Has TRUTH Become More Subjective... Because There is PhotoShop?
This morning my wife & I were talking about fake news & the way some talk about #truth as something "variable." People even "create" truth. She observed "I wonder if TRUTH has become more subjective because of Photoshop?" What do YOU think?
Yeah what is truth? It is a good question and it is extremly hard to define it. Of course it is true that an apple is red but it is also true that an apple is green.
I had really long discussions with a friend of me.
I heard a truthworthy report is one that has at least three independant sources which all tell the same story. So far so good but who really checks the relation?
If you said something like mandala-stones have healing power and I say the same thing and then someone would find a third person that states the same, is it the truth then?
Other thruthes come down to how far can your imagination go. Your picture is a good example. I've heard that some peoole say that this was an ancient tree so this is just the treestomp.
Some people have never seen a really old and big tree and just assume they can't be bigger than the ones in their local forests.
But then again noone has ever seen such a big tree to know for sure this was one too.
I know there were really big tree hundreds of years ago but I just cannot imagine that there would be one that grows that big.
Who could clarify something like this and could present the truth?
I've seen hemp grow 4 meters in just a year and saw a cactus also 4meters high but that took over 400years. So there are sifferences in growtempo and if you give something enough time it might get that big..?
Truth is also the most believed theory in science for example so thruth can change as well.
Electrons were little balls circling around the core of the atom, now they are small waves doing the same. It changed with new discoveries but both are true to their respective point in time.
It IS true that I love my girlfriend but do I find two other sources that are not related to me and her that state the same? Probably but even if I am the only one that states that, it is true.
Very hard topic you have picked here:) I hope I added some value here with my statement.
Cheers!
Ah yes, you definitely added some value to the discussion @rheteric!
Truth can definitely be something that involves a lot of interpretation... and even then it still remains quite subjective on some levels.
In this particular instance, truth became part of a greater discussion of how we now have more and more tools (like photoshop) that allow for manipulation, and so we end up with a situation where people are more able to pursue their own agendas while having at their disposal tools that falsify what we believe we are seeing.
And so, you can manipulate someone's face or a video to reflect something that didn't actually happen, but creating the illusion that it happened somehow serves the manipulator's agenda. Of course, this can also be applied to make "scientific studies" look real when in fact they are just fabrications made to support someone's agenda (perhaps a pharmaceutical manufacturer's?) or for personal gain.
More than ever, the ability to engage in critical thinking has become an essential part of navigating the ocean of "fake news" and more that is out there.
Hi Peter
You are right. Truth right now is more like your personal belief than a fact itself. Truth can get twisted so many times it is just not possible anymore to have an absolut answer.
Haha, yes I've seen that I went in a total different direction as your other commentors. Just recently I've read too what you were talking about. This "deep fake" trend of manipulating vidoes in livetime. This is alarming indeed! Imagine the panic if someone makes a war declaration of any goverment against any other. Noone would know if it's real or not. Or even worse. Most people don't even know about this technology so they logically assume it is legit.
Photoshop is a problem too. I remember I wrote once an essey in school about manipulated pictures in the media. Turning water into blood to make it more dramatic and so on. Crazy!
That is the conclusion we all have to make. Take everyting with a grain of salt and critically ask yourself is this possible? But then again we are back to personal onpinions.
A really hard topic it is.
Btw: your awesome mandala-stone arrived today. I'm so happy. I even made a short post about it, haha!
Cheers
Eric
Unfortunately these days there's no such thing as a collective truth.
Everyone has their own version of the truth.
Truth is malleable and changeable.
Truth is an umbrella with a lot of little holes poked in it so that thousands of little specs of lies can easily seep through.
We alter pictures so that they appear differently........we even alter stories so that they appear differently.
Was it always this way?
I guess that depends on who you ask.
Very subjective, indeed.
We live in times where individual perceptions have all but replaced any form of collective reality. In many ways, the LOUDEST voice has replaced the best, or most honest, or most representative. Suddenly, everybody has more ability to make their agenda appear front and center.
