Conference thebay::joyoflex

>    Can one argue FACTS ?

No, but you can dispute them. If they're not true, and you can prove it, then
suddenly they're not facts anymore. You win again. 
    

>    Or does one always argue OPINIONS ?
    
No, sometimes one agrees with them.

	Steve
	
		;-)    

PS Welcome to Joyo Flex

    Argue (cheapo American Heritage Dictionary) - to put forth reasons for or
against something.
    Seems to me I can, with my facts, argue for something which, with your
facts, you are arguing against.  See?

    Now, let's not argue.

>    Seems to me I can, with my facts, argue for something which, with your
>  facts, you are arguing against.  See?


Absolutely true. I agree with you. You can argue against opinions, using
facts to support your arguments. If there is any merit in the opinions facts
can be found to support them on both sides. That is using facts as evidence in
an argument. RULE: the person with most facts should win, unless the other
person is bigger.

But if something is a fact you cannot argue against it - it is an absolute. 

You may, however, not believe that a statement which is offered as fact is
true. In which case you will argue with the opinion of the truth of the
fact - not the fact itself.        

Anyway, that's my opinion.

		Steve

    Ah, but then we come to semi-paraxoxes:
    
    In physics, we learn
    
    Light behaves like a stream of particles.
    
    We also learn:
    
    Light behaves like a series of weaves.
    
    Both statements are "true"; bioth can be demonstrated, both are
    thus facts.
    
    But the behavior of waves and the behavior of particles are different.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    One can also argue about the meaning of a fact, or its significance,
    or its applicability, or...
    							Ann B.

Of course, facts can be misstated, misunderstood  or incomplete.

>    Light behaves like a stream of particles.
    
>    Light behaves like a series of weaves.

>    Both statements are "true"; bioth can be demonstrated, both are
>    thus facts.

A physicist would state the above as "Under certain conditions, light 
behaves like a stream of particles." and "Under certain conditions light 
behaves like a series of [waves.]"  The physicist in question would be 
quick to point out that light is neither a wave nor a particle (and as 
far as I know, nobody really knows what it is yet) and by saying it 
behaves LIKE <something> we are using a simile to aid understanding.

				>>>==>PStJTT

    In a court of law, both sides can stipulate that certain things
    are "facts", and that there is no issue for argument on those items.
    However, if there is a disagreement as to whether something is or
    is not a fact, then any subsequent argument is dealing with the
    conflicting _opinion_ as to what has been presented as a "fact".
    
    In response to the original question, I believe that arguments
    are always over opinions even though one or the other may insist
    that his opinion represents a "fact".  A fact should only be 
    considered as such if both parties agree that it is (and even then,
    they may both be wrong!)
    
    And that MY opinion of the FACTS of the matter!
    

    RE .7
    
    Exactly my point . If two or more people argue , then are these
    facts factual ?
    
    What is the difference between fact and truth ?
    
    Is a fact a fact if it's not true , is the truth truthful if it's
    not fact ?
    
    *Can* anyone present an untrue fact , or an unfactual truth ?
    
    If they represent one and the same thing , then surely one cannot
    argue them . In which case we are simply arguing our opinions ,
    perhaps based on facts/truth *as we see them* .
    
    
    Of course , this is all opinion .............. at the moment .
    
    
    
    John J
    
    
    

    Seems to me there's absolute Truth, conceived truth, and opinions.
(There's probably an "interpretations of conceived truth" in there too.)
For (one) absolute "Truth", see John 14:6 - "I am ... the truth".
    That I believe in (an) absolute Truth puts me in (at least) one category
of conceived truth.  That you, hypothetically, believe there is no absolute
Truth, puts you in another category of conceived truth.  I think that arguments,
"discussions from differing points of view", are most productive (what's that
mean?) when the point being argued is on the same or lower level.
    On a simpler level, let me refer to an example in the "Not vague enough"
note recently entered.  What does "partly cloudy" mean?  One says, "Mostly
sunny".  One says, "How do you define 'part'?"  "Less than half".  "No, less
than whole".  It all boils down to definition of terms.  And, ultimately,
authority for defining terms.

