objective reality
What actually exists
Objective reality is reality as it exists independent of any observer's perceptions, beliefs, or interpretations.
The concept assumes facts exist whether or not anyone knows them—the tree falls in the forest regardless of witnesses.
Philosophy and physics both grapple with whether objective reality is knowable or even meaningful: Does objective reality exist, or only our experience of it?
- hard truthUnpleasant accurate statement
- empiricalBased on observation, not theory
- empirical evidenceProof from measurable observation
- scientific methodStructured process for investigation
- external worldReality beyond one's consciousness
thing-in-itself · noumena · epistemology · ontology · materialism · truthfulness · metaphysics · causality · falsifiability · sensory input · consciousness · reproducibility · hypothesis · experiment · observation · cognition · outside world · empiricism
- realityactuality, existence, being, truth, facts
- physicsphysics, momentum, atom, acceleration, gravity
- naturalismnaturalism, determinism, empiricism, materialism, physicalism
- ontologyontology, being, existence, becoming, universals
- Ayn RandAyn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, John Galt, Rand
- mechanismmechanism, clockwork universe, Newtonian mechanics, classical mechanics, automata
objective realitysubjective interpretation
Meaning shaped by perspective
subjective experience · subjective reality · personal truth · subjectivity · solipsism
objective realitydelusion
Stubbornly held false belief
illusion · fantasy · hallucination · imagination · dream
objective realityfalse reality
Perception divorced from truth
alternative facts · misinformation · propaganda · deception · unreality
objective, reality, object, real, objection, objector, objectives, objectively, objectivity