Is truth a fact?

[Talzor]

In one of the mafia games, we have a slight disagreement over the word "fact". There seem to be two different views which I believe are best expressed as the question: Is the word "fact" subjective or objective? The discussion isn't really appropriate in a mafia thread and so, I present it here.

Option 1. A fact is subjective to a person. You might know something thing to be true, while I do not. Thus this thing is a fact to you, and not to me. E.g. a scientist forms a hypothesis and at some point proves it, at which point it becomes a fact. (To him at least, he'll now need to tell the rest of the world)
Essentially something is only a fact if it is a know truth.

Option 2. A fact is objective. E.g. The scientists hypothesis was a fact all time, even though he didn't know this until he proved it. Essentially a truth and a fact is the same thing.

Disclaimer: I (current) hold the view that option 1 is the correct one and as such this presentation may be biased in that direction.

[worm]

i chose subjective. if you hadn't described a scientist making an observation, i would have...even before reading your disclaimer.

a lot of my students had trouble distinguishing a scientific law from a theory. i seem to remember learning in grade school (incorrectly) that once a theory is proven, it becomes a law.

in the context of the scientific method, a fact is an observation and a law is a collection of facts for which we can develop equations that have predictive power. a theory is an attempt to understand the underlying why and how.

i think truth is all the facts and the accurate description of how and why they occur. that is, a fact is only true under a limited set of conditions, whereas truth is all-encompassing.

[worm]

a little addendum that's not strictly science-based:

you can have an untruth made up of facts that bring one to a misleading conclusion...the most effective lies usually include a portion of the truth.

[Coyote]

I can't answer this until you define 'subjective' and 'objective'.

And 'truth'.

And 'proven'.

And 'and'.

And 'semantics'

[Courk]

Without reading your post, I chose objective. After reading your definitions of the two, I realize I should have chosen subjective.

However, in general, I think a fact is objective or at the very least, can be either. Snow is colder than flame. That's a fact. You can tell that, I can tell that. Objective.

You feel cold right now. Also a fact (if you feel cold). You can feel it, but I feel warm. Subjective.

[Coyote]

No, "I feel warm" is also an objective fact. If you had said "It is warm", that would be subjective.

[Courk]

Yeah, I was trying to say that you felt the room was cold, but I didn't. Left out the whole "room" part.

[Bicho the Inhaler]

If facts can be subjective, then "fact" is an empty term. Facts are by definition objective.

[worm]

i wouldn't say it's an empty word...facts are still useful.

i agree with coyote. it's semantics. i chose subjective because i agreed with the qualifying statement more than the one for objective. also, there is necessarily a subjective element to any fact because it must be based on human perception.

my main fault with the second part is that it equates fact with truth, and the idea that a fact can be a fact before a person observes it. imo, that doesn't make any sense.

to me fact requires perception, while truth does not.

[Courk]

If you are cold, no matter what your actual body temperature is, then you are cold. It's subjective, but it has to be taken as fact since I cannot diprove what you are feeling. Ideally a fact is objective, but lacking the ability to independently measure something, subjective will have to do.

To me, fact does not equal truth. Truth is more like remembering a past incident and someone else having a slightly different take on things. As far as either of you are concerned, you're not lying, but based on a variety of things, ranging from the angle at which you witnessed the incident to past experiences you've had that shape who you are, you can perceive the same event in different ways. But, as far as you're concerned, what you perceived is the truth.

Take this example:
I once saw on some real-life videos show a video of someone in custody walking through an airport with an escort. Suddenly he is shot by a man at a phone booth. As explained by someone the show interviewed (or maybe the narrator), the camera caught just bare facts: the guy on the phone shot the other guy. However, as the show further explained, the man in custody had molested the son of the guy on the phone, and that's why the guy was in custody. Here, someone who knows the situation could perceive the truth as the guy on the phone seeking revenge against the guy in custody. Someone across the lobby who doesn't know the situation could perceive the truth as someone shooting another person in cold blood. Both saw the same event, but perseived it differently.

[Samadhi]

I am the most super cool member of the GL.

That's truth. Do I believe it? So what! Is it really true or not? How would you know the difference?

[Mr Stoofer]

An opinion, not the answer (guess which way I voted in the poll):

The state of the universe at any one time (where each molceule is and its movement etc) is a fact.