Amateur philosopher (first day on the job)

    Re: -.1
    
    Pardon the technical digression, but the terms "partly cloudy" and
    "mostly sunny" are not used when describing weather for aviation
    purposes.  There is a fairly restricted definition of the "official 
    terms" of broken clouds and scattered clouds, the difference being, 
    in the observers estimation, whether there is more or less than 
    50% cloud cover, respectively.
    
    Back to the main issue, two observers could agree that there are,
    in fact, clouds in the sky.  They could argue over their respective
    opinions as to whether there is more than 50% cloud coverage.

    Can we ignore conceived truth for the moment , and deal with absolute
    truth ?
    
    "Conceived truth , in my opinion , is not truth , but a
     mis-conception."
     
    John 460:11
    

>    Can we ignore conceived truth for the moment , and deal with absolute
>    truth ?

No we can't. That's the very stuff of arguments, and that's a fact.

		Steve

    Hello, John! Thought you'd like it here. :-)
    
    To go back to the "physics" angle for a minute, a theoretical physicist
    would tell you that there is probably no such thing as an absolute
    fact. All phenomena are affected by the act of observation, and
    each observer's perception will be different. Some philosophers
    have argued that things may not exist unless they are perceived
    to exist. You know, the old question - when you go home at night,
    is your office still there, or does it disappeasr only to reappear
    when you come back the next morning? 
    
    So-called physical "laws" are not necessarily facts - they are simply
    theories which, so far, explain observations made by the majority
    of physicists. Take Newton's laws of motion, for instance. These
    were thought for centuries to be the indisputable truth, until Einstein
    and his contemporaries produced evidence that could not be explained
    by Newton's principles. Relativity offers an alternative, but again,
    no-one can say for sure that it's a true picture of how space and
    time are related - just that it fits the evidence so far.
    
    All this isn't much use in everyday speech, however. I'd say that,
    within the context of an argument, "facts" are only those things
    which all parties in the discussion agree to be facts. If one party
    has evidence - even if it's only his or her beliefs - to the contrary,
    then a statement cannot be regarded as the absolute truth, simply
    as one interpretation of the data available.
    
    Or not, as the case may be.
    
    Andy
        

    
>    to exist. You know, the old question - when you go home at night,
>    is your office still there, or does it disappeasr only to reappear
>    when you come back the next morning? 
 
    If I began asking myself this sort of question , the next conference
    would be  psycho::as_a_hatter .
    On the other hand , I'd just ring security .
    
    
    Ok . Let me see .
    
    What , then , we are arguing is 'conceived truth' brought on by
    a lack of 'absolutely truthful' facts .
    We each have our own idea of what is factual , keeping in mind that
    it's not a fact until we all agree , and even then we may be wrong.
    After we've agreed that it's fact , it's still *our* opinion .
    
    Therefore absolutely EVERYTHING is an opinion . But as we can't trust 
    our own common sense , (and if you've watched Blade Runner , our 
    childhood) , we cannot reliably base our opinions upon our experiences
    or anything else .
                                                              
    What we are left with is fantasy . 
    
    Good . I can now go back to the originating conference and boldly
    state that I've been to the Gods , I've asked , I've been answered
    , and the truth of the matter ....... the fact of the mat.... the
    way I see it ....... look , let's just step outside !
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    John J
    

>>    to exist. You know, the old question - when you go home at night,
>>    is your office still there, or does it disappeasr only to reappear
>>    when you come back the next morning? 
> 
>    Therefore absolutely EVERYTHING is an opinion . But as we can't trust 
>    our own common sense , (and if you've watched Blade Runner , our 
>    childhood) , we cannot reliably base our opinions upon our experiences
>    or anything else .

There's an old story about someone (Samuel Johnson?) who on hearing 
someone state that the world is purely imaginary, hauled back and kicked 
the fellow in the shin.  It seemed an effective rebuttal to the 
argument.

