Re: Facts - an attempted definition WAS: Re: [ba-unrev-talk] Not In Our Name
Sorry Gary,
I penned that email while going through a 4 day backlog of mail on a thread by
date basis. I didn't realise you had pre-empted me on certain points in
http://www.bootstrap.org/lists/ba-unrev-talk/0209/msg00263.html (01)
>[pj] Not all beliefs about the perceived world are incontrovertible.
> The incontrovertibility of the belief entails that the aspect of the
> perceived world that is its subject matter should be classified as a fact.
> By definition incontrovertibility survives communication." (02)
I would stand by this in spite of what you've written below. e.g. (03)
>[GJ] Since we all operate in a state of insufficient information, identifying
> anything as truly incontrovertible is not really possible. The best we can
> do is to get to a place where our level of confidence in the proposition is
> such that we are willing to treat is as "true" instead of fully qualifying
> the proposition at all times. Any "fact" of merit is subject to being shown
> to be less than totally correct as a result of further evidence. (04)
I simply disagree with that stance :-)
It is, imho, an intrinsic property of a fact that it does not change.
>[pj] A fact is an aspect of the percieved world, that if articulated in
language
> gives rise to a proposition that is an incontrovertible belief. (05)
E.g It is a fact that this is a reply to your email. (06)
--
Peter (07)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Garold (Gary) L. Johnson" <dynalt@dynalt.com>
To: <ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2002 11:24 PM
Subject: RE: Facts - an attempted definition WAS: Re: [ba-unrev-talk] Not In Our
Name (08)
> Since we all operate in a state of insufficient information, identifying
> anything as truly incontrovertible is not really possible. The best we can
> do is to get to a place where our level of confidence in the proposition is
> such that we are willing to treat is as "true" instead of fully qualifying
> the proposition at all times. Any "fact" of merit is subject to being shown
> to be less than totally correct as a result of further evidence.
>
> Since the amount of information that we can get about the world by our own
> observation is limited, we are also constrained, sooner or later, to have to
> choose what source or sources of information we are going to accept as being
> most nearly correct in any given case. It isn't pretty, but it is true.
>
> This is why it is so important to be able to backtrack to sources if there
> is a strong need to evaluate statements effectively. When some study is
> reported, there are all sorts of issues that we need to examine before we
> can say that the results are "facts" in this broader sense:
> * Who did the study?
> * What are their credentials in this area?
> * Are there any conflicts of interest or hidden agendas here?
> * Was the reporting correct, complete, and in context?
> * . . .
>
> The tools that we should develop should support asking these sorts of
> questions.
> Absolute certainty is not possible, but something approximating full
> disclosure should be.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Garold (Gary) L. Johnson
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org
> [mailto:owner-ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org]On Behalf Of Peter Jones
> Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2002 12:39 PM
> To: ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org
> Subject: Facts - an attempted definition WAS: Re: [ba-unrev-talk] Not In Our
> Name
>
> Garold (Gary) L. Johnson wrote:
> > ... The better an understanding that we can get of the *facts* of
> > the problem and their relationships the better chance we have of evolving
> > solutions that will work in the sense that they will eliminate rather than
> > alleviate the problem.
>
> Just thought I'd point out that 'fact' is one of those terms whose meaning
> gets
> debated a lot in philosophy.
> Here's a preliminary definition I cooked up a while back whilst thinking of
> these same issues.
>
> "What are facts?
> A fact is an aspect of the percieved world, that if articulated in language
> gives rise to a proposition that is an incontrovertible belief.
> Not all beliefs about the perceived world are incontrovertible.
> The incontrovertibility of the belief entails that the aspect of the
> perceived world that is its subject matter should be classified as a fact.
> By definition incontrovertibility survives communication."
>
> Note that this makes the class of facts rather narrow - they are effectively
> indisputable.
> This suggests to me that if the data is obvious, then perhaps it is actually
> differences in the way folks stitch it together that is the problem. Most
> academic activity is built upon that idea.
>
> Perhaps it is the links and inferences, and comparisons of such, that are
> more
> critical to the enterprise of problem solving after one has nailed the facts
> (a
> tough job in
> itself).
>
> --
> Peter
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Garold (Gary) L. Johnson" <dynalt@dynalt.com>
> To: <ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org>
> Sent: Monday, September 30, 2002 5:38 PM
> Subject: RE: [ba-unrev-talk] Not In Our Name
>
>
> > > such differences of opinion/judgment among thoughtful men
> > > . . . are mostly a matter of insufficient availability of shared,
> > verifiable facts.
> >
> > This is certainly true, but it isn't all of the problem. As Joseph M.
> Juran
> > says: "It isn't what you don't know that hurts you; it's what you know for
> > sure that isn't so." (multiple attributions). Not totally true, of course,
> > what you don't know *can* hurt you also.
> >
> > The terms "everybody knows", "common sense", "obvious", "self-evident",
> > "intuitive" and similar all denote knowledge that is claimed to be shared
> by
> > all an seldom is. One difficulty with most discussions is that they start
> in
> > the middle with all participants believing that everybody else shares what
> > are to them are obvious bits of knowledge. This turns out to be true
> almost
> > never. For this reason, going back to precise definitions becomes very
> > important. Learning to use language as unambiguously as possible and to
> pay
> > attention to such details as precise *shared* definitions is essential to
> > progress in serious discussion.
> >
> > Gary Richmond's post on "Poor in Assets and Income" makes this point quite
> > well. Given an inadequate definition of a single word can result in a
> > failure of even the best intentioned to resolve the difficulty. In social
> > problems, a major difficulty is getting a formulation of the problem that
> > actually takes into account all the relevant factors and tries to
> determine
> > which of those factors are causes and which are effects - a point that was
> > made in the posts on the commons site. Failure to state the problem in
> > adequate terms dooms us to trying to solve the wrong problem.
> >
> > Poverty is a classic case:
> > "Poverty means that the poor don't have enough money" results in programs
> to
> > give them money, which have failed, because that is far from all that is
> > needed.
> > The asset definition may be a better one, but in the light of some of the
> > commons information, sometimes "access to assets" is an important
> component.
> > Something such as poverty is a complex issue because it has many causes,
> and
> > not all who are poor are so for the same reasons. Attempts to solve an
> issue
> > such as poverty based on a simplistic definition results in "solutions"
> that
> > don't work. The better an understanding that we can get of the *facts* of
> > the problem and their relationships the better chance we have of evolving
> > solutions that will work in the sense that they will eliminate rather than
> > alleviate the problem.
> > Nearly all complex problems are also systems problems in the sense that
> > there are very few "independent variables" - everything impacts everything
> > else, and not all combinations of values are possible, and not all that
> are
> > theoretically possible are achievable.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Garold (Gary) L. Johnson
> >
> >
> >
>
> (09)