between truth and lies. What someone says and does. 

Murdering an innocent person is likely going to be seen as unfair, which implies the existence of universal felt experience, otherwise you can't argue that if is wrong to murder anyone. Any morals can't operate if not based on universal felt experiences, IE. truth. If it is all perspective, then there is no such thing as morality. Use this argument to discredit their social justice stuff and see how they react. 

Relativity doesn't occlude the existance of truth, but nuances it. For something to be relative it has to be constrasted by something absolute, like for example being alive. You can't be alive and hold the perspective that your actually dead, because you can't be dead or alive at the same time. You can only hold a relative perspective if you are alive. 

Blue isn't red, red isn't green, green isn't black, etc. The experience of red can only be red, not green or blue. Being blind or otherwise incapable of seeing red doesn't mean red doesn't exist. You just can't see it. 

[Leo Gura]

18 hours ago, TimStr said:

All I have is a perspective, all other people have is a perspective. That means that there are only different perspectives out there

Is that true?

1) No post-modernist knows this is true. It's just a belief.

2) Even if it was true. That would be Truth.

Post-modernism is incoherent. It destroys itself.

These people have no proof that any perspective other than theirs exists. The whole notion of perspective needs to be questioned and deconstructed. Where did anyone even get the idea of "Perspectives exist". This isn't proven.

These people are mindless. They are not thinking. They are just parroting shit their friends parrot.

You can twist a post-modernist's nipple. Then when get angry at you, you tell them, I never twisted your nipple. When they insist otherwise, tell them that's not true because truth doesn't exist.

Post-modernists are idiots. So never fear them.

Edited yesterday at 09:25 AM by Leo Gura

[Cred]

The pattern is the antidote to postmodernism. Ask them: "Are patterns relative? If I see a pattern, is this pattern only true for me or also true for others?"

Edited yesterday at 06:01 PM by Cred

[AerisVahnEphelia]

On 17/03/2026 at 4:06 PM, TimStr said:

A big part of my social circles worldview is steeped with post-modernism. And this especially come to light when I talk about Truth to them.

Basically, their main argument is: All I have is a perspective, all other people have is a perspective. That means that there are only different perspectives out there and therefore, there is no absolute truth / absolute truth cannot be known. When asserting that there is such a thing as Absolute Truth they tend to fall into a pre-trans fallacy: "Oh, you're argumenting for Absolute Truth, therefore you are not acknowledging different perspectives. Another person has another perspective, ‘truth‘ can be entirely different." Essentially putting me into a (pre-)modernist camp while I am arguing from a post-postmodernist perspective. They try to discredit Absolute Truth based on relativism.

How would you argue against that? How to make them construct aware of their post-modernism?

And how would you actually open those peoples minds up to the possibility that absolute truth is out there?

I guess the only get them "convinced" is for them to have a direct experience of truth. But how can they even have that, when their worldview doen't hold such a thing possible?

ok but what if your perspective is absolute solipsism, there is no others to acknowledge, everyone is just you.

does he accept this perspective ?

[AerisVahnEphelia]

11 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Is that true?

1) No post-modernist knows this is true. It's just a belief.

2) Even if it was true. That would be Truth.

Post-modernism is incoherent. It destroys itself.

These people have no proof that any perspective other than theirs exists. The whole notion of perspective needs to be questioned and deconstructed. Where did anyone even get the idea of "Perspectives exist". This isn't proven.

These people are mindless. They are not thinking. They are just parroting shit their friends parrot.

You can twist a post-modernist's nipple. Then when get angry at you, you tell them, I never twisted your nipple. When they insist otherwise, tell them that's not true because truth doesn't exist.

Post-modernists are idiots. So never fear them.

they sort of reversed maga.

really consciousness is just about how much can you doubt everything.

including doubting about everything

Edited yesterday at 09:09 PM by AerisVahnEphelia

[TimStr]

On 18.3.2026 at 10:20 AM, Leo Gura said:

Post-modernism is incoherent. It destroys itself.

These people have no proof that any perspective other than theirs exists. The whole notion of perspective needs to be questioned and deconstructed. Where did anyone even get the idea of "Perspectives exist". This isn't proven.

These people are mindless.

I see this so much...

