[marginalia_nu]

The whole notion of facts is problematic.

Facts are, from a epistemological point of view, things as they are. We do not have access to facts about the physical world, science does not produce such facts. Empirical science is a process that asymptotically approximates facts by eliminating false propositions.

[YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo]

If I take 200mg of cyanid I am dead that's a fact.

[marginalia_nu]

That is a true statement, but it is not a fact in the epistemological sense. When we say a statement is true, what we mean is that the statement agrees with the facts.

Or flipped around: The facts are the things that true statements correspond to, the things in themselves.

[YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo]

I think we have different oppinions of what the word fact means but the general consens is something like this. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fact

[marginalia_nu]

Here is a more nuanced take: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/facts/

There is serious problems with facts merely being true statements if you start poking at the edge cases a bit.

Consider that there are things that are, and statements that are true. If the two are the same, then all statements that are true must also be things that are. But it is true that if I were to lick my own forehead, it would become wet; yet I cannot lick my own forehead. This is an example of something that is true, yet cannot be. The statements that are true is a larger category than the things that are.

[YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo]

I totally understand your standpoint and I will dive deeper with your provided link but as I said before for the general public a true statement is indeed a fact.

And just for shits and giggles https://metro.co.uk/2018/12/03/man-claims-to-be-only-person-... haha

[marginalia_nu]

Isn't that the entire point of this "fact" checking, to raise the truth above the myriad of things the general public merely believes to be true?

[wanda]

That would be a fact only after you did it, and it's a fact only to those who witness it.

It could never be a fact to you, because if you're dead, you'll be quite incapable of knowing it to be fact, and if you survive, it will be wrong.

The person with whom you're debating appears to have a philosophical understanding (likely logical positivist or early Wittgensteinian) of the term "fact" rather than the common dictionary definition.

The dictionary definition isn't necessarily wrong, but it's a different language-game (i.e. different context).

The consensus on the definition of the term is irrelevant to the subject of this thread. There is no way to form of a body or committee dedicated to the identification and preservation of what is fact and fiction because the facts, the things that are the case are based on our perception of them, and we can be wrong.

People make mistakes, and can persuade others to agree with their mistaken interpretation, or people can be persuaded to deliberately falsify their interpretation of data in exchange for something they want.

What is fact and fiction is ultimately impossible for any group of people to be responsible for without bias -- people have their personal beliefs, their own agendas, they can be bribed, lobbied, persuaded, agitated...

The wise among us do not trust newspapers or media outlets, and even treat scientific discovery with academic scepticism until the math checks out. Fortunately in the sciences, we can check the work of others by making predictions and testing them, as well as checking the math.

Take a news article and filter out everything that would be considered weak or bad science. You will be left with a statement of something that happened, perhaps a picture or video of the thing happening, or in many cases you may even be left with an entirely blank page.

There has always been fake news, as long as within the news there has been the expression of opinion. People aren't motivated by a pursuit of the truth, they're motivated by earning money and notoriety (and thence more money). Motivated by ego. This is what people are instructed to do from childhood.

As long as our primary currency isn't truth, you cannot trust anything but what you can prove for yourself. And even in that world where truth is what we all aspire to find, you still can't trust anything blindly -- because people can still make mistakes.

Nothing is fact to you unless you can prove it based on something else you accept as a certainty, and nothing is a fact to people other than you unless you can prove it based on something they accept as a certainty.

[YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo]

Sorry, but language does not work like that. I am not going into a discussion about Schoppenhauer and the world as will and representation on HackerNews lol.

[wanda]

Oh dear, don't just throw a name and a book title at me. Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Kant, Wittgenstein, Popper, Derrida... none of them got it right or else we wouldn't be having discussions like this one!

But all of those philosophers got closer than anyone in the last 70 years or so because they didn't just throw names and books at each other, they thought for themselves and engaged in debate.

[YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo]

And they also stepped away from a discussion that has no chance to come to fruition.

[marginalia_nu]

There really is no getting away from philosophy. Your entire world view is steeped in tacit assumptions from many of those names you dismiss.