Blade runner is a *story* it's not true.  Many people these days seem to 
get confused about what is real and what is science fiction.  This sort 
of confusion only occurs in social settings where people have enough to 
eat and a comfy place to sit where they can carry philosophical 
arguments to an extreme.

Consider Schrodinger's (sp?) Cat.  (A cat is placed in a box with a vial
of poison gas which is opened by a random event.  We, as observers, have
no way of knowing if the cat is alive or dead until we open the box.)  
Some people hold that the cat is in a third state which is neither alive 
nor dead until we open the box.  That's rubbish.  The cat knows if it's
alive.  The cat's corroner could place the time of death (if it turns up
dead when we open the box.) The fact that we don't know if it's alive or
dead is not the same as it being neither alive nor dead. 

The experiment shows that for our purposes, if we have an experiment
that depends on the state of the cat before we open the box, we have to 
either choose a state or interpolate a state between life and death 
which we can apply to our calculation.  Much of life is the same: we 
don't know the answer, but that there IS an answer is not in doubt.

Genuine by-the-book facts are known answers.  If I kick you in the shin
it will hurt -- there's not a lot of room for argument. (Let's get the
silly quibbles out of the way...If you're wearing shin guards, I haven't
kicked you in the shin, have I?  If you're dead, you can't be reading
this. Which s.q. did I miss?)  

Some things we agree on, but the foundation of our belief is faith.
(Newton's Laws are not *wrong* it just turned out that they were not a
complete statement of the facts. Einstein's theory will give the same
results as Newton's Laws when they are applied under the circumstances
that Newton anticipated.  Einstein's theory may not be a complete
statement of the facts, but it is unlikely that it will get thrown out
the window -- we'll probably just refine it. 

Some things we just don't know. So we make our best guess.  Some things 
are unknowable (what is Art?)

The point of this screed is that you shouldn't toss the baby with the 
bathwater.  That most things cannot be reduced to facts doesn't mean 
that there ARE no facts.  Chasing down that road leads to the "all life 
is an illusion" road that merits a kick in the shin.

					>>>==>PStJTT

    The kicking was in response to a theory by Bishop Berkeley (rhymes with
    "darkly") that material objects exist only when they are perceived. The
    thing kicked was a rock, and the kicker was probably David Hume. There
    my memory fades. 
    
    In any event, the idea that we cannot trust our memories is not science
    fiction, it is philosophy. It is at least as old as Descartes. Most
    people who worry about this problem usually end up dismissing it. You
    have to trust something to get any useful work done in this world, and
    you might as well trust your own sensations. Besides, why should you
    believe someone who tells you that your memories are false? It seems to
    me that it's a whole lot easier to doctor a few bits of physical
    evidence than to doctor someone's memories. The proof would have to be
    pretty powerful and it would have to be pretty personal, too. 
    
    	Jon

    Re: .-2:
    
    The point about the cat in the box is surely that we know nothing
    about the cat until we open the box; THAT  is the only fact. What
    the cat may or not know (e.g. "It's dark in here", or "What happens
    if I break that phial in the corner") is irrelevant!
    
    Richard.

    re: .-1
    
    So the only fact is about what we know, rather than about the
    cat that we know is in the box. I don't see how this is relevant
    to anything (except the RSPCA).
    
    b

    Re: .-1
    
    This is relevant precisely because the 'uncertainty' of the situation
    arises from our intervening. The cat-in-the-box enters our field
    of knowledge in one of two states: 1)dead 2)alive. There are two
    facts about the cat, both equally viable until we open the box.
    In this 'absolute' sense, facts relate to what we know.
    
    Richard.

    But all this sounds like "we don't know until we know" . This is
    absolute truth . Therefore we can't agrue it . 
    
    If the box is opened , the cat's dead and the phial's broken , we
    don't know that the gas killed it , or it died of a heart attack.
    The post mortem will show evidence for one or the other cause ,
    and that is based on perceived truth , and is therefore arguable.
    
