truths and facts..
Posted: Sat Mar 23, 2024 2:50 pm
there is a great deal of confusion about truths and facts...
fact: Abe Lincoln was the 16the president of the US...
that is a fact.. but that fact leaves us with little information
that can impact us.. truth is something different...
Lincoln was the greatest president in American history...
that truth, our truth, collective or individually, is not fact,
it is a personal truth that people believe in.. opinion really...
now some people may believe that Lincoln was the greatest president
in American history and some may believe it is FDR... an argument
can be made for both.. and some hold for Washington to be the
greatest president.. and they could also be right...there is no
factual way to know which of them is the best president in American
history... depending on how you rate it, or set standards for it,
the greatest president could be any of those three or even another
possibility....say Teddy Roosevelt.. personally, I'm a fan of his...
but, hay that's me...
one of the major problems here is that people quite often mistake
their truths/opinions as fact...and fact as truths... I see many an argument
occur around this site due to the mistaken use of fact and truth...
Age and Wizard for example mistake their truths for facts..
a fact like Lincoln was the 16th president... whereas they offer
us only truths, opinions... presented as facts.. for example,
wizard say god is objectively a fact, because he personally
believes in god... a personal truth taken to be a universal fact...
belief in god is always a truth, not a fact...
because it can't be objectively proven, like we can show how Lincoln
was the 16th president.. belief in god is a belief in the possibility
for god, not a certainty for god..
and sometimes we believe so strongly in a truth, that we turn it into
a fact.. and express it as a fact.. but it is really just a strongly held
opinion... and many who have held this truth, that there is a god,
have later changed their mind and decided there is no god...
a truth can change.. whereas facts cannot..
if we hold that there is a god, we can also claim there is no god,
the ''TRUTH'' is flexible like that... but facts, we cannot hold
to our own facts... we cannot claim that Lincoln never existed,
or that Lincoln was in fact the 20th president...
the facts are against us...
facts cannot change, but truths/opinions can...
we all hold to truths... GOP/MAGA party holds that America
is a third world country and only IQ45 can save it....
That is truth, opinion with no basis in facts.....
Liberals/democrats hold that we can always improve our country..
there is some way in which we can improve ourselves and make
this a better country... which really says nothing about
overall state of America, just that we can make things better if
we work for it.... which is why liberal states are talking about or
have already done away with bail in criminal cases... a bail for a
rich person is easy, a few bucks, but making bail for a poor person
can be very hard... I can easily make a thousand dollar bail...
a guy in LA, was imprisoned for months because he didn't have
money for bail... a thousand dollars.. an if he is in jail, how
exactly is he supposed to raise a thousand dollars?
that tells us about the little ways in which we try to improve America....
we can't fix every flaw in American, but we can try to fix the more
egregious ones....
and therein lies some important aspects of this fact vs truths discussion...
that we holding to bails as being a problem is a truth, that to some,
bails should be even higher, again, not a fact, but a truth...
which depends on how one sees the reality around them...
and that is done via truths, not facts... One might see a crime
ridden America, but the fact is that crime has been falling in
America for a couple of years.. this is from the FBI....
so do we hold to the truth/opinion that America is crime ridden,
or do we hold to the fact that crime has been falling in America
for the last few years....
when one holds that America is the greatest country on earth
or IQ45 was the greatest president in US history, or Kropotkin
is an idiot, those are truths, opinions that have no facts supporting
them... but one of the interesting things about truths, is that
they can tell us something that facts cannot....
a truth can led us to other truths, that mean something in our lives...
What can I gain from the fact that the earth is 93 million miles from the sun?
not much really... I have to put that fact into wider context to make
that fact become meaningful... the earth being 93 million miles from
the sun makes the earth be in the ''Goldilock'' zone..
which is to say that the earth in in the habitable zone of a star and
can possibly support life...give context and now the fact of the earth's
distance from the sun can mean something very important.....
that our very existence depends on us being in the Goldilock zone..
so, in many ways, truths say something far more meaningful
and interesting than mere facts....if we say Lincoln was the 16th
president is nowhere as meaningful as saying he was the greatest
American president ever.... a truth, a personal truth can have
more meaning than a fact...because it can say more than what a
mere fact can say... but saying that truth/opinion doesn't make
it a fact.. just an opinion and we need to keep that in mind at
all times... knowing the difference between facts and truths...
