Fact/Theory or Factheory?
 

Versions of this question have popped up in a couple of threads, so this is a specific probe -

Is there such a thing as a 'basic fact' or are all facts actually a fragment of an underlying abstract framework/theory?

The visual system may help by remembering those blind people who are given sight by an operation and can 'see' the objects in front of them in an optical sense but they don't represent anything to them. A ball isn't seen as being a sphere ...or anything really.

Iow, theory first, fact second?
I think we're born and quickly develop a rough and ready set of assumptions and fit the world into them, bootstrapping all the way up to Relativity and QM.
what say?

luckyme

Re: Fact/Theory or Factheory?
 

I think theory comes first. What seems like indisputable fact is probably the result of "theoretical" frameworks that arise from our biology/socialization. Then again, that's based on my own theoretical framework.

Re: Fact/Theory or Factheory?
 

Consider the development of the theory of light. The facts of data from experiments with lenses prompted the development of a theory that light behaves like waves. Since all other known waves required a medium in which to propogate the theory of ether was invented to support the wave theory of light. The data from the lens experiments were facts. The theory of the ether was not a fact.

PairTheBoard

Re: Fact/Theory or Factheory?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Consider the development of the theory of light. The facts of data from experiments with lenses prompted the development of a theory that light behaves like waves. Since all other known waves required a medium in which to propogate the theory of ether was invented to support the wave theory of light. The data from the lens experiments were facts. The theory of the ether was not a fact.

PairTheBoard

[/ QUOTE ]

I can only hope you're teasing me.

luckyme

Re: Fact/Theory or Factheory?
 

Technically humans are biological interpreters of input channeled through our bodies/brains.

What we see and experience are a result of this interpreter running and giving us a set 'result' eletrically / chemically / biologically.

We can't see 'facts' - we can only see our own representation of them. A good analogy would be programming a computer to 'perceive' light, sound, touch through the _context_ of its programming language & chipsets.

When we reason about _anything_ it will be a model, not fact.

Re: Fact/Theory or Factheory?
 

I may be using the word wrong so jump in and define fact or theory if that will help...

I think facts exist quite independently of us or our theories (most of which dont contain facts imo). I think there was an answer to "How fast is the earth moving relative to the sun?" before anyone was around to ask it - I think that is one example of a fact.

If there are no facts until theories - do you have an explanation for why we end up agreeing with each other so much? We dont seem able to just make up anything - or at least usually agree on what is a "poor" theory. What is it that constrains the theories we come up with if it isnt facts about the world?

Re: Fact/Theory or Factheory?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I may be using the word wrong so jump in and define fact or theory if that will help...

I think facts exist quite independently of us or our theories (most of which dont contain facts imo). I think there was an answer to "How fast is the earth moving relative to the sun?" before anyone was around to ask it - I think that is one example of a fact.

If there are no facts until theories - do you have an explanation for why we end up agreeing with each other so much? We dont seem able to just make up anything - or at least usually agree on what is a "poor" theory. What is it that constrains the theories we come up with if it isnt facts about the world?

[/ QUOTE ]

Isn't the earth moving around the sun just model we created? The doesn't seem to be any need for it to be 'actually' moving around the sun any more than the sun was moving around the earth in the older model.

Agree with each other? hahahaha, don't you read SMP?
ok, we agree with each other because we're an evolved species with a general base model. We wouldn't agree that much with each other if I was a rattlesnake ( even being from 3000 BC may leave us with a lot of discrepancy with what we take as obvious now.)

luckyme

Re: Fact/Theory or Factheory?
 

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I may be using the word wrong so jump in and define fact or theory if that will help...

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Wish I could. I was hoping this thread would help me sort out just how those two concepts interact. I'm seeing them very intertwined and rather like a perpetual chicken-egg problem.

Think how model-ish your fact 'earth revolving around the sun' looks. Facts look like nodes on the model rather than floating around 'as is' waiting for a model to pick up on them.

sorry I'm not more help,
any comments are welcome, luckyme

Re: Fact/Theory or Factheory?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I may be using the word wrong so jump in and define fact or theory if that will help...

I think facts exist quite independently of us or our theories (most of which dont contain facts imo). I think there was an answer to "How fast is the earth moving relative to the sun?" before anyone was around to ask it - I think that is one example of a fact.

If there are no facts until theories - do you have an explanation for why we end up agreeing with each other so much? We dont seem able to just make up anything - or at least usually agree on what is a "poor" theory. What is it that constrains the theories we come up with if it isnt facts about the world?

[/ QUOTE ]

Isn't the earth moving around the sun just model we created? The doesn't seem to be any need for it to be 'actually' moving around the sun any more than the sun was moving around the earth in the older model.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think there needs to be relative motion or our models are not going to go very well. (Alternately, a model we try and develop based on the Earth and Sun being stationary relative to each other is going to fail - I think it fails because it doesnt fit the facts).

[ QUOTE ]
Agree with each other? hahahaha, don't you read SMP?
ok, we agree with each other because we're an evolved species with a general base model. We wouldn't agree that much with each other if I was a rattlesnake ( even being from 3000 BC may leave us with a lot of discrepancy with what we take as obvious now.)

luckyme

[/ QUOTE ]
I think this is true for some things (art, beauty, justice,...) but not others. I would claim that everyone would agree that modus ponens is valid if they could understand what that meant (even the rattlesnake, imo) - our evolution may drive what kinds of theories or arguments we make, none of us have the choice to see modus ponens as invalid though, nor to make pi rational, nor to say that there is more water in the local creek than there is in the thames, or that you cant travel from the arctic to the antarctic without crossing the equatorial plane.

If there is some constraint on our correct theories, I think those constraints constitute facts about the world. I think what you're noticing is that we cant discuss facts without a theory. I think that's a limitation brought about by language and the way minds work though - I dont see how it suggests that nothing is actually true (if that's what you mean by facts exist).

Re: Fact/Theory or Factheory?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Isn't the earth moving around the sun just model we created? The doesn't seem to be any need for it to be 'actually' moving around the sun any more than the sun was moving around the earth in the older model.


I think there needs to be relative motion or our models are not going to go very well. (Alternately, a model we try and develop based on the Earth and Sun being stationary relative to each other is going to fail - I think it fails because it doesnt fit the facts).

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Damn, bunny-just made a post as to movement of the Sun-we must be creaking into the same substance. [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]