You're welcome. Looks like a Van Gogh to me.

A composite image of the south pole of Jupiter made from JunoCam images taken during the 1st, 3rd, & 4th orbits of NASA's Juno spacecraft, August 2019.

The brute picture of a planet

Mmmokay. In a sense, a presupposition is 'theoretical'.

Still, there is such a thing as the brute picture taken of a planet, its spectrum analysis and the likes. Brute facts, the data, this data and not another.

So you think object permanence is a theory. A sort of theory about everything that we derive from experience.

To me, it seems difficult to verify or falsify from experience, because when you check that objects are still there, you must look at them objects. So you can't see what they do when you don't look at them.

If you're talking about the use of the terms in science, there's a distinction, but it's what I described, not what you described. — InPitzotl

What distinction did you describe, exactly? Short version please.

Again, you replied, but you did not answer the question. Is it a fact that planets exist when you aren't looking at them, or a theory that planets exist when you aren't looking at them?: — InPitzotl

Neither. It's an absolute presupposition for astronomy. Supposedly, if we thought that celestial objects disappear, we wouldn't try and track their path across the sky and astronomy would never had been founded.

You may not like the answer, but it is one nevertheless. I refer you to Collingwood's Essay on Metaphysics.

"But the observations that were done, remain done, factum," ...but that's a contradiction. You're using certainty as a criteria, and we can't be certain an object is there when we are looking at it either. — InPitzotl

As explained, it is an absolute presupposition that things remain 'there' even when you don't look at them. That's why we look for our keys when we misplace them.

Even at a philosophy forum, the one place in the world that should allow for some nuance and detail, we're now supposed to be all politically correct and superficial. — baker

Don't assume that this is your usual 'Mary's room' amateur philo discussion. It's a matter of life and death for people.

We are supposed to be responsible citizens of the world and of our communities. What we write can either be part of the problem, or be part of the solution. Exercise caution. Keep your head cool. Speak of what you know. If you know nothing about vaccines, then don't try and play the expert. If you heard a rumor, verify it or look at the source before spreading it. This sort of things.

She pointed out that typically, countries with high vaccination rates are those where people trust the government. — baker

Yes, that makes sense.

Eh, perhaps, but I still suspect for the whole idea of Continental Philosophy just to be a way for some philosophers to get everyone whom they disagree with in the same boat. — thewonder

Yes, it's a one-size-fits-all xenonym meaning "not from these parts". Like "continental breakfast".

I think it's total crap too, so we agree on that. — Janus

Agreed here as well.

He must have a nice side, but I have yet to see it.

Where do you draw the lines and what is your good reason to draw the lines there? — InPitzotl

That's easy, and already explained: data, empirical evidence, are facts. Theories are not.

If facts are theory, explain to me why we need facts (data, observations)? Why can't we just rely on theory? Why do you keep your eyes open when you drive your car? :-)

Where does object permanence lie? — InPitzotl

In my mind it's an absolute presupposition. I.e. it's part of metaphysics.

You've pointlessly quoted me out of context, omitting the part in which I said I have not claimed that 1+1=2 is a fact, to make it seem that I have claimed that. — Janus

Ah okay, apologies. Misunderstood you.

because the stellar/galactic facts that lead to Hubble's Law themselves rely on theory. — InPitzotl

Their interpretation relied on theory. Their collection, even, relied on theory but there is still such a thing as the brute picture taken of a distant galaxy, its spectrum analysis and the likes. Brute facts, the data, this data and not another. There is something here that goes beyond theory. Even if all the theories underlying the spectral analysis Hubbe relied on are false, these observations still happened and still gave the results they gave, and any new theory would have to explain them.

:100:

it sounds like you just came up with a distinction on your own — InPitzotl

I've brought it up before on the thread:

And it provides another reason to define facts as 'acurate observations', at least in scientific language: science is made of 1) observations and 2) induced theories tying the observation in a logical or mathematical net. Now, logicians tell us that induction never provides certainty, that just because you never saw a black swan doesn't mean there's no such thing. Therefore our induced theories are provisional. But the observations that were done, remain done, factum, unless they were poorly done of course. Any new theory would have to contend with past observations. So observations (and only they) are facts. — Olivier5

I still think there is an important distinction to make between empirical facts and theories. And since theories can (at least in theory!) be true, equating facts with truth erases that distinction.

If you're trying to clarify the difference between the totally disparate "fact" and "theory" concepts, you're doing a bad job illustrating the difference. — InPitzotl

Why don't you try and do a better job than me? This is indeed an important distinction, which I am trying to uphold.

And then the hypothesis that this blown fuse was the reason your car was not starting occured to you and you changed the fuse and then the car started, proving that the blown fuse was at least in part responsible for the condition today.

So the facts of the matter are that you found a blown fuse and that the car started when you replaced it. The rest, ie the idea the your car didn't start yesterday because of that blown fuse, are theories, not facts.

It is a fact that there was a blown fuse. — InPitzotl

Yes, it's an observable and verifiable fact, empirical, the kind I like. The kind that "turns out".

There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary and those who don't.

:lol: both are quite good but I prefer this one.

is a fact that 1+1=2, — Janus

In base 2 numeration, 1+1=10.

Truth and fact are synonymous, in both usages of the word fact. — Janus

Well then, if there is no difference between them, one of these words is redundant and can be disposed of.

what's being referred to is the fact that the problem is a fact that I do not know. — InPitzotl

What work is the word "fact" doing in this sentence, that would be missing if it wasn't there?