Kropotkin..
fact: Abe Lincoln was the 16the president of the US...
that is a fact.. but that fact leaves us with little information
that can impact us.. truth is something different...
Lincoln was the greatest president in American history...
that truth, our truth, collective or individually, is not fact,
it is a personal truth that people believe in.. opinion really...
now some people may believe that Lincoln was the greatest president
in American history and some may believe it is FDR... an argument
can be made for both.. and some hold for Washington to be the
greatest president.. and they could also be right...there is no
factual way to know which of them is the best president in American
history... depending on how you rate it, or set standards for it,
the greatest president could be any of those three or even another
possibility....say Teddy Roosevelt.. personally, I'm a fan of his...
but, hay that's me...
one of the major problems here is that people quite often mistake
their truths/opinions as fact...and fact as truths... I see many an argument
occur around this site due to the mistaken use of fact and truth...
Age and Wizard for example mistake their truths for facts..
a fact like Lincoln was the 16th president... whereas they offer
us only truths, opinions... presented as facts.. for example,
wizard say god is objectively a fact, because he personally
believes in god... a personal truth taken to be a universal fact...
belief in god is always a truth, not a fact...
because it can't be objectively proven, like we can show how Lincoln
was the 16th president.. belief in god is a belief in the possibility
for god, not a certainty for god..
and sometimes we believe so strongly in a truth, that we turn it into
a fact.. and express it as a fact.. but it is really just a strongly held
opinion... and many who have held this truth, that there is a god,
have later changed their mind and decided there is no god...
a truth can change.. whereas facts cannot..
if we hold that there is a god, we can also claim there is no god,
the ''TRUTH'' is flexible like that... but facts, we cannot hold
to our own facts... we cannot claim that Lincoln never existed,
or that Lincoln was in fact the 20th president...
the facts are against us...
facts cannot change, but truths/opinions can...
we all hold to truths... GOP/MAGA party holds that America
is a third world country and only IQ45 can save it....
That is truth, opinion with no basis in facts.....
Liberals/democrats hold that we can always improve our country..
there is some way in which we can improve ourselves and make
this a better country... which really says nothing about
overall state of America, just that we can make things better if
we work for it.... which is why liberal states are talking about or
have already done away with bail in criminal cases... a bail for a
rich person is easy, a few bucks, but making bail for a poor person
can be very hard... I can easily make a thousand dollar bail...
a guy in LA, was imprisoned for months because he didn't have
money for bail... a thousand dollars.. an if he is in jail, how
exactly is he supposed to raise a thousand dollars?
that tells us about the little ways in which we try to improve America....
we can't fix every flaw in American, but we can try to fix the more
egregious ones....
and therein lies some important aspects of this fact vs truths discussion...
that we holding to bails as being a problem is a truth, that to some,
bails should be even higher, again, not a fact, but a truth...
which depends on how one sees the reality around them...
and that is done via truths, not facts... One might see a crime
ridden America, but the fact is that crime has been falling in
America for a couple of years.. this is from the FBI....
so do we hold to the truth/opinion that America is crime ridden,
or do we hold to the fact that crime has been falling in America
for the last few years....
when one holds that America is the greatest country on earth
or IQ45 was the greatest president in US history, or Kropotkin
is an idiot, those are truths, opinions that have no facts supporting
them... but one of the interesting things about truths, is that
they can tell us something that facts cannot....
a truth can led us to other truths, that mean something in our lives...
What can I gain from the fact that the earth is 93 million miles from the sun?
not much really... I have to put that fact into wider context to make
that fact become meaningful... the earth being 93 million miles from
the sun makes the earth be in the ''Goldilock'' zone..
which is to say that the earth in in the habitable zone of a star and
can possibly support life...give context and now the fact of the earth's
distance from the sun can mean something very important.....
that our very existence depends on us being in the Goldilock zone..
so, in many ways, truths say something far more meaningful
and interesting than mere facts....if we say Lincoln was the 16th
president is nowhere as meaningful as saying he was the greatest
American president ever.... a truth, a personal truth can have
more meaning than a fact...because it can say more than what a
mere fact can say... but saying that truth/opinion doesn't make
it a fact.. just an opinion and we need to keep that in mind at
all times... knowing the difference between facts and truths...
Kropotkin..