But many people base a whole bunch of their social justice warrior type of behaviours on that. Trying to make room in society to "take queer/bipoc/non-western... perspective into account". Usually, this becomes really toxic when you add a bunch of group bias on top, or when you get hardcore rightwing / conservatives to parrot this argument for their own case.

If I would bluntly tell them, that another perspective has never been poven, all of those people would laugh at me or worse...

Solopsism clearly cuts through the chase here, but it's hard to argue for with people that are not truly open.

How would go about opening peoples minds to that, when they just seem to be locked into their paradigm. 

Edited 8 hours ago by TimStr

[TimStr]

21 hours ago, Cred said:

The pattern is the antidote to postmodernism. Ask them: "Are patterns relative? If I see a pattern, is this pattern only true for me or also true for others?"

This is an intresting example. Pattern is a type of qualia, that seems to be on a level, thats neither just subjective nor objective.

[Joseph Maynor]

You can't convince anyone of Absolute Truth, they have to find it.  You can point them toward the project at best.

[TimStr]

1 minute ago, Joseph Maynor said:

You can't convince anyone of Absolute Truth, they have to find it.  You can point them toward the project at best.

I guess, you're right. That's not what I am meaning to do, though.

I want to open them up to the possibility, that their relativism and is backwards and incoherent.

[Joseph Maynor]

1 minute ago, TimStr said:

I guess, you're right. That's not what I am meaning to do, though.

I want to open them up to the possibility, that their relativism and is backwards and incoherent.

And then I guess the question is what are you communicating to them that they can hope to find?  What is Absolute Truth, even in pointer form?

[Lazarus93]

3 minutes ago, TimStr said:

I guess, you're right. That's not what I am meaning to do, though.

I want to open them up to the possibility, that their relativism and is backwards and incoherent.

The main method would be for them to take psychedelics or dissociatives, but even then they would require a certain baseline level of genetics and open-mindedness to realize Absolute Truth. Tbh, I personally don't talk about these matters with anyone in my social circle irl besides my closest friends who are also psychonauts, because it's so hard to talk about unless you have a direct experience of what Absolute Truth points to. Just play the human game. They will discover Absolute Truth eventually when they experience physical death. You could also get them to question their relativism, but even that requires them to be open minded enough to do so.

 

[UnbornTao]

What is there to stomach? Perhaps you can point them to the notion or possibility of the absolute.

Whatever they or anyone else makes of that will be wrong and inaccurate. You're essentially demanding of them to get enlightened. And chances are you aren't either. That's a good opportunity to investigate the matter from a more real ground.

[TimStr]

3 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

And then I guess the question is what are you communicating to them that they can hope to find?  What is Absolute Truth, even in pointer form?

I don't nessecarily want them to just find Absolute Truth, thats nothing I can affect in any way. There was another response by @UnbornTao earlier that relates to this same point, but that got deleted.

I don't demand of people, that they just get Absolute Truth, that would essentially require them to get enlightened. I just want to guide to a less sloppy epistemic position. I want them to consider that there could be such a thing as absolute truth. At least open them to that possibility instead of ruling out the existence of truth in the first place.

But I see where you guys are pointing to. I cannot convince anybody, even if I want to. 

[Cred]

5 hours ago, TimStr said:

This is an intresting example. Pattern is a type of qualia, that seems to be on a level, thats neither just subjective nor objective.

Thanks for making me aware of the word qualia, it is actually kind of a word that I have been looking for.

In my model, The sequence is separate from qualia. 

[UnbornTao]

1 minute ago, TimStr said:

I don't nessecarily want them to just find Absolute Truth, thats nothing I can affect in any way. There was another response by @UnbornTao earlier that relates to this same point, but that got deleted.

I don't demand of people, that they just get Absolute Truth, that would essentially require them to get enlightened. I just want to guide to a less sloppy epistemic position. I want them to consider that there could be such a thing as absolute truth. At least open them to that possibility instead of ruling out the existence of truth in the first place.

But I see where you guys are pointing to. I cannot convince anybody, even if I want to. 

Yeah, as an intellectual discourse for entertainment, a question you could ask would be something like: What is changeless? What is not *done* by the mind? Something exists. Or is the source of existence - perhaps. This might not be apprehended by our sense experience now. You'd be suggesting that something exists beyond or prior to our perceived reality, that isn't some thing, but is perhaps analogous to space, where objects (as the content) exist within that canvas. Some poetry by Rumi or similar might help. But I'm not sure.