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 Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 11:12 am
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Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 5:07 pm
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I'm not sure about what they mean by "complete" exactly, as a half finished puzzle is "incomplete," but that doesn't mean the thing doesn't exist. However, I DO see how consistent and finite and consistent quite well and don't see how you find those two things to be untrue. Reality is quite consistent. In reality a thing is always itself, it's not like some days a cat is a cat and others a cat is a dog with no pattern or reason behind it. Sometimes things will SEEM different, like something looks like a cat and acts like a cat, but upon closer examination it's a mechanical puppet. Even in these cases though, the thing still acts like itself - it's acting like the mechanical cat puppet it is and it's programing and parts allow it to be and tell it to be and unlike an actual cat it's not really alive and perform any strictly living functions. Or, still on the case of consistency, sometimes something seems to be acting against it's own rules only because their is another rule/rules we are not aware of at the time or forgot that make the thing act in such a way. As for being finite, consider this, something I was thinking about the other day: infinity is something only theoretically, but not actually possible in as far as I can see. There are essentially three types of quantifiable things that exist - matter, energy, and abstract things like ideas and concepts. Matter can be neither created (poofed up from absolute nothing) nor destroyed (poofed away into nothing with no side effects/results/etc), so that means matter is finite. Energy can be equated to matter (the whole E=MC2 formula ties them together) so if matter is finite then energy exists in a static quantity too. That leaves only abstractions, however, while those could theoretically be infinite, abstractions require something else to create them, either brains or machines, and since both of those things require energy to run, they too are actually limited. The one thing I could see being argued with on this is "time," but that would come down to a matter of definition. As for a definition of that,
time [tīm]
n (plural times)
1. system of distinguishing events: a dimension that enables two identical events occurring at the same point in space to be distinguished, measured by the interval between the events. Symbol t
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
So in this case, time is a measurement, however, it' one that is always being used as long as there is something to measure. Time exists so long as other things exists. Time is limited also by the existence of any of the matter and energy for it to measure. It has a potential for limits too.
To come back to the matter of "complete" though, that may be more a matter of semantic correctness, like two puzzle pieces are not by themselves a real puzzle actually, however the puzzle pieces ARE real as the COULD be correctly called "puzzle PIECES" -- they ARE complete pieces of a puzzle. |
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Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 3:41 pm
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Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 10:12 am
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Reality? What is reality? Reality is anything in space. But thats just a label right? A label that humans have though up to call everything they can see, touch, taste, feel, hear and smell. But that does not mean its there, because just like a game of Bullshit, there is a liar amongst the mass, but I still like to use the label because its the only thing we know everything as. Reality is basically, like I said, its anything in space, but being that Reality is different from everyone else's thoughts about the beings in space, its very complex. For example a person who walks in the middle of a street in an unknown town would just look around and around at the new environment with fear because of unfamiliarity. A person who walks in the town and is a resident is not scared because of the familiarity with the town. In both eyes of the people, they see a town but the feelings of the town are highly different. This could be an explanation of Reality, but being that everyone sees it differently in many depths of factors, its truly the place of orignality in the human psyche. So you can think what you want about reality because you see it your way, I see it my way, every other organism sees it their way. and that is the truth behind it, just like you said Austi, but also consider the way we experience Reality differently and then take out the human perspective and element in space. The people are no longer in the town from before, what is left? Buildings, schools, homes. Essentially matter and energy are the only things there. Since no judgemental perspective is virtual here, its just what is there. The pure basic of Reality is that of the town. So our perspective of Reality, in my opinion, is just illusion to the basic as in a dog has crapped on the floor. A woman removes it and tries to clean and mask the pressence of it being there. You do all you can to make it seem as if it wasnt there, but you cant change the fact that it was THERE. Thats how Reality is, the basic of things in space and then the thoughts of human perspective making it the way it is.
