Dealing with a co-worker or manager who says demonstrably false things can be a challenge, particularly at holiday office parties. Here’s a guide to handle a colleague in denial.
As Orwell knew only too well, if the concept of objective truth is moved into the dustbin of history there can be no lies. And if there are no lies there can be no justice, no rights and no wrongs.
Will the arrival and popularity of Oculus Go and other VR systems make us think differently about alternative realities and so-called alternative facts?
People universally believe scientists’ solar eclipse calendars, but vaccine warnings or climate predictions are forms of science that strangely do not enjoy equivalent acceptance.
Thoreau spent his life pursuing the ‘hard bottom’ of truth. But he confronted a sensationalist newspaper industry that, in many ways, mimicked today’s media environment.
Pundits have been keen to link post-truth to post-modernists, post-positivists or any other ‘postie’. They should turn their energy to forming a real popular front against Trump’s faux populism.
Beneath simple labels like post-truth, alternative facts and fake news is a complex set of issues. Any debate about the problems needs to start from some common points of reference.
The road to reconciliation doesn’t begin and end with truth commissions or trials. Change must occur at a systemic level, and communities must commit to rebuilding relationships.
Alternate realities don’t just exist in politics – and not all falsehoods are lies. Distortions of the truth can range from a normal part of human nature to pathological.
People who read false news items come to believe them – even if they know better. It doesn’t help to know the source is unreliable or the report has been debunked.
If people can be conned into jeopardizing our children’s lives, as they do when they opt out of immunizations, could they also be conned out of democracy?
To decide between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, American voters will have to decide which narrative they prefer, leaving the truth to emerge later from the political rubble.
The world around you might be an illusion and you’re really a brain in a vat connected to a supercomputer. Sounds preposterous? But can you prove it’s not true?
We now have access to an Internet containing a vast store of information much bigger than any individual brain can carry - and that’s not always a good thing.
Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, Lecturer on Bioethics & Humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical University; and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Tufts University School of Medicine; Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, Psychiatric Times., Tufts University