The moment anyone tries to report on such facts, they become subjective. Nothing anyone tells you can be regarded as an objective fact because it must necessarily be subject to their own subjective interpretation, opinion, etc. Indeed, the mere fact that they chose to tell you that "fact" and not one of the infinite other "facts" is a subjective element. Courk gives one example of how this can work - the whole nature of the story changes depending on whether or not you include the background information.

Moreover, even one's observations are subjective. I don't believe anyone can see a thing or an event and not impose on it their own layer of subjective interpretation. Example:

• My daughter sees a piece of cheese sitting on a block of wood. She thinks "yummy" and decides to eat it.
• I see a rat trap and want to get out of the building.

In either case we see the same "facts" but the "truth" we have is entirely subjective.

[Samadhi]

[Mr Stoofer]

[Mr Stoofer]

And if we simply agreed that "In this room there is some cheese", that would be so incomplete as to be misleading (i.e. untruthful) - on any view.

[Lepton]

[physics interlude]

I like to drive a wedge between Opinion and Objective fact ( o V o ). The former would be like "I feel cold" and the latter would be "this stove burner is 100 degrees Celcius". The former is pretty useless in an argument about truth and fact, so let's disregard it.

Now, here's the cool thing: quantum mechanics and relativity put some serious restraints on objective statements. Position, velocity, mass, and the passing of time are all relative concepts and thus they cannot be stated as objective truth, nor can quantities derived from these. In fact, some work during the late 90's has shown that even physical theories may themselves be relative (I posted about this last week in OT). This is known as duality. There list of things that may be agreed upon by *all* observers is thus:
1. causality
2. existence
3. maybe some other things like this
The point is that there is no such thing as non-trivial objective statements.* Thus, there are no universal truths except for stuff like causality, which is basically the statement that time moves in one direction only. Given existence and causality, I can make a hand-waving argument for the 3rd law of thermodynamics (that entropy never decreases in a closed system). So one might say that the only truth in the universe is the First Law of Kipple.

*"There are no non-trivial statements about the universe which are objective."

[/interlude]

[Antrax]

[Lepton]

I love you, Antrax.

[Samadhi]

what took him so long...

[Mr Stoofer]

[raekuul]

As I've learned it...

Fact- A statement that can be proven or disproven through experimentation.

Opinion- A statement that cannot be proven or disproven by experimentation

Truth- A fact that can only be proven or disproven by experimentation and all experiments on fact yield related results.

[Jack_Ian]

As I understand it, a fact is verifiable.
Truths which have been verified but that are generally known would be called an "well-known fact" and there are also facts that are not generally known, called "unknown facts" and the whole range in between.
A truth which is not yet verified is not a fact.

[Chuck]

Whether or not you consider something to be a fact depends on how much verification you personally require. What one person considers to be a fact might be considered a weak theory by someone who requires more evidence.

[Jack_Ian]

Crying out to be posted

[Yamahako]

I think there is a problem relating Subjection and Objection to Truth and Fact.

Something is Objective when the conclusion arrived at is independent to perspective.
Something is Subjective when the conclusion arrived at is based on perspective.

To use the mouse trap analogy - "there was cheese on a trap" is an objective statement. No amount of interpretation or perspective changes that statement in a significant way or in a way that invalidates it.

The cheese was food is a Subjective Statement, the cheese was bait is a subjective statement. It could be either, it could be both, it could be neither. In certain contexts it could be that those are exclusive statements (ie. they could not both be true at the same time) or they could be inclusive statments (ie. they could both be true at the same time). However - cheese *is* food, and cheese *can* be bait, showing that regardless of perspective there are varying degrees of truth that can exist in these two statements. But in the case of Cheese being on a trap - its food and bait (being that the mouse will eat it, and being that it is there to lure a mouse to get caught can both exist as true statements concurrently).

Even calling it a mouse trap could be subjective, as perhaps they are trying to catch rats, or hampsters - or perhaps the cheese on the trap is in a museum and it was an exhibit as art.

All three of those statements are true even though they are both subjective and objective.

Fact is something that can't be subjective and is true at all times. The mouse trap can't be a fact simply because its existance can be changed or different depending on interpretation, perspective and intent. Other than to define the objects in the set and to acknowledge its existance, not much more can be construed about it that isn't in someway subjective.

Truths can be subjective - it can be true that it's a mouse trap, or it could be true that it's art - that is what separates them from facts.

In my opinion anyway (chew on that for a second...)

[Samadhi]

Was the heese tasty?

[Mr Stoofer]

Yes, but now my finger hurts. (Or does it?)

[Samadhi]

Say true sai?