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Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 2:09 pm
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If reality is not what people think of, the things our senses tell us are not there (not referring to illusions like magic tricks or mirages - the things we pick up with our senses are there, we just jumped to the wrong conclusions with our perceptions of them), then where exactly is it that we are all getting this information in our minds from? All our information in our minds is gained through the senses and what we can infer by trying to fill in the gaps from what our senses gave us through rationality and past observations (and even if you want to argue with me about something like how "humans can not hear ultra sonic sound waves so how do we know they exist from our senses then?" I'd say we got the information from machines but could not have known the information from the machine had we not had our senses to get the information from the machines into our minds, such as the eyes seeing the information or ears hearing things and such.) And the information about that town they both got with their senses is the same - they just then took the information and analyzed it differently and came to different conclusions due to being different people with different experiences which gave them different information to start off looking at that town with. If everybody saw the town and thought the exact same thing about it, we'd have to all be the same person with the same life experiences essentially because if the one guy, as in your example, knew the town already, he may know if it's a safe place so he can relax, where as the other guy may not know how dangerous the place might be and so have reason to be more cautious, even if to just make sure he doesn't get lost. Had both been living the exact same lives as the exact same person with all the same experiences giving them all the same information, they'd both have seen the town and been relaxed since they knew it was safe, wouldn't get lost, and so on. The thing is again though, the resulting conclusions of a person making judgments about the things they have perceived with their senses do not change what is actually there, they are not part of the solid, objective, separate reality. No matter if you think red brick houses are ugly that they are another pretty, you both see a red brick house and it's still a red brick house, separate from the opinions you both have of "UGLY red brick house" or "PRETTY red brick house" -- it's still a red brick house. As for the dog poop, no, you can't change reality by changing the past so that it never WAS there (that's something currently outside our ability to do)-- but you can change reality in taking it away so that it is NO LONGER there. wink Your entire view on reality seems to be based off opinion versus fact. Facts are more concrete things and opinions more fluid is all and opinions will always be opinions and facts are facts. Facts make up reality, opinions are only real in so far as it is a fact that they exist and may influence what people actually DO so that those actions based on opinions are now influencing facts, reality. |
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Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 12:24 pm
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bluecherry
If reality is not what people think of, the things our senses tell us are not there (not referring to illusions like magic tricks or mirages - the things we pick up with our senses are there, we just jumped to the wrong conclusions with our perceptions of them), then where exactly is it that we are all getting this information in our minds from? All our information in our minds is gained through the senses and what we can infer by trying to fill in the gaps from what our senses gave us through rationality and past observations (and even if you want to argue with me about something like how "humans can not hear ultra sonic sound waves so how do we know they exist from our senses then?" I'd say we got the information from machines but could not have known the information from the machine had we not had our senses to get the information from the machines into our minds, such as the eyes seeing the information or ears hearing things and such.) And the information about that town they both got with their senses is the same - they just then took the information and analyzed it differently and came to different conclusions due to being different people with different experiences which gave them different information to start off looking at that town with. If everybody saw the town and thought the exact same thing about it, we'd have to all be the same person with the same life experiences essentially because if the one guy, as in your example, knew the town already, he may know if it's a safe place so he can relax, where as the other guy may not know how dangerous the place might be and so have reason to be more cautious, even if to just make sure he doesn't get lost. Had both been living the exact same lives as the exact same person with all the same experiences giving them all the same information, they'd both have seen the town and been relaxed since they knew it was safe, wouldn't get lost, and so on. The thing is again though, the resulting conclusions of a person making judgments about the things they have perceived with their senses do not change what is actually there, they are not part of the solid, objective, separate reality. No matter if you think red brick houses are ugly that they are another pretty, you both see a red brick house and it's still a red brick house, separate from the opinions you both have of "UGLY red brick house" or "PRETTY red brick house" -- it's still a red brick house. As for the dog poop, no, you can't change reality by changing the past so that it never WAS there (that's something currently outside our ability to do)-- but you can change reality in taking it away so that it is NO LONGER there. wink Your entire view on reality seems to be based off opinion versus fact. Facts are more concrete things and opinions more fluid is all and opinions will always be opinions and facts are facts. Facts make up reality, opinions are only real in so far as it is a fact that they exist and may influence what people actually DO so that those actions based on opinions are now influencing facts, reality.
