What people consider to be absolute fact has changed over time. The process by which people construct that reality changes overtime as well. Extemporal and metaphysical explanations were more popular in the past to explain causation. In the modern context, most people take a material approach to reality. This means that there is one thing that is being either interpreted or experienced by different viewers. Reality in this context is a shared but disjointed experience. The construction of what is real then becomes a battle for what is real not for the individual but the collective.
Absolutism in material experience
Facts or axioms inform the material experience. For the materialist, their base set becomes and inarguable set of pillars that constructs a larger reality. This set depends entirely on the individual’s personal moral and epistemic codes. The result is a rigid and finite construct that should universally acceptable to any person. When that construction is challenged it is a direct challenge to reality as a whole.
The real fallacy
The viewer is then the constructor of an external object. The real, as something that is experienced or observed, is at the discretion of the viewer. Stop gaps, for individuals, exist within objective criteria and reproducibility. If a thing is inarguable between groups or provable by repetition it is absolutely true. The bedrock of this truth becomes the foundation for future truths.
The problem
Sometimes the methodology or thought process is informed by falsehoods. The simplest example of this is truths informed by falsities. A good portion of Freud's ideas about the mind are a good example of this. His cognitive archetypes and ideas on early development have been exercised from the discipline, but his ideas on the unconscious mind and parts of the brain have been instrumental.
The result
Reality becomes informed by inarguable tenants. Metaphysical and extemporal constructions give access to unknown knowns. The “what if” and “maybe” questions that a purely material approach fails to grasp. Reality just at the grasp of the viewer exists within this realm. People have a limited set of tools to view reality, and those tools can be tricked. Researchers mitigate limits in observation with technology and process. As people rely more on external sources to solve more complex questions society will need to accept that material reality is out of both individual and human hands.
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