How do we decide what is fact and what is opinion?
How do we decide what is fact and what is opinion? There are more than 8.1 billion humans on Earth and our conflicting ideologies, religions, worldviews and values divide us. I worry that we will destroy ourselves and all the other species with our conflicts. I think that if we could work out what is fact and what is opinion, it would help us get on with each other better.
Comments (104)
As you suggest, one man's opinion is another's fact and visa versa. But if we don't argue over that then we will argue over what method we can use to determine what makes it into Fact City and what is banished to the badlands. I'm not entirely sure we need to worry. I doubt that pluralism or difference of itself is the problem. It's how difference and diversity is managed, which is a separate issue. And I wonder too if this isn't yet another thread about the nature of truth.
Yet even our Science is based on theories, so basically a lot more would be strictly defined to be opinions. Of course even if we don't exaclty understand everything about gravity, we can assume that jumping off from a ten-floor building isn't good for our health. Hence those theories aren't so wildly off from reality.
It's a limited number of topics where we admit that we only have opinions. Like for example art or beauty are subjects where we understand that there aren't concrete facts on just what is art or what is beautiful. In everything else we just crave for facts to base our rational thinking and decision making.
Perhaps it's not so much a question of facts versus opinion but a matter of values and worldviews. And whether it is realistic for you to want people to share your worldview.
From a Stoic perspective, there's no point worrying about that over which you have no power. I generally hold that life is a bucket of shit for many people on earth, even the successful ones, and I sleep fairly soundly knowing that virtually none of this is in my control.
:up:
To the extent our "conflicts" are not violent (e.g. win-win), they facilitate our searching for not our ever finding "unquestionable" truthes (re: dialectics), that is, potentially learning from mistakes errors & failures as we cross-examine one another's assumptions and mutual testing of our competing, or contrary, claims. Absent this Sisyphusean agon (i.e. 'the unexamined life is not worth living'), how else can we at least some small yet nontrivial fraction of the eight billion of us thrive (flourish)?
It never has. Conflicting opinions arise from the very same facts (Some people speak French, while some people speak English). More importantly, conflicting interests arise from the same physical reality (Some people live on a plot of fertile land; some other people want to live there.) We don't go to war over facts; we go to war over emotions (anger, greed and fear, mostly) or because we loyally and stupidly follow leaders, or because we subscribe to different stories. (God likes us and doesn't approve of them)
Turns out, the truth rarely sets anyone free; it's far more likely to land them in jail.
Quoting Truth Seeker
I think it's inevitable. At least, wiping out most of us and them - odds are, something will remain and start over. But probably not a bunch a altruistic vegans, alas!
https://quillandquire.com/review/oryx-and-crake/
They're fighting over their stories. (God likes us and doesn't approve of them)
Quoting Truth Seeker
I was, most of my life. Our daughter married a 'conservative' who had written a pro-worker dissertation for his Sociology course. We asked him "Don't you care about equality?" He said "I've moved on."
Well, so have I. I came to realize that this entire species is subject to some degree of the same emotional illness. We have this big brain, with its ability to reason and its ability to imagine, and we get the two mixed up all the time. We have aggressive predator genes and co-operative social genes, and we get the two mixed up all the time. We make up stories and fall in love with them so deeply that we die and kill for them. We exaggerate our fears into unspeakable monsters and then hang monster-masks on our fellow humans. We invent the notion of evil and then enact it and then make a ceremony of it.
I believe it's possible to live differently, but it would have to be in much smaller numbers, who were in accord, and it would require constant mindfulness and vigilance to maintain.
An opinion is a belief, and let's only consider propositional beliefs. A fact is a true proposition. So your question boils down to: how do we decide what beliefs are true? Here's how: by applying valid epistemological methods, we improve our odds of holding true beliefs. That's as good as it gets.
Please clarify what you mean. Are opinions not beliefs?
The problem is, it seems the easiest way to struggle is against each other. It can be competition, which is why sports is the most important thing in the world. Unfortunately, it can also mean fighting, and taking from, each other.
I think we need to find more ways to strive for, and gain satisfaction from, things that don't involve other people. Me against nature. Me against myself. Who knows?
I wasn't speaking in absolutes. no, every instant of our lives does not need to be a struggle. But I did not coin that phrase. The struggle very often makes things worthwhile. People are very often romantically drawn to the person who isn't interested. The one you want most is the one you can't have. The one you have to put in a lot of effort to get. I didn't come up with that idea either. Even as spectators, we don't get any enjoyment watching a baseball team win by 20 runs. How do we say it's bad sportsmanship when a team in that position keeps putting everything into it to increase their lead. Ali and Fraser fought some great matches because they were evenly matched.
You'll move on from that, too. You know the stages of mourning? It's like that: eventually, you reach acceptance, make peace with the way of things, and just do what good you can in your small sphere of influence.
I hope you are right. I have been stuck in depression for a long time. I am not going to go into all the gory details of the last 42 years as I don't want to traumatise others.
I can't speak to your situation, but sometimes when people are seeking to change the world, what they would be better off doing is changing themselves.
That's certainly a commonly held view. But frankly I appreciate greatly the things I got for 'free' or without work, so I'm not sure about this. It sounds a little too close to Calvinism for me.
Quoting Patterner
This doesn't resonate with me at all. I have never watched or played any sport. I dislike games and sport with something approaching a passion. I do agree with the point that many men are aggressive creatures and as long as they are running around on the field like thugs chasing after a ball, they are not out on the streets rioting. That's a cartoon summary with perhaps some truth to it?
