Fact/Theory or Factheory?

[Piers]

Bit confused by what you’re asking however,

Facts, I prefer to use the term assumptions, which in practise I generally treat as synonymous.

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
Bit confused by what you’re asking however,

Facts, I prefer to use the term assumptions, which in practise I generally treat as synonymous.

[/ QUOTE ]

bunny and madnak have done an excellent job tearing at the concepts.
in the OP I used the repaired blind that still can't see even though they can , another simple analogy is the big dipper, which only is a fact of the night sky because we have a concept of dippers. A culture without that would just see a jumble of stars in that portion of the sky ( or perhaps a bear).

I like bunnies constraint idea, perhaps because of the role it plays in evolution also makes it feel familiar, but I probably have less confidence in the direct relationship between the constraint and 'facts'. The blind in the OP shows one possible answer to bunnies "why do we all see 3 chairs" .. apparently we don't unless we've been taught/learned to see chairs at the very least.

The main point of the OP was to check my discomfort with the confidence so often placed on 'facts' without recognizing their dependence on some model. I was seeing a messier connection between fact and model/theory and was hoping for some good discussion of it.

good input you guys, it's a great illustration of why I log on to SMP, thanks, luckyme