    If the box is opened , the cat's alive and the phial is broken ,
    we don't know whether the cat is uniquely immune to it , or it just
    held its breath . This is arguable also . 
    
    So I'm not sure what point the cat-in-the-box is making .
    
    
    John J
    

The point that the cat in the box is making is that there is no reality
independent of our observation, and thus, no such thing as the scientific
impartial observer.

This is easier to look at in terms of quantum mechanics (and if you understand
the "parable" of Schrodinger's cat, then you understand quantum mechanics).
When we put the cat in the box with the phial of poisonous gas, we can
describe that as a "wave equation";  The wave equation, when solved,
contains the "solutions",or "characteristic functions" of a dead cat
and a live cat (actually, it's a linear superposition of the solutions
of a dead cat and a live cat).  So, both of these solutions are real,
possible entities.  Oh, the characteristic functions of the cat are 
probabilities.  (That was a crucial point, and I'm sorry that I missed it).
Both of the solutions exist UNTIL we open the box, and find the cat.  Then,
the solution for the dead cat disappears if the cat is alive, and vice versa.

So, what is the point?  At the quantum level, it is very important:  We ask
the question, "Can you see atoms?", and the answer is NO!  You only see the 
interaction of atoms with whatever media we are using to view them.  Similar
for smaller "particles" we have discovered; we only see the interaction of
the quarks, leptons, baryons and such with the recording media.  At the
macroscopic level, I'm not too sure.  What I know about Bell's Theorem
indicates that quantum mechanics works even in the bigger world, but I cannot
give details right now;  maybe tomorrow.

Chuck

�    The point that the cat in the box is making is that there is no reality
�    independent of our observation, and thus, no such thing as the scientific
�    impartial observer.

    This conclusion is pretty obvious anyway, isn't it? I still see
    no need for cats.
    
    b

    Re .22:
    
    > ................................................I still see
    >no need for cats.  
    
    Actually, without cats, the world would be a dreary place.
    
    Indeed, the whole thought experiment is a little disgusting to a
    cat lover, even if we're talking about virtual cats.
    
    On the matter at hand:  the cat in the box provides an easy _model_
    for reality as it is perceived.  Reality is doubtless more complex
    than that.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
                                                        

    what about The Cat In The Hat?
    
    :-)
    
    -Jody
    

    Re: Schroedinger's cat.
    
    Nope.
    
    Contents of box are described by a function, and it has two equally-
    probable states (live and dead).
    
    When you open the box, you may think you collapse the wave into
    a fixed, known state.  But to an observer outside, your state
    can now only be described as the superposition of two states.
    One is you seeing a dead cat, the other is you seeing a live cat.
    
    The observer outside the system becomes part of the system when
    the box is opened.  The radium is in a "box", and the cat would
    describe it with a wave function--but the cat would experience
    death or not in a definite way.  The experimenter outside the box
    sees the radium-cat system as a wave--but opens the box to see
    one state or the other.  The experimenter's lab partner, standing
    outside the lab door, sees the radium-cat-experimenter system
    as a wave function--but opens the door to see one state or the
    other.  The lab partner's parents can only describe him by a
    wave function until they get a phone call and hear the news--then
    they become part of the radium-cat-experimenter-lab partner system,
    too.
    
    Much of the confusion (leading to fuzzy thought about perception
    creating reality and best-selling books (so maybe they aren't
    confused??)) comes from mixing two kinds of descriptions of the
    world: our own personal historical one, which is not quantuum-
    mechanical, and the quantuum-mechanical description, which is
    not personal.  It is an error similiar to the one which leads to
    the idea of the edge of the universe being a brick wall.
    
    						-John Bishop

>    what about The Cat In The Hat?

The Cat in the Hat is much closer to reality than a philosophical discussion
about a cat in a box. How many children (and grown-ups with major credit cards)
have really seen the Cat in the Hat in their imaginations. How many scientists
have actually imagined a real cat dying of some noxious fumes in a sealed box?

