How much a fact worths today ?

[Virtual ghost]

This thread can be placed here or in the political forum. But I will place it here since I use alot of politics just as an analogy/example.


To be honest I think that a fact as a concept is vastly underrepresented in todays world.

As a person I have stoped watching TV to be honest with everyone.
Which is because I think that this would be a complete waste of time because there is very small amout of facts in the program. Especially if you count facts that actually make a difference.


But to be honest I don't understand why people watch it in the first place since TV is not created to keep people informed. TV companies actually serves as a means of making money and not as a information sharing mechanism.


Also it is not too likely that you will hear a politician talking about facts it is much more likely that you will see how they express concern. Even if they say something concrete that doesn't mean that it is true or that they will do it. It is not even impossible that they will deny what they actually said that after 10 days.

But the problem is that the system/nonsense is feeding and expanding.
Alot of people have the attitude that strong/smart will succeed and the other group will not. However they make one mistake here which is that people get older and newer generations are coming to their place. However the new generation will have a huge problem in...I would dare to say "being objective"
Which is because they live under propaganda since they were diapers.
If you ask 10 year old what they want to be most of the will say : Move star, lawyer, politician , business owner, rock star............
What means that they want to be a part of the system. However the system is becoming more and more unstabile. Because it is getting more and more vague and smaller and smaler amount of it is well/correctly defined.


Few years back vice persident of my country publicly said: I never lie ! It is just that I am not saying the truth sometimes.

The day when this was said was the day when I realized how certain people think. Since this clearly shows that honesty is not one of their goals. Actually thisl shows well how this mindset works. Of course he said that by mistake since he was covering up something. But to me this was quite insightful actually.


What in the end means that misinformation is what is valued here.
Personally I find it funny when people get annoyed by this but in the mean time they want their children to get the same education that allows you to develop "skill" already mentioned.
But as the number of people educated in I will call it "people skills" grows it is inevitable that we will have more and more nonsense around. I mean that it is nice that people do something they like but the question is how much the system can take this before it starts to fall apart. Since this activity reduces stability and structural integrity of the system. Which is because we have huge amount of miscommunication because no one talks about facts or in a form of facts anymore.
I am not talking abou "facts" here I am talking about real facts.



When I came here I did more debating then I do now. The main reason why I have stoped is because everyone can create a number of links to prove their point. But there is no guarantees that information on a that site is correct and if it is correct how much it is correct. So the only thing we really get out of this is clash of believes. Especially since people are arguing points in which they are not educated professionally.




Here is one more "problem" : you go to a store and on a shelf you have 2package of orange juice. One is a bottle with 0.5 litres of juice and another is large package with 2 litres of juice. The small one costs 5 (insert currency) and the large one costs 15. But the problem is that if you carefully read the text on the smaller one you will see that somewhere in the corner says that the percentage of real juice is only 10-20%. While on the big package there are big letters that says "100% orange juice". But as far as I know the most expensive/hard to get part in the product is actually the natural orange juice since it take a while for an orange to grow.
What rises the questions.
1. If we multiply the small package with 4 we will get 2 litres of juice that costs 20. But we get only 10-20% juice. On the other hand you can get 2 litres of 100% juice for only 15 (insert currency)
2. On the other hand I have tryed to make my own orange juice and guess what? I needed a huge amout of oranges just to create one litres of juice. While in every store there is shelf full of orange juice. So I am wondering who is producing so many oranges that they can supply entire continents with orange juice. Plus everybody knows that the world is not covered with orange trees.

What am I asking here: Is it reasonable to suspect that the 100% orange juice package in this story is not is not filled with orange juce for the most part ?




I am not posting this because I want to rant or to do something similar but because I want to ask where this actually leads as a philosophy ?

 

[Virtual ghost]

Anyone ?

 

[Snuggletron]

I can't provide a wall of text that can be broken down into pieces in quote tags and picked apart. But I'll say I've been loosely thinking around this subject about this for awhile now. I've come to my own conclusion that facts and reality aren't real or true, only perception. I don't know which idea I'm leeching off of or which line of the Matrix has probably backed this before, but I think it makes the most sense.

In line with your orange juice content speculation I want to ask, what formed first, man or the Universe?

 

[Virtual ghost]

In line with your orange juice content speculation I want to ask, what formed first, man or the Universe?

The scientific logic would say Universe. But you can speculate otherwise.