I LOVE IT! You understood me, and I really see where you get to the point of facts are more reliable than opinions, but even being that facts are better reliable than opinions, what is the fact? A fact is a known piece of information about the quality, quantity, or just anything about something that takes up space in the this reality, and that piece of information was formed by the opinions of the people who made the fact. Because you dont have a fact to make a fact, thats only creating illusion because if you rely on just that one piece of info., there should be the only 1 result you try to shoot for, where as in if you used opinions in your creation, the boundries of the said production are virtually LIMITLESS! Like I said a fact is info. about a certain something in the universe that was created by opinions of others to help better understand the way everything works. Newton's 1st law of Motion: Inertia is a prime example. It states "an object at rest, stays at rest while an object at motion stays in motion unless an outside force is applied." What is this? You would say "its fact about reality" or some other statement that is similar to this one. That is pure 100% fact because it involves real things, as in actual forces of nature in action and that cannot be changed by opinion because I guarantee you if someone tried to form an opinion against it(and I'm sure you agree with me) they can be disproven easily. But when you want to talk about other things like the label of reality and the way you personally think about things that cannot be 100% fact, HAVE to be opinion. It has to be a balance in certain topics because not everything the human mind questions can be solved with logic and reason, you have to go beyond fact and look at the bigger, brighter, open picture. What you said about "facts are facts, opinions are opinions" is what you can think because it's your opinion and true, true, true about opinions being fluid and facts being concrete. Facts are precise and tell you forever that "2+2=4". As on the other hand, opinions are just how you said; fluid, changing, mold-ess. The opinion is the most important variable in any situation of explanatory questions that can be multiple things because to be something at all in the human mind, it needs a label for it to be recognizable down the road of life. The label is made by opinions because when making a fact, you have different ideas, different opinions, and when you combine those, you make a good idea because an opinion is a brief thought by a human, when put together with other opinions, you may see that you may not have seen something from before. There-fore it completes it. They form together to make a fact. My view on reality is opinion versus fact-to an extent. The rest is the combination and the hand-in-hand layer effect.
All I'm trying to say, is that, what you said about my view gave off a vibe of your view being contradictory to mine stating 'the universe is based on fact, opinion is nothing'. Im not trying to say you're wrong, I'm right, because that's opinion and we can have them, what I am trying to say is that not only are facts important, but opinion is important too. I dont think facts are above opinions because to me its a balance, being everything in the universe has a certain balance and when involving concepts facts are facts, the bare bark, the structure, the bones and then opinions are the meat, what we think about the structure and that the opinions are affected to grow around the structure, my reality. |
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Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 2:06 pm
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Everet A fact is a known piece of information about the quality, quantity, or just anything about something that takes up space in the this reality, and that piece of information was formed by the opinions of the people who made the fact.
Whoa, wait, hold on -- opinions do not create facts. Like in the red brick house example I mentioned earlier, suppose the first person to ever see a house made out of red bricks thought it was ugly. They then told everybody "I saw a red brick house. Red brick houses are ugly." They can tell everybody this as the first opinion made on the subject, but other people can then go and see the house and decide they think it's pretty. Thus, the opinions are still not directly making themselves into fact. And I never meant to say that facts are more reliable then opinions really, just that they are two separate things entirely. Facts exist outside of people's minds and our minds just take them in through information gathered by the senses, whereas opinions are things created BY the mind and exists only cthere as a judgment made from analyzing and combining the information the senses have picked up and sent to the brain. Opinions if never spoken or acted upon in any way would not change a single thing about reality simply by their existing alone. And also, consider that only living things with enough intelligence can even form opinions. If none of the things with the capacity to form opinions have yet to learn of some fact, does that mean it does not yet exist? Or that for thinking soething is the case, that makes it so? Like say way, way, way back when everybody thought the Earth was flat, did that make the world actually flat? Of course not, it always was round, we just didn't know it. Suppose there is some far flung planet that no thinking creature will ever discover. Since nobody thinks it exists, they think it's non-existent by default, but does that mean that it really doesn't exist? I think what you're saying that I don't agree with is that facts are at least in part dependent upon their being perceived, or that perception on it's own can alter facts. As I said earlier though, opinions only alter reality in any way by being communicated to the world outside of the mind that initially held the opinion(s) or being acted upon. They have to leave the mind and get to the real world outside to influence that world at all (though granted, you can only even then change things no matter how hard you try within the limits of what is physically possible.) Everet Newton's 1st law of Motion: Inertia is a prime example. It states "an object at rest, stays at rest while an object at motion stays in motion unless an outside force is applied." What is this? You would say "its fact about reality" or some other statement that is similar to this one. That is pure 100% fact because it involves real things, as in actual forces of nature in action and that cannot be changed by opinion because I guarantee you if someone tried to form an opinion against it(and I'm sure you agree with me) they can be disproven easily. But when you want to talk about other things like the label of reality and the way you personally think about things that cannot be 100% fact, HAVE to be opinion. It has to be a balance in certain topics because not everything the human mind questions can be solved with logic and reason,