That's my opinion on the matter,

	Steve	:-)

    Re .25 (John):
    
    > ... It is an error similiar to the one which leads to
    >the idea of the edge of the universe being a brick wall.
                   
    Next, you'll be telling us that there's no Santa Claus! :-)

    [Maybe it's Plaster of Paris... :-P]

    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    

re: .18-.23

Actually, I brought up the cat because the person I was replying to was 
about to say "there are no facts."  I didn't really mean to move a 
discussion of quantum mechanics into the JOYOFLEX.  What was important 
was that the cat IS either alive or dead.  Just because we don't know 
which doesn't mean its state of being is not a fact, it just means we 
don't know.

We know it's alive or dead so there we have a fact.  We can both agree
to that.  If you say it's alive and I say it's dead, neither of us have
facts so we are arguing opinions.  But if we open the box and it's 
alive, then "alive" is a fact and I was wrong.  So there ARE facts. Some 
facts are known, some are unknown, some are unknowable.  But it's wrong 
to say there are NO facts.


Re: .17 and someone earlier.

Berkely and someone kicking a rock, huh?  What a shame.  Your story no
doubt is true (a fact,) but the story I heard (Samuel Johnson kicking
the nihilist) is so good, it *should be* true. 

					>>>==>PStJTT

Re: .25
>   The observer outside the system becomes part of the system when
>   the box is opened.

    We're back to defining truth, I think.  Is truth outside the system of
which we are a part?  In which case, our opinions begin to differ in how we
perceive truth.  Or is "truth" part of a system outside of which we find
ourselves?  In which case, no one else is right, because I'm right.

    This sentence is untrue.
    

    Re .28
>   Actually, I brought up the cat because the person I was replying to was 
>   about to say "there are no facts."  I didn't really mean to move a 

    So why did you eat the cat in the first place? Was that part of
    the experiment?
    
    
    		Ian. &^}

>< Note 460.31 by AYOV27::ISMITH "Sic Transit Gloria Swanson" >
>                      -< Sorry to bring this up, but... >-
>
>    Re .28
>>   Actually, I brought up the cat because the person I was replying to was 
>>   about to say "there are no facts."  I didn't really mean to move a 
>
>    So why did you eat the cat in the first place? Was that part of
>    the experiment?
>    
    
No, no -- you silly Smith, you -- I didn't use "brought up the cat", as in 
vomited the cat (No doubt the "sic transit" you're talking about -- 
Gloria Swanson always did that to me too) I "brought up the cat" from 
kittenhood to mature adult cat so I could stick it in a box with a vial 
of vile gas and a radium random trigger to prove there is Truth in the 
world!! (By the way, the cat is alive...dont' worry.)

					>>>==>PStJTT

    re .28, .32
    
    Aha. And I thought it was a subtle reference to the title of this
    note.
    
    b

    One cannot argue matters of TASTE (subjective opinion).
    
    One always argues Relative to Opinions using (what we hope to be)
    facts.

    Just to stir things up again I thought I'd offer what the Talking
    Heads have to say on the topic.
    
    This is from "Crosseyed and Painless" on "Remain in Light", a very
    fine album.... In my OPINION that is!

      Facts are simple and facts are straight.
      Facts are lazy and facts are late.
      Facts all come with points of view. 
      Facts don't do what I want them to.
      Facts just twist the truth around.
      Facts are living turned inside out.
      Facts are getting the best of them.
      Facts are nothing on the face of things.
      Facts don't stain the furniture.
      Facts go out and slam the door.
      Facts are written all over your face.
      Facts continue to change their shape.
    
             I'm still waiting....
             I'm still waiting....

    Re .4
    
    > Ah, but then we come to semi-paradoxes
    
    Isn't a semi-paradox a duck?

    Re .6
    
    (Prior to the 50.5 uses for a dead cat)
    
    > A physicist would state the above as "Under certain conditions, light
    > behaves like a stream of particles." and "Under certain conditions light
    > behaves like a series of [waves.]"
    
    Sounds like a hand-particling argument to me.