Truth v fact

[Stipagigantica]

Interesting discussion with early 20’s son.
He know I am GC but and broadly agrees but very strongly felt truth had a subjective element vs facts that are incontrovertible.

I was interested in thoughts and opinions about always reframing statements as fact and whether this would be helpful?

“ the facts are your dna does not change even if you affirm you are a different gender”
“The fact is puberty blockers may cause long term harm vs short term relief”
“The fact is women are harmed by violence from male bodied people”

Interested in thoughts. I am so wearied by what seems obvious truths but keen to move the discussion forward.

Back in the 1960s, when the Catholic Church was grappling with evolution, the nuns at my mother’s high school told the girls that there is only one truth, there can be no contradiction between religion and science because both search for one indivisible truth.

Even an ancient religion on the ropes wasn’t willing to scramble peoples heads about truth. They were looking for a way through to be sure.

This new religion is scary. Much more like a cult filled with sophistry. Redefining “truth” to be subjective strips It of its meaning. And confuses our thinking, since we think non words.

When people unilaterally change the meaning of words they are fucking around inside your head.

…think in words….

Yeah, I think he's right. Disparate facts don't cohere into something we can call truth until we put them together to form a larger picture.

There are certain things we might say are facts, but there are different ways we can organize those facts, different sets of questions we can ask, different working assumptions for thought.

When different people have very different worldviews it's not usually just because they don't agree on facts. It's all the stuff underneath the facts that make the biggest difference.

It's a common idea now that more information is what changes people's way of thinking. I think that largely that's untrue. It's a change in underlying assumptions about reality.

Something else I'd mention, not sure where it fits in, but there is a tendency for us in the modern period to put a lot of weight on material evidence, and call those things in particular "facts".

Even those things are not always as objective as we might like to think, data being a good example.

But there are also things like mathematical facts and proofs, which don't necessarily need any material evidential basis at all. There are quite a few mathematicians who believe mathematical truths exist apart from and perhaps even prior to (logically speaking) any material reality.

A few people have mentioned belief in god as not being a fact, but a belief, but in many schools of philosophy it's seen as a fact in the same way these kinds of mathematical ideas are facts - belife in god is a kind of mathematical statement going right back to Pythagoras who said that everything is numbers - the structure of reality is mathematical. This has been one of the most powerful philosophical ideas in history.

So unless we can state categorically that facts have to be material observations, which seems a little arbitrary, we need consider that what is a fact might be wider than a lot of us are conditioned to believe.

A few people have mentioned belief in god as not being a fact, but a belief, but in many schools of philosophy it's seen as a fact in the same way these kinds of mathematical ideas are facts - belife in god is a kind of mathematical statement going right back to Pythagoras who said that everything is numbers - the structure of reality is mathematical. This has been one of the most powerful philosophical ideas in history.

The fact that some philosophers may come up with such a theory in no way makes it in any meaningful sense 'true'.

@Stipagigantica

Interesting discussion with early 20’s son. He know I am GC but and broadly agrees but very strongly felt truth had a subjective element vs facts that are incontrovertible.

I was interested in thoughts and opinions about always reframing statements as fact and whether this would be helpful?

“ the facts are your dna does not change even if you affirm you are a different gender”
“The fact is puberty blockers may cause long term harm vs short term relief”
“The fact is women are harmed by violence from male bodied people”

Interested in thoughts. I am so wearied by what seems obvious truths but keen to move the discussion forward.

Stipagigantica, in the light of 'truth had a subjective element vs facts that are incontrovertible', you might think of asking your son whether he thinks it incontrovertibly true that truth has a subjective element, or if he thinks that its truth is subjective.

Or, perhaps, ask him if the fact that truth has a subjective element is subjective, or if it is incontrovertible.

This seems like a joke, and of course it is, in a way. But it points up what is wrong with any claim that truth is relative (to a speaker, or a culture, whatever).

It cannot be simply true that truth is relative. Why? Because if it is simply true, then it is not relative. So if it is simply true that truth is relative it is false that truth is relative. So it is simply false.

Strange, the logic of truth, hein?

[ No tricks here, btw. This is simply true. And incontrovertible.]

This is the meaning of post-truth

'Feelings over facts' is now entirely valid because emotions are now tied to concepts like death and violence.

Hence a fact-based argument that hurts someone's feelings can now be described as an 'act of violence.'

"My truth" kind of truth. That is , "my self-delusion "

This thread seems to be doing an excellent job of supporting the genderists in illustrating how the words 'truth' and 'fact' and 'belief' can be (re)defined and used to make and promote any position. So how can the other side be wrong!

It feels to me that we're playing to a tra script in doing this. For me, AlecTrevalyn had it right upthread with the Henry Jones analogy. Our fact and our truth is clear, continue to let everyone know what that is with enormous fucking brass knobs on.
We must double down, not be intellectually indulgent.

Coming back to the More or Less radio 4 programme discussed on other threads, the piece on testosterone levels in trans athletes and the conclusion that a range of factors made their participation in women’s sport unfair, the final sentence was that some people believe that this does not matter . So their trump card is so what if facts are against them? What matters is their belief , therefore making it the truth and hence what is right.

@Iwishihadariver - the trouble is “the other side” is always wrong because they cry “Bigot” and so truth is cast as nastiness.

@Iwishihadariver

This thread seems to be doing an excellent job of supporting the genderists in illustrating how the words 'truth' and 'fact' and 'belief' can be (re)defined and used to make and promote any position. So how can the other side be wrong!

It feels to me that we're playing to a tra script in doing this. For me, AlecTrevalyn had it right upthread with the Henry Jones analogy. Our fact and our truth is clear, continue to let everyone know what that is with enormous fucking brass knobs on.
We must double down, not be intellectually indulgent.

I'd have said this thread was mostly firmly refuting those positions and that it's quite important to do so.

[quote DottyHarmer]@Iwishihadariver - the trouble is “the other side” is always wrong because they cry “Bigot” and so truth is cast as nastiness.[/quote]

Dotty, we see "bigot" and "nastiness" thrown back at us when we're hitting the spot. That's where mumsnet is the shielddd waaaaaall of british feminism .

Yeah, 'bigot' is another of those words the no-debaters are humpty-dumptying.

I think part of the problem of distinguishing between 'truth' (particularly "my" truth') and 'fact' is that we are in a culture where everybody's opinion has to be treated as having equal weight and worth. It doesn't seem to matter if one opinion is based on scientific facts and another is based on feelz, both have to be given equal attention and treated with equal respect.

@MagpiePi

I think part of the problem of distinguishing between 'truth' (particularly "my" truth') and 'fact' is that we are in a culture where everybody's opinion has to be treated as having equal weight and worth. It doesn't seem to matter if one opinion is based on scientific facts and another is based on feelz, both have to be given equal attention and treated with equal respect.

But underlying that lazy, arrogant 'culture', people still rely on the one which rightly demands medicines that work, cars that don't crash, buildings don't crumble.