Fact vs Truth

[Grayman]

What is the difference between fact and truth? I seem to get all kinds of answers to the question but none of them have been satisfactory. Also how does the definition of change between, science, philosophy, epistemology, common everyday use, or your own personal use?


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(fact1) all humans are moral
(fact2) Plato is human
(conclusion/fact3) Plato is mortal

Is Fact1 really a fact if you didn't verify that all humans are mortal? Is it just pragmatic truth instead?
Is Fact2 really a fact if you didn't verify that Plato was human? Would you need to find his body and check his bones and DNA to prove that he was in fact human?
Is Fact3 really a fact if it was gained through logic instead of actual observation?

To me Fact1 would certainly be a fact if we agreed that human is mortal as defined. If a human is 'by definition, a mortal then for any person to be immortal would mean they by definition cannot be human.

This would be closer to how I think...
(fact1) Humans are by definition, mortal
(High Probability) Plato is human
(conclusion/High Probability) Plato is mortal

 

[nanook]

you can think however you can think.

all humans are dead inside.
plato is especially dead inside.
plato was especially human.
therefore death is super human.

am i doing this right? there is no right way, only an agreed upon way. i do it my way.

what we call fact is a perspective that is especially easy to confirm by another sentient being (which, to be precise, is another voice talking inside of your consciousness, or letters appearing visually in your consciousness, where you think your monitor is - so all facts or proof is relative to your assumption that solipsism is too scary to be true and you use occams razor to rationalize the possibility of solipsism away, even though occams razor is not even an absolute authority, its very relative to a logical mind, that goes out of the window, the moment you inhale that molecule that sits in the leaves in your drawer)

why and how easy can a fact be confirmed?

because there are assumed rules on how to do it.

there are grammatical rules that can confirm logical games.
mathematical rules that can confirm calculations.

and the body or physical reality serves as a rule on how to do experiments, leading to the confirmation of sensations.

confirming intuition is not impossible but requires the most rules, since thinking must translate sensation into intuition - since the rules of intuition remain mostly unknown but we need common rules to confirm anything.

all so called facts are therefore relative to rather precise rules.

all of your examples involve logical rules, such as occams razor. it is unlikely that plato was an alien.

it is impossible to take into account all possibilities on all occasions. we have no choice but to assume the most likely one. but we can be conscious of those rules and if we are, then we know, that in logical fact, there is no sensorical truth, only an agreement on how to interpret sensorical reality - namely using occams razor.

and what we call believe or subjective truth is relative to especially imprecise rules or unknown rules. unknown rules include the logical grammar of the brain at the (or your own) highest stage of cognitive development, because it would requirer an EVEN higher stage to analyses those rules. without known and communicated rules, a confirmation of a perspective is called intersubjective but is not considered to be a proof of anything, so it does not turn subjective truth into a fact.

however all the rules of common integral consciousness are already analysed and communicated, allowing anyone, who has the brain for it, to do the experiment and confirm the perceptions included into the integral worldview. i make it sound simple. of course its not - we talk about a whole worldview.

 

[Grayman]

@Nanook

I find occams razor to be unsatisfactory to my way of thinking. First it is based on assertions and not absolute facts. Occams razor seems to result in assertion being treated as fact in order for you to make it work in a logical-binary structure.

For me reason is a chain of probabilities and the probability of the conclusion is at most as probable as the weakest link in the chain. One can claim this is burdensome but your intuition already carries the burden of determining the level of your confidence. In this case you are simply putting into language what your intuition is doing.

Why force assertions to take the form of being absolute? What does one gain from this, the ability to use a form of language to communicate reason?
Is it possible to scale the confidence of the assertion between two reference points so that we can use language to identify the measure of confidence and then use the chain of probabilities to identify probabile conclusions? Maybe a better method would be to have a chain of factors where assertions are a value between 0 and 1 and the conclusions would then be a facor of its products and would then be a factor between 0 and 1 which then can be used as an link in another chain of factors and so on. Arguably this logical structure may even be a better basis for how a quantum computer might make conclusions.

Am I even making sense?

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

Semantically they seem to refer to pretty much same thing.

For example, it is a fact that I bought food today. Also, it is true that I bought food today. So in that sense, a fact is just a proposition that is true.

 

[Cognisant]

When someone says something is factual they're saying they have evidence to support their claim which makes it (ideally) irrefutable, although it's also used to imply they have practically overwhelming evidence or the support of a peer-reviewed study.

 

[Grayman]

When someone says something is factual they're saying they have evidence to support their claim which makes it (ideally) irrefutable, although it's also used to imply they have practically overwhelming evidence or the support of a peer-reviewed study.

So Plato being human wouldn't be a fact?

 

[nanook]

no, its in deed more like a hypothetical fact, since we assume that evidence for his humanity is buried somewhere near a gravestone with his name on it. but this doesn't mean that occams razor is not necessary to prove his humanity using his bones. without occams razor and other similar logical assumptions, there could be alternative explanations for that evidence. i think you asked why anyone would trust in logical rules. because they are a form of grammar embedded in the brain of rational people (similar to our ability to calculate), prior to those rules being analyzed and named in funny ways, such as occam's razor or "math" or "subtraction". so nobody chooses "for a reason" to think rationally, or, for example, to trust occams razor or to have any idea of probability at all or to count. rationality simply grows on them. and only rational people believe that plato was most likely human. and they hardly have another choice. but trans-rational people can question rationality. after recognizing it as an object inside of their awareness, that can be analyzed. which it is not, initially. when people start to reason, reason appears as a truth to them, as their reality. later its just their thoughts. but thoughts keep going around, so they may continue to voice their reason.

 

[Cognisant]

So Plato being human wouldn't be a fact?

There's more evidence for him being human than not but you're right he might not have been human so you could question whether or not it's a fact, although I think most people would dismiss you as stupid or insane if you did.

 

[AndyC]

I like that distinction, fact suggests evidence to a point it is beyond a reasonable doubt. Truth can exist regardless of evidence. Given fact is absolute, the distinction is lost if truth can't be said to exist with certainty.