Now, I agree with the first part of this statement, but I think it' the second half where things get muddled. When I say "facts are facts and opinions are opinions" that means yes, facts, like laws of physics, are not changed by opinions. The realm of facts and that of opinions though are again, only always have to be connected to a certain extent. As opinions when acted upon can make people do things to change reality to a certain extent, facts can (or really SHOULD at least) influence opinions, however, some things will always be primarily opinions and not able to be decided upon entirely as a fact. Like for example, you'd never be able to make the best movie ever a fact. It IS a matter of opinion. To a great extent you may be able to narrow it down with what are pretty solidly agreeable things - like which movies have far too many plot holes to be the best or which have very bad acting and dialog and so on - but in the end, even if you could narrow it down by a lot, there would still not even be a majority percentage of people who agree that the chosen movie is really the best and since the movies competing in the contest will often have very different goals they were trying to accomplish, like humor or a moral lesson or even how to bake a cake, what standard can you judge them by? Facts can be tested logically and by falsifiability and with all kinds of other things and by every possible method of testing you'll still get the same result. Like you said, two plus two will always equal four. Opinions, like that of best movie ever, you've got all kinds of standards you can test against and the results will vary. Again, like you said, opinions really are "variables." Facts are always the same, opinions are not. John says the brick house was ugly, Marry says it was pretty. Its' a fact that it was a brick house AND that John had said it was ugly and Marry had said it was pretty, however, their opinions are variables and John could change his mind later on still and decide he does think brick houses are pretty. Your very last sentence in that post though I think is not a bad way to look at it, that facts are the main structure supporting things and opinions are built off and around them, though notice still that the bones are still the bones and the meat still the meat without the meat just becoming bone suddenly and spontaneously or anything like that and that the bone itself can't do the same either. xp |
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Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 11:29 am
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Quote: opinions do not create facts. Like in the red brick house example I mentioned earlier, suppose the first person to ever see a house made out of red bricks thought it was ugly. They then told everybody "I saw a red brick house. Red brick houses are ugly." They can tell everybody this as the first opinion made on the subject, but other people can then go and see the house and decide they think it's pretty. Thus, the opinions are still not directly making themselves into fact. And I never meant to say that facts are more reliable then opinions really, just that they are two separate things entirely. Facts exist outside of people's minds and our minds just take them in through information gathered by the senses, whereas opinions are things created BY the mind and exists only cthere as a judgment made from analyzing and combining the information the senses have picked up and sent to the brain
Now maybe I just didnt get my message out clearly enough. I do think that opinions made facts to an extent. What would you think about every fact in the world just suddenly seem to disappear? Of course thats foolhardy because that would take the destruction of every intelligent being in the human existance and anything the human can interact and share information with because if those two were gone, there would be no one to know, to understand, to feel the way the facts made the world, the world. What then? Reality would just be back to the basic, no intelligent lifeform where we used to be, giving it labels on how to understand it. Now think that the humans were back again, what's reality then? Labels, labels to understand how the world works. Different huh? With no intellect, Reality is nothing but what happens, what is there, and what will happen later, now, and what happened in the past. There are no facts in the basic essence of space, the universe, and reality because facts are information. With no beings intelligent enough to understand it, the information is forgotten.
I tried to paint that picture for you so that its easier to see it the way I see it. Now think back to the brink of mankind, forming the wheel. Whoever said the day before, there was a rule about gravity? Whoever said the day before, there was an idea about how to make something not required for living? There was nothing, nothing and then the wheel. Sir Isaac Newton, sitting under the tree. Do you think there was fact BEFORE the apple fell? No there wasnt after it fell and hit him, Newton began thinking about it. Ideas, adding to some, taking away from some, until finally he put into motion, the Laws of Motion.
Quote: I think what you're saying that I don't agree with is that facts are at least in part dependent upon their being perceived, or that perception on it's own can alter facts.