Is that a good or a bad thing? Or is it simply a new way of looking at information?
No easy answers there...
Indeed. As rarely we see a straight photo from the lens. Our being witnesses what we consider truth based on our belief patterns, which may not be true at all.
What concerns me in this whole equation is that so many seem predisposed towards perpetuating UN-truth, as opposed to simply reporting "fact" as it happened, leaving each person to make up their own mind.
We're living in times when we can get plenty of info on any subject with just a click but at the same time, it's too difficult to differentiate the truth from the propaganda/disinformation. Are these times good or bad? Answering your question, I think with too much info, everyone thinks s/he is expert on any subject. So, in a way, yes truth has become more subjective. Another reason that killed objectivity is that social media and cell phones alienated the humans so they want to get attention through show off usually perfectionist one whether it's through Photoshop. For example, check this post.
Thank you! I did get a really good laugh from that web page of funny photoshops!
Perhaps it is just part and parcel of the digital age that everyone wants to be "more special" than everybody else, and so they will go to great lengths to portray themselves in artificial ways. Maybe humans have always been like that... and now we simply have the tools for each individual to do something, where before self-publishing, it was impossible.
Good or bad? I don't know... but perhaps a reflection of the greater TRUTH about how humans perceive themselves.
Hey @denmarkguy, I'm happy to help to get a good laugh. Me too had a good one. :)
I a strong believer of nurturing so I think the collective human conscience is a true depiction of a certain time in the history... take the example of 70s music...I can listen to that same music everyday for hours and hours without getting a slightest feeling of boredome...so, in my view, it's the current time and commercialization that has made humans act that way that they give more importance to things, formation and artificiality and not to the originality and humans:
It’s hard to find absolute truth out there. More times than not it seems the “winner” is the one who tells how “things happened.” It’s a very troubling issue in textbooks and many other formats.
It also become rather hard to try and work out what the truth was in the first place. You could have ten scientific studies all disagreeing with each other on what was the cause or is this harmful or not. So it does seem from your own pointing out "creating truth" is a thing with a dollar amount assigned to it.
Then you have people who for whatever reason just will not accept things so they seek out “truth” and people are more than willing to tell them what they want to hear so it does become subjective at that point.
This came up because I was reading some piece a couple of weeks ago about the skills of some photoshoppers now being so great-- and there are new masks and filters-- that you can't TELL if someone's face has been photoshopped onto another body.
So, basically, if you have a photograph of some person "being somewhere" it's now reaching a point where that's no longer meaningful evidence of ANYthing... because the photo could have been doctored.
How does that impact what we think of as "truth?" What are "facts?"
All it takes is a single doctored photo/video of someone being "beat up by the police" and suddenly you have riots, and all other kind of nonsense before more details come out.
People take at face value what there eyes see they no longer care about the facts. In fact unless you where there and witness something yourself its almost greatened you are just going along with someone's version of what the facts are. Even then witness due to being scared or other factors don't even know what happened sometimes.
People just feel this need they have to be the victim or someone they know is the victim. I'd say even if you did find the truth its impact in many cases is null and void. People just want go from one thing to the next without investing in the time to follow up on things.
Off topic
Not sure how your folders/bookmarks are going but If you ever use discord you should look into GINAbot I gave it a try the other day and I’m loving it so far it’s a very nice digital assistant.
Some of its settings: mentions, votes, comments, and new posts by author (I’ve not tired last one yet.) It seems like it might be the rather easy solution many of us wanted so we don’t have to be so concerned about feed spam.
It’s also free and it just messages you in discord whenever an event you pick has happened. Let me know if you want a link that explains it better than I can.
I saw mention of GINAbot a couple of times in posts this past week, but haven't really looked into it.
One of the mentions that looked appealing is the instant notification if you get a mention somewhere and various other interactions.