Quoting Patterner
I think this is the impulse i lack. I have never had any desire to challenge myself or do any of the kinds of 'growth-based" righteous middle class rituals you read about in self-help. That doesn't mean I haven't had to face challenges and overcome obstacles, but this happens without planning.
We cannot** since only the dead are free from "all harm" or conflict; however, far more often than not, we can prevent greater harms from occuring and/or reduce harms that have been inflicted. Lack of perfection** is neither a rational nor a moral argument against doing good (i.e. negating worse) whenever possible. Nonviolent conflicts are usually resolved less harmfully than violent conflicts which almost always follow from either refusing to engage in and/or defecting from nonviolent conflict (e.g. dialectics, deliberations, dialogues). So again I ask, Seeker:
Quoting 180 Proof
:chin:
I hope so, too. You have to move on. You can't let yourself be stuck in regret over something you can't fix. You have to accept your own limitations - and what's much harder, mankind's. You have to concentrate on the small good things: the number of people who have changed the way eat, the way they use resources, the way they think; the people who dedicate their lives to making things better. As a species, we may be self-destructive, but individually, we are not a complete loss - many of us are worth cherishing, respecting, supporting, helping. Do what you can do and don't deny yourself the pleasure of small victories, just because the big ones are beyond your reach.
Epistemic standards is a comprehensive area, yet even common sense is fine on occasion.
Claims come in all "shapes and sizes", justification likewise.
(In analogy, I wouldn't ask a blacksmith to do heart surgery, or a surgeon to craft a Claymore.)
For an existential claim, I'd just start out simple ...
Or something like that.
Quoting Tom StormOr getting in the ring/cage to fight each other, rather than beating each other up on the street and going to jail for it.
Quoting Tom StormYes, it does. But you can turn away from them. Is the reason you faced every challenge you faced, and overcome every obstacle you overcame, because you had no choice? It was absolute necessity, sometimes even life or death, that you do it each time you did? It was never because you saw a challenge, and just wanted it?
How can we know anything that is mind-independent? I am looking at the computer screen and I can only do this because my brain generates a model of reality. Our perceived reality could be real or simulation or hallucination or dream or illusion. How can we know with 100% certainty which of the five options is the correct option?
Quoting jorndoe
I don't understand what you mean by this. Please explain. Thank you.
Certainly this what you describe here is mind-independent, no?
Maybe we already work it out in the best way possible, and today, I grumble about the seeming confusion in the world over the difference, tomorrow I might celebrate.
Since we have two conventional Signifiers, we have clearly evolved the mechanism to differentiate. It is how these Signifiers operate in minds and any given mind which raises your problem. But it is, I submit, a built-in/evolved process which always rests on what is the most functional/fitting outcome in a given situation; we cannot easily change universally but through a very slow historical transformation
1. In clear cases the difference is readily settled upon by most because it is blatantly functional. Think of obvious eg of opinions/facts. Vanilla is better than chocolate/red light means stop. Each of opinion/fact results in the fitting, why argue?
2. In middle cases the Dialectic and the settlement on either side is patent and gives the impression of choice, but, in the end what is functional "wins" projection into the world. If it is most fitting to agree that the evidence shows a thing is fact, it is fact, and vice versa. That's where you get the battle between "that's a difference of opinion" vs "no its not look it up".
3. I very controversial cases, where it is not obvious at all, the Dialectic and settlement on whether a thing is fact or fiction is not as conventionally determined but rather very locally determined by what is most fitting locally. E.g. to a Westerner or Israeli it might be a fact that the Oct 7 Hamas attack started the war. To a middle easterner it might be my opinion. I might even get back lash for this e.g., people saying that it is an obvious fact. But I submit, though sensitively, those protestations are not recognizing the functional turn necessary to settle at that conclusion. And ultimately only that renders the statement a fact for that locus. It doesn't matter the arguments. In another locus, it will always be viewed as opinion, because of the function of those words for that other locus. Not because of anything real
I think that is a bit of an awkward question, so I will just say that opinion and belief refer to different things, hence the difference names. An opinion is simply "This massage feels good" or "This massage was expensive". A fact is "The bird flies in the sky" or "The bird has two wings". I guess anyone that utters any of those four sentences believes in its content.
You might think that I'm just a figment of your mind rude. :)
Seems you've moved on from that, as noted by...
Quoting 180 Proof
:up:
Anyway, differentiating fact and (false) opinion can sometimes take a bit of work.
You seem to be describing the role of Philosophy in a world of divided opinions. Modern Science has found that the job is easier if you focus only on the objective material world. Today, Science works on the "easy" problems ("what is?" ; "how does?" ; Quanta), and leaves the "hard" problems ( "why?" ; "whence?" ; Qualia) for Philosophy to contend with. Both approaches are supposed to "decide" on the basic of observation and reason, but measures of success are easier to quantify when we objectify. And resolution of opinion-based conflicts are easier to find when we agree in advance to accept ambiguity in our answers. :worry:
It depends on what your beliefs are. Reality doesn't have to make sense, we just want it to. For all we know, tomorrow logic could stop making sense, it's our subjective opinion that it won't. But the way I understand reality to be is that this world is real, it actually affects us. In other words, a person can believe just about anything, but the moment it starts hurting them to maintain those beliefs is when they will be motivated to change them, and when it hurts to an extreme degree, they will have no choice but to change them or die. For those that choose death, well, they stop causing the rest of us problems. But this is not