My car won't start... I would like to be able to say there's some fact of the matter that explains why it won't start. It doesn't seem helpful at all to consider whether there exists a person who knows that or not. — InPitzotl

What doesn't seem helpful to me is to shoehorn the word 'fact' in places where another word would work better. In this case: there ought to be a reason why your car won't start, a cause, some problem with it. That's what I would say to the mechanic, not "there ought to be some fact of the matter about it not starting".

I believe there is a fact of the matter, though, — Janus

What if he had no sexual orientation? What if he was asexual or pansexual or zoophile? In these cases Leonardo was neither gay nor straight.

You see? The problem with your attitude to facts is you tend to box them in your imagination before they even appear phenomenologically. Doing so is dangerous, it assumes a lot, that could turn out false. Your definition of facts gives you a false certainty.

Yes, I was already aware that you don't acknowledge the synonymy of 'fact' with 'actuality' despite its being as common a usage as the other. — Janus

If you have an example of a common usage of the word 'fact' as 'unknown actualities', I'm interested. I never saw it used this way.

I think it opens the door to abuse, to the word being used to describe pretty much anything. It is also confusing the concept of fact with the concept of objective truth, and generally I believe that words have distinct meanings and that one should not confuse them. What you are talking about is truth.

The example of 1+1=2 is just that: an example of a supposed "mathematical fact". I have showed that such facts are assumed or derived from assumed axioms. Their truth value is therefore arbitrarily chosen. There are systems of numeration where 1+1=10.

The latter treatment is much more pragmatic precisely because it unbinds factuality from my mental states. For example, this allows me to talk about yesterday, when I mistakenly thought X was a fact and the idea of Y did not even occur to me, in such a manner that I consider (with hindsight) X to have not been a fact yesterday and Y to have been a fact yesterday. — InPitzotl

That's one way to go about it. Another is to consider that Y was true yesterday, even though I didn't know it for a fact, i.e, use the concept of truth. I can envisage that it was always true that life on this planet was carbon-based. But to say it was a fact during the cambrian, when nobody knew what carbon was, rings improper to my ear. It was true but it was not yet a fact.

, I disagree with the war metaphor; — AJJ

Oh yeah?

Presumably they'd decide whether or not they thought it was the right thing to do and act accordingly. — Isaac

Presumably they will run away from their social duty, as they do now.

Cowards, to be precise.

They can't take a shot of RNA for their nation. If there's a war and they are asked to take shots of lead for the nation, what will they do?

For other people, it is a massive inconvenience. — Isaac

Sissies.

2 is what you arrive at when you add 1 and 1. It is the simplest definition of 2 that I know of.

that you can state a fact without any observation to back it up. If Leonardo was gay, that is a fact. If Leonardo was not gay, that is a fact. We have no way of knowing which is the fact; and that is a fact — Janus

We're going around in circles. The only real fact here -- the way I understand the word -- is about your ignorance of Leonardo's sexual orientation.

If you confine the meaning of 'fact' to one of its common usages; i.e.true statements, then of course it will only be statements that are facts or not. If you allow for ... facts as actualities... — Janus

I do indeed restrict the meaning of 'fact' to statements known to be true. I believe using it for pretty much anything out there ("actualities") is simply improper.

I don't want to kick the puppy. — Banno

Thanks for your mercy.

I am trying to help you make your point.

Are you viewing ‘observe’ as ‘experience’? — I like sushi

I am talking about the collection of data via human, conscious, careful perception and documentation of a phenomenon.

I cannot ‘observe’ 1 yet I can say 1+1=2 is a specific fact of basic addition. — I like sushi

Let me start by agreeing that mathematical facts may present a problem for my definition.

1+1=2 can be seen as the definition of 2, and I am not sure that definitions count as facts. Yet there are many more mathematical statements not counting as definitions or tautologies, like the Pytagoras theorem.

My way of thinking of such 'facts' is as follows: "Using the tools of classical logic, it is possible to logically derive from a certain set of fundamental statements (axioms) a number of other statements (theorems). If the axioms are true, the theorems are true.

The fact is in the logical link between axioms and theorems. The axioms themselves are neither true nor false, they are never proven by definition. They are just ASSUMED true to derive a certain type of mathematics.

So the question of mathematical facts boils down to: Does there exist logical facts? Like: is the law of excluded middle a fact?

I think that may be stretching the concept of fact too far.

My only question would they be to what ends? What can/do you/we achieve by shifting our perspective thus? — I like sushi

Mine is the classic distinction between facts and theories. It is mainstream. The SEP entry on 'Facts' starts thus:

Facts

Facts, philosophers like to say, are opposed to theories and to values (cf. Rundle 1993)

Reasons, sure. Not observations. — Banno

And what reasons are those?

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in order to get to a true statement describing some state of affairs accurately, you need an observer observing. — Olivier5

You can say "Leonardo was gay" and " Leonardo was not gay" and one of those statements will be a true statement, a fact; no observation required. — Janus

But you still need someone stating the statement for a statement to exist. Without someone saying "Leonardo was gay", this statement is not in existence so it cannot be true or false. And once it has been stated by someone, its truth value can only be assessed by someone based on the available empirical evidence to someone. It is not a fact if it is not buttressed by any evidence.

Brassens playing it live, after Lino Ventura asked him (on salue l'artiste!):

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3vl5l

And the Italian translation by Fabrizio de Andre:

A couple of covers, for good measure:

accuracy is just camouflaged truth. — Banno

Or vice versa: truth is better defined as accuracy, at least in science.

What observation leads to the conclusion that the area of a circle is given by π r² ? — Banno

Don't ask me. Ask yourself: "how did I (Banno) get to this conclusion? How do I know it for a fact?"

Surely you must have some reason to believe in that formula. What are those reasons?