Thats exactly what I mean, what the entire statement I made is that the facts werent there before, they had to have come from somewhere, from the person or group who made ideas to come to the conclusion about the fact being factual, or thinking based on all ideas to make the conclusion. To make the fact they had to take in the perspectives, experiences, and opinions to make it the fact. Thats what I meant when I said that opinions make up facts. Its not just one person saying "I eat ever kind of meat except fish because FISH IS DISGUSTING!" then that is the law of the world. No, that will never be a fact though because of the number of people who like fish against the number who dont. See? You need the ideas to make the fact. Maybe the last example is good, how about; Just one person saying "There is no such thing as God" doesnt make it true but it doesnt make it false either, because of the vast number of people who do think it true against the vast number of people who think it isnt true. Now think about a number of people who are belivers (hope I spelt that right) and think now that they are a community, a town. In this environment of space, God exists because they all think it. Now think about an athiest or a Buddhist or a Hinduist pass by the town to rest or to eat or for gas or to buy a home of something and now the basic concept "God exists" is now questioned because now the vast majority isn't all to one side of it. Now think that that one person buys a home. Then more people of different faiths start to come in, Pagainsm, Judaism, Islam, Indian and so forth all come in and the town grows with the new people. Next to have their faiths be heard they build temples of worship or have meetings or do something and then the entirety of the population now doesn't think entirely that "God exists", see now? Before it was fact, now that there are enough opinions to equal or even override the fact, its not fact anymore. Facts, as much as they are concrete, can change. Because the idea of the fact to begin with changes to better understand or for some other reason the fact is no longer fact, it was a past opinion. That was my entire concept.
Now for my other statement about the bones and the meat I'm sure that doesnt comply with my statements here. And I think I learned something here myself. Being that one person might think that everything is based on fact first, then opinion, they might think of the bones the structure, then the meat opinions. But now I see that I dont think that way. My new idea is that the structure is the bones, thats it. Facts are explaining how the structure works and so its a diagram of the skeleton, or some other visual aid that interprets how the bones work. Then the opinions are the scientists who thought up the diagrams, because their ideas made up the fact. |
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Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 5:59 pm
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No, I did get your message the first time, I just disagreed. If every fact just disappeared, I COULDN'T have anything to think about ,as you admitted too, because that I had a thought on the subject would be a fact, that I existed in order to be able to have thoughts of my own would be a fact, and that every fact had disappeared would be a fact, -- if all facts disappeared, everything must have disappeared, because even the existence of something is a fact. Really, even that all other facts and therefore things disappeared would still be a fact. Even if nothing else ever HAD existed one fact would still as the only thing in existence -- the fact that nothing else existed or ever had. I think now comes the time when definitions are due.
fact
fact [fakt]
(plural facts)
n
1. something known to be true: something that can be shown to be true, to exist, or to have happened
2. truth or reality of something: the truth or actual existence of something, as opposed to the supposition of something or a belief about something
"based on fact"
3. piece of information: a piece of information, e.g. a statistic or a statement of the truth
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
o·pin·ion
o·pin·ion [ə pínnyən]
(plural o·pin·ions)
n
1. personal view: the view somebody takes about an issue, especially when it is based solely on personal judgment
"In my opinion it's all a waste of time. "
2. estimation: a view regarding the worth of somebody or something
"They had a pretty low opinion of me."
3. expert view: an expert assessment of something
"I told the doctor I wanted a second opinion."
4. body of generally held views: the view or views held by most people or by a large number of people
-pundits and other opinion formers
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
"Fact" is just the word people gave to all things that are strictly true, "opinion" is the word given to things that are disputable conclusions people draw and can not be reduced to facts (sometimes ever, but sometimes opinions can eventually be done away with and facts introduced though when opinions are formed due to lacking enough information to conclude exact facts and later on more information is made available so real facts CAN be ascertained of course.) So facts exist independent of anything existing even to be able to perceive them. Sure, there would be nothing there to CALL them facts or any other name, but true things would still exist even if, as I said earlier, just the one true thing of nothing else existing or ever having existed. Without facts there is no reality of any kind.
re·al·i·ty
re·al·i·ty [ree állətee]
(plural re·al·i·ties)
n
1. real existence: actual being or existence, as opposed to an imaginary, idealized, or false nature
2. all that exists or happens: everything that actually does or could exist or happen in real life
3. something that exists or happens: something that has real existence and must be dealt with in real life
"a vision that ignores the realities of the business world"
4. type of existence: an existence or universe, either connected with or independent from other kinds
"fantastic notions of alternative realities"
5. PHILOSOPHY totality of real things: the totality of real things in the world, independent of people's knowledge or perception of them
in reality in actual fact
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
re·al1
re·al [r əl]
adj
1. physically existing: having actual physical existence
"practice medicine with real patients"
2. verifiable: verifiable as actual fact, e.g. legally or scientifically
"What is his real name?"