 

[Timeless]

This is why I love this scene:

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6E75bbW5O8"]Hero (1992)[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Snuggletron]

oh, I found the idea that sort of lines up what I think to say: "Nothing is true, everything is permitted." Permitted by perspective and perception that is. Who am I to say what facts are true if I cannot really tell the difference between what is real and what isn't?

I don't think this is unbelievable or incomprehensible stuff. I mean, once you draw everything down its stem to its root you should arrive at perception. Observed facts may dictate how you view your world, but how do you decipher if these facts are just persistent virtual experiences or not?

 

[The_Liquid_Laser]

I think a lot of people are interested in valid facts. One disadvantage of living in the "information age" is that most of this extra "information" we are getting isn't worth a whole lot.

 

[Shaunward]

We are putting the information age behind us and are entering the attention age. The new industries that will start rising will be those that focus not on bringing information, but separating it. Industries that will, from the chaos, bring order. There is more information and facts (valid or not) than a person can handle. This will only grow exponentially.

Google and Bing? They're only the beginning.

 

[Virtual ghost]

I think a lot of people are interested in valid facts. One disadvantage of living in the "information age" is that most of this extra "information" we are getting isn't worth a whole lot.

We are putting the information age behind us and are entering the attention age. The new industries that will start rising will be those that focus not on bringing information, but separating it. Industries that will, from the chaos, bring order. There is more information and facts (valid or not) than a person can handle. This will only grow exponentially.

Google and Bing? They're only the beginning.

I tend to agree with this.


However the "information separating industry" has a totalitarian vibe in it.

 

[Fluffywolf]

From what I see around me, the trend tends to be that to the individual, fact is important.

But in on a grand scale, like politics, it holds less and less value.

Nowadays, getting in the news negatively is worth more than saying something profound and factual that doesn't make it in the news. There is a rise of politicians that plays the mind of the average citizen by shouting about particular problems, by coming off as apparantly smart, capable and assertive. Gaining a lot of political ground by doing so. Whilest the subtance in what they stand for equals to nothing and they remain shallow in their execution. (They keep shouting about what needs to be done, but don't actually come up with any good and solid plan on how to execute their plans. Because in most cases, things aren't that easily changed or done when it comes to these things.)

But people love them nonetheless.

Going out of the informative age and into the attention age does indeed seem what is happening. And personally I don't like it.

 

[Chunes]

What is a fact?

As kids we are taught to cherish them, but as I grow older they become less important and less real with each passing day. We are taught that facts are real and true and good. I find them almost always to be fairy tales, lies, and oversimplifications. They are thought to exist so that some can have some notion of order, I suppose.

 

[Asterion]

I've been reading "Amusing yourself to death" by Neil Postman, and he adresses this issue somewhat. The problem with television is that people don't necessarily put thought into what they say. Public speakers are people who are seen just as much as they are heard, and so the public becomes a little bit discriminating. When was the last time you saw a fat, bald, ugly politician or news reporter?

TV is full of junk, but that's what it's good for, it entertains. Written word is closer to the truth than spoken. It's there forever, for everyone to read, and people tend to think more about what they write. It is also more likely subject to peer review.

So, simple as that, if you want your knowledge to be as close to reality as possible, you can read. Read as much as you wish, but the closest truth out there is that which you see with your own eyes... even that can be wrong.

 

[Halla74]

Facts don't mean shit unless they can be put to productive use.

(1) The sky is blue.
(2) Grass is green.
(3) 1,000 grams = 1 kilogram

Who cares?

To me, what is important in life is deciding on a goal, formulating a plan to accomplish attaining the goal using what you have at hand to work with, and applying knowledge (facts + experience) and effort to achieve the desired objective.

Doing so results in success. A person can know all the facts in the world and never amount to shit.

 

[trondor]

I can see that the bag of flour weigh 1 kilogram. But you can't. Can I be trusted? Do I have reasons to trick you?

I belive facts and authority go togheter. As authorities lose their hold on us, their facts are less trusthed. And with the growth of democracy, free press and more availible information, we see that everybody has their own agenda. We can't trust others to be truthful or to hold themselves to the same definitions as us.

And as told before in this thread, facts are nothing without context, without the will and motivation to do something with them. Without the thread that sews them togheter, facts are in fact not interesting/unrelevant. Blue sky is blue.

Ofcourse, these patterns might create a growth in relativism, which in turn can lead people to belvie nothing is true, and that all is an illusion. That nothing exist. But just because something is hard to understand, or just because we dont know all factors involved, does not mean that something does not exist.

 

[Not_Me]

Facts are worth exactly $2.99.