From: Stirling Westrup (sti@cam.org)
Date: Wed Sep 06 2000 - 14:58:26 MDT
Michael S. Lorrey wrote:
> Stirling Westrup wrote:
> >
> Facts are things demonstrated to be true by repeated experiment and
> observation. Values are opinions about what facts, conditions, etc are
> beneficial to the individual. Your statment above is neither of these. It
> is merely an unproven opinion or conjecture. What would be a value would be
> your opinion that the alleged truth of the above statment would be a good
> thing.
I'm a Popperian falsificationist. To me, facts are predictive theories
about outcomes of experiments which have been tested and have so far
failed to be disproved. As far as I am concerned almost nothing matches
your criteria for a fact, since nothing non-trivial can be proven true,
and it is thus not a useful definition.
This is another problem with Robin's question. He asks whether I think we
differ most from others on facts or on values. If I have to choose one, I
would say we differ most on fact, but I find it more useful to point out
that all of my communication difficulties with normals stem from clashes
of axioms. I try (of course I fail) not to treat untested theories as
facts. Most of the rest of the world is very happy to hold as facts the
existence of things like ESP, ufo's, the soul, and a host of other
subjects for which there is no evidence, and for which there are no
theories that can be tested.
--
Stirling Westrup | Use of the Internet by this poster
sti@cam.org | is not to be construed as a tacit
| endorsement of Western Technological
| Civilization or its appurtenances.
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