I've Come To Realize That "Facts" Don't Mean Much If A Person Refuses To Accept Them

by minimus 160 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  PSacramento

  Here's a simple example.

  A person is dirty and STINKS! The person smells HORRIBLE! People around gag. You mention how dirtyman stinks to high heaven and the person there says, "Prove it!"

  What is there to prove??

  Still, the "fact" is that someone is filthy dirty and stinks, yet you have someone disputing it....just because. (They prove just to be a waste of time)

  A great example of how facts CAN be limited to what is observable AND how that observation is to be interpreted.

  Anyone around that person well not deny that fact that he stinks, to them.

  That someone may find that stench "ok" is another matter of course.

  That the person in question is so comfortable with the stench that he/she can't smell it is also a fact.

  None of that changes the FACT of that persons stench to all those involved the only difference is how that stench is interpreted.

  Again, this is not the case with irrefutable facts.
• 

  EntirelyPossible

  Again, this is not the case with irrefutable facts.

  Yes, it is.
• 

  PSacramento

  Yes, it is.

  Irrefutable facts are subject to interpretation?

  How are mathematical facts, for example, subject to that?

  1+1 = 2 right?
• 

  Gopher

  As to the dictionary-definition thing: we are dealing here with STANDARDS not facts. As Tammy/TEC pointed out, these can change over time. "Shambles" once meant a meat market. "Meat market" came to mean a place where hunks hang out. "Hunks" came to mean men considered sexually attractive. "Attractive" is in the eye of the beholder.

  1+1 is 2, unless you are using a binary (base 2) numbering system in which case 1+1 = 10. (Base 2 counting = 1, 10, 11, 100, 101, 110, 111, 1000, etc.)

  "The sun rises in the east" is considered a fact but in the summer it rises at a point north of east, and in the winter it rises at a point south of east - which is actually more factual than the simple saying "the sun rises in the east". But generally "the sun rises in the east" because it doesn't rise in the west, south or north.
• 

  PSacramento

  You can make whatever subjective point you want. However it won’t make words mean what you want them to. The fact is that dictionaries are right and people who apply their own meaning to words are wrong. They may be happy in their ignorance but they remain ignorant. Facts are rather inflexible things. That is why they can be relied upon.

  True but they also tend to have more than one definition.

  Still, going with the dictionary definition of something is always a good place to start.
• 

  minimus

  I tried to use 1+1=2 and nobody wanted to refute it as I believe it is irrefutable.
• 

  PSacramento

  Mathmatical facts tend to be irrefutable, althoughj I don;t know enough about adavcanced mathematics to say that is not the case in some theoritical way.

  BUT it is 100% observable that 1+1 of the samething = 2 of the samethings.

  So that would be a universal fact, right?
• 

  minimus

  It would be unless YOU decided to simply not accept it.
• 

  EntirelyPossible

  Irrefutable facts are subject to interpretation?

  That's a great question. I didn't say they were so I am not sure why you are asking me, but the reality of the matter is "Yes, they are". For instance, that evolution happened is a fact. Exactly how or when is subject to interpretation, more data, more facts, but THE fact that evolution happened is 100% true.

  Again, it's a false equivalency to try to give unproveable, unverifiable, conflicting things heard from a voice or invisible spirit the same level of nuanced understanding of reality.
• 

  minimus

  sooo, what is truth?.....