I mostly use @penguinpablo's SteemBlockExplorer-- it effectively streams everything that happens, but it's not much in the way of notifications.
now they can put a face (head) ON another body in a video...almost impossible to detect.
and the voice obviously..but they've been changing the voice on video's forever...months even.
some of the excerpts of Trumps Speeches shown by the hostile media come to mind
I don't have to believe it because I witness it first hand having heard it straight from his mouth. As millions of other Americans have as well.
And also have seen it straight from his Twitter account. It cannot be disputed.
Its funny how Trump goes on about #fakenews. It's just news that he doesn't like because it puts him in a negative light.
The real #Fakenews is Donald J. Trump. He is a pathological liar. Plain and simple. I do not believe hardly a word that come out of that man's mouth !
Nice picture of a tree stump you got there.
Unfortunately, when everything in a science book is lies, then it really gets hard to gauge anything as truth or not.
When scientists will stubbornly stick to what the learned then what the current data is telling them.
Upon photoshop, would you rather believe the "official" story of the JFK assassination? Or would you rather look at the Zapruder film and say, pretty quickly, that was photoshopped?
Thank you! Once upon a time trees grew five miles tall and represented the only way for humans to ascend to higher levels of consciousness. It's TRUE! I read it on several web sites...
I always end up back at "follow the money." Who stands to gain from perpetuating scientific UN-truth? Whose pockets are getting lined? Who recently bought a 75-foot yacht they technically speaking shouldn't be able to afford? Who will lose control if a different version of reality sees the light of day?
I've been studying how to beat cancer lately and I can tell you that it is NOT easy to dissect the truth from partial truths and outright deception. You can read 2 scientific papers that say practically the same thing, only each of them reaches very opposing conclusions. It's no wonder people throw their hands up in the air and turn their lives over to the so-called experts.
You can find "scientific proof" of almost anything on the Internet! Bacon is good for you, AND it will kill you... all at the same time.
Ultimately, I find it all comes back to "follow the money." It increasingly feels like "truth" is more dependent on who's paying for it, than on its actual veracity in the physical world.
If only the universities went back to being funded with public money, we could trust their reports a lot more. With private money threatening to withhold funding for damning reports, of course you wouldn't find any! Simply fudge a few numbers here and there, manipulate the environment of the experiment and report the findings that have been expected! (and paid for)
Yes, one of the fundamental problems with "for profit" healthcare is that the incentive is not on "healing," the incentive rests on "treatment." And then it rests on focusing on whatever "treatments" are the most profitable.
It's not the patients that need to be kept happy, it's the investors.
I always wondered the same... photoshop creates a ‘fake’ reality, specialy when is related to beauty. What I like the most in your post though, was the way you metioned your wife. It sounds like a very happy marriage. Congratulations for that :)
The beauty industry is a beast of its own... manipulated images are used to portray a reality women (and to a lesser degree men) are supposed to aspire to... but it's actually a "reality" that doesn't really exist, except as a construct to sell products to give people hope that they can move in that direction.
Thank you-- we do have a really good relationship; including the fact that we spend a lot of time every day just talking about life and the meaning everything.
How nice! I got divorced three years ago, but I still have hope to find a good husband and have a health relationship. Much Love to both of you❤️
I don't know about "Truth" becoming more subjective.... but photo evidence of "truth" is definitely becoming more.... questionable, lol.
d
Truth itself, perhaps not. But then again... the easier it becomes to manipulate the supporting evidence to reflect an UNtruth that supports a specific agenda (rather than, for example, a common good), the shadier "truth" becomes.
And so, that leads me back to the deeper issue of whether or not we can actually unfuck these disturbing trends...
Truth as a concept is never subjective, but Photoshop can certainly help to make it seem that way!
True enough... Photoshop (as a metaphor for manipulation) obfuscates the truth. People take their personal opinions in which they have a stake and use Photoshop to manipulate their lies into what suddenly looks like a White Paper from MIT or Princeton. Then someone else starts citing that paper as "truth" and before you know it, all we have is garbage soup.