3. not imaginary: existing as fact, rather than as a product of dreams or the imagination
"In the real world things are somewhat different."
4. not artificial: genuine and original, not artificial or synthetic
"real leather"
5. traditional and authentic: prepared or made in a traditional or authentic way, rather than being mass-produced or artificial
"looking for some real food"
6. undisputed: based on fact, observation, or experience and so undisputed
"The real success of the evening was the comedy act."
7. essential: of basic, essential, or critical importance
"And the real question for America is: why take the risk?"
8. emphasizing truth: used to emphasize the accuracy or appropriateness of a particular thing
"He's a real professional. "
9. sincere: honest or sincere, not feigned or affected
"express your real feelings"
10. ECONOMICS in terms of purchasing power: regarded in terms of purchasing power rather than the actual amount
11. COMMERCIAL LAW relating to fixed property: relating to land and the fixed property associated with it
12. PHILOSOPHY about existence: concerned with independent objective existence
13. MATHEATICS involving only rational or irrational numbers: involving, relating to, or having elements of the set of rational or irrational numbers only
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
And just for good measure, the definition of "objective" too.
ob·jec·tive
ob·jec·tive [ob jéktiv]
adj
1. free of bias: free of any bias or prejudice caused by personal feelings
2. based on facts: based on facts rather than thoughts or opinions
3. MEDICINE observable: describes disease symptoms that can be observed by somebody other than the person who is ill
4. PHILOSOPHY existing independently of mind: existing independently of the individual mind or perception
5. GRAMMAR being object of verb: in or relating to the grammatical form case that identifies a noun or pronoun as the object of a verb
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
So you see, by very definition of the words, what you are saying is inaccurate. Facts are not, by definition, dependent upon being perceived to exist. In you example of the town, I'd like to say also that no matter how many people believe it, it does not make it true. Because an entire town believes in any kind of thing no matter what it may be does not mean it is true in that town. They think it is, but they can be wrong. Two good quotes on this -- "Sanity is not statistical," by George Orwell and "Thirty thousand French men can be just as wrong as one," by Ayn Rand. |
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Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:17 pm
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Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 11:03 pm
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time
time [tīm]
n (plural times)
1. system of distinguishing events: a dimension that enables two identical events occurring at the same point in space to be distinguished, measured by the interval between the events. Symbol t
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
This definition does also end with a recommendation to read a book on time by Stephen Hawking, which does sound like something I'd like to do, though have not yet, so you may have a bit more knowledge on the physics of this subject then myself at present, but I'll respond with what I know none the less. One thing worth noting is it is considered an actual logical fallacy to, confusing cause and effect, to say that something happening after effects/causes/changes something that happened before. The thing is, events build upon each other, that is why moving the sequence all around would mess things up. How could Joe Schmoe cure AIDS fifty years before he exists for example. The only way to do this is with some sort of time travel alteration such as the old time machine idea. The problem with the idea of this though is you get into all the impossibilities, circular logic, infinite loops, catch 22s and so on that come with it. If humanity ever could get access to the ability, wouldn't it end up being like we had ALWAYS had it? if time travel ever is known to exist, it always will be known to exist since you could make the discovery of all the science behind how to do so in the year 100000000000, but then go back to cave man times or earlier having the technology. -- Bah!, sorry, I had more to say o the subject but forgot it now. I got an idea to add to a story concept I have in the middle of typing my response and spent the past hour or two writing it out in detail. sweatdrop When/if I recall what I was going to say I'll make a new post with the rest.
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Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 2:41 pm
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Thank you for understanding my point Bluecherry and I really do appreciate this conversation, but now I do belive we have come to a point in time where we can no longer agree and have to stop and state where our points are. You've stated yours, and now is mine. First I'd like to talk about your definitions. Obviously that is correct, all of it. And stated loudly and clearly, but what I am getting as here is you used 1 source for definition. I wonder, what would you get if you used multiple sources?
Quote: factfact [fakt] (plural facts) n 1. something to be true: something that can be shown to be true, to exist, or to have happened 2. truth or reality of something: the truth or actual existence of something, as opposed to the supposition of something or a belief about something "based on fact "
3. piece of information: a piece of information, e.g. a statistic or a statement of the truth
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Obviously your definition and your source. Here's mine
fact (fakt)
n.
1.Knowledge or information based on real occurrences: an account based on fact; a blur of fact and fancy.
2. a.Something demonstrated to exist or known to have existed: Genetic engineering is now a fact. That Chaucer was a real person is an undisputed fact.
b.A real occurrence; an event: had to prove the facts of the case
c.Something believed to be true or real: a document laced with mistaken facts.
3.A thing that has been done, especially a crime: an accessory before the fact
4.Law. The aspect of a case at law comprising events determined by evidence: The jury made a finding of fact
The American Heritage Dic-tion-ar-ies
Copyright © 2007 Answers Corporation. All rights reserved
Notice the difference? How about this?
Fact
Incident, act, event, or circumstance. A fact is something that has already been done or an action in process. It is an event that has definitely and actually taken place, and is distinguishable from a suspicion, innuendo, or supposition. A fact is a truth as opposed to fiction or mistake.
Thompson Gale
Copyright © 2007 Answers Corporation. All rights reserved
See it now? They're all different! Sure they "mean" the same thing, but they're stated 'differently'. What does that tell you? They're stated differently because the people who submitted the information have different thoughts about the word 'fact'. If a fact is a piece of informatin that is true (thats what I think) then based on that, all of the definitions should be the same text, the same way. But they're not are they? You know why? They're different ideas or in other words OPINIONS. You say that I am wrong on my behalf based on your definitions. What my statement, as you stated that you had understood me, is that all facts are are just opinions made by different people and accepted to popularity. Because facts do not exist in the real world. And when I mean the real world I mean matter, think in the boundries of plain space. Is there such a thing as fact, floating among the dust particles of rock and other minerals? No, fact is an idea! You can not see it, you can not touch it, you can not taste it, you can not smell it, you can not even hear it. Facts are real, yes, but facts are ideas. I say that also ideas are the pieces of thought made by intelligent beings. Thoughts are different among people so they are called "opinions". Now, you pull up definitions and say that that is fact, and that opinions do not affect fact up to how they are expressed to the point of influencing behavior of other people when expressed correctly. Now think about this, where did those definitions come from? I'm sure they weren't just there. In space hanging around until someone came by and learned it. No, and you also have to think that the word "fact" can changed into other things. In France its called "fait, donnée, vrai, réalité, (Jur) fait " In Germany its called "Tatsache, Faktum, Wahrheit" In the Netherlands, its called " feit, feitelijkheid, gegeven, misdaad" All the word "fact" is just a word! And to express it is just to vibrate vocal cords in the human body. Thats it. But then you get to the meaning of "fact". It means a true statement. It means a piece of information. It means blah-blah-blah. And also just because something is stated as a "fact" does not make it true. Think of John Dalton's Atomic Theory, its accepted world-wide except for a couple facts about the Theory, you know why? Because they were proven wrong. He stated "Atoms cannot be subdivided, created, or destroyed into smaller particles when they are combined , separated, or rearranged in chemical reactions" and that, at his time, WAS THE FACT, now we see that that is wrong with the existence of fission, nuclear fission, and nuclear reactions.
Copyright © 2007 Answers Corporation. All rights reserved
If a fact can be wrong, then what does that make of it? Facts aren't always true, you know why? Because they're ideas! Ideas, thoughts, OPINIONS that can be proven wrong in some instances.
Thats where I draw my line of the definition of fact. "Opinions stated that have been accepted to a popular degree in an intelligent society and fit the need of the question stated." Meaning the best answer accepted to the question. Maybe in 500 years we'll replace Newton's Laws. I'm not saying we will, but as time goes on information is collected. Newton's Laws might stay the same, might be proven wrong or even changed to make a better answer based on the original concept.
And also, I'd like to add about my town. It's true what you said, no matter how many people live there and they all believe the same thing, its not true, because theres no answer. I see what you're getting at, and the reason I stated the translations of 'fact' in different languages is to prove my point. No matter how much we think it, to them we're wrong. We think a proven piece of information or whatever the definition you want to use for the word 'fact' it does not mean in their society 'fact'. Cause 'fact' is just a word, a label for whatever you want to say. Who says we're right, and they're wrong? You might say that, I might say that, the President of the United States might say that or even if the world is taken control over one power even if THEY say that, does not make it true. Cause ultimately in the end, fact is a word, in my opinion, a label used to better understand the universe. Here, I'll even post the definition of 'word'
word (wûrd)
n.
1.A sound or a combination of sounds, or its representation in writing or printing, that symbolizes and communicates a meaning and may consist of a single morpheme or of a combination of morphemes
The American Heritage: Dic-tion-ar-ies
Copyright © 2007 Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.
I'm not trying to prove you wrong, I'm just trying to get you to get my proposal to the point that it makes sense. That's all I'm trying to do. Thank you this was very fun Bluecherry.
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Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 9:40 pm
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Yes, I did just give one definition and I AM the one who picked where it was from too, however, I only planned to cite one definition until I saw it would be necessary to give more (since each time I put another word's definition I had to go back and add the code in to make things bold or underlined like they were in the original thing I copied them from so it would be easier to understand.) I also promise I did not try to hunt down a single source whose definition met my needs or anything either. xp I just always any time I put a definition in this subforum take them from that same source since it is a dictionary function built into the word processing program in my computer, making it a quick and easy source for me that I'm used to working with. 3nodding And also, so far even all the definitions YOU gave don't appear to be contradicting the original one I gave any way. They are worded differently and that is all, since you can't expect any two people to give the EXACT same wording without knowing about the other and in fact since they are copy written definitions, it would be illegal. None the less, as you noted, they make the same point still. That people are not all thinking the exact same thing on all subjects does not mean thoughts are influencing facts, all it means is all people are individuals. They will see the same things and have their own individual thoughts on the subject of the things they observed that are outside themselves. For example 2+2=4 is a fact, but some people thinking about it might say the equations as "two plus two equals four" and somebody else might say "two and two is four." They saw the same thing and got the same meaning though they treated it slightly differently, even if in this case it's as simple as the wording with the same meaning, just like in those definitions of "fact" earlier. As I said earlier and you said too, "fact" is just an English word, it's the word for those things that actually exist. Words are abstractions, but they can refer to actual things. However, it's important to note that just because people do not exactly agree on things or may find out that they were wrong about something they had previously thought was a "fact" does not mean opinions make/influence facts -- it just means some or all people were wrong about the facts. The thing they thought was a fact NEVER WAS. Humans made the word "fact" and are capable of error, however, because things are at times incorrectly labeled as fact does not change what really IS fact. If everybody in the whole world was convinced all rabbits were carnivores and said it was a "fact" , say they'd only ever seen one rabbit and it had been just this one random crazy bunny, that does not mean it ever really WAS a fact. They made an incorrect assumption based of too little and skewed information. It was all they had to go on though is why it was at first called a "fact" even though it wasn't. With more and better information though they can find out they were wrong and what the actual fact of an average rabbit's diet is. I see what this all comes down to is another semantic debate. If you want to define "fact" as those things that not neccesarily ARE true, just what is generally BELIEVED to be true, then what would you say what really IS true, even if people don't know it, should be called, eh? But again, not all thoughts are wrong or unequatable to truth. Would you really say that the idea that Object A can not be at the same time Object A and NOT Object A is merely an opinion, a thought that is not directly connected to the world outside of the human "mind" and it's workings? Just because people can make mistakes, don't assume they will never be capable of being absolutely correct (and not by some mere guess, by using real proof and rationality to the point that to even try to say anything else was the case would be a wadte of time, like looking for a "married bachelor.") And yes, I do agree on the purpose of words, that they make functioning in the world and communicating easier. 3nodding
Again, I do understand what you are saying and where you are coming from even if I've made some different conclusions then you have. You're welcome and I'm glad to have somebody putting in the time, effort, and thought in threads here. So thank you too. 3nodding |
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Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2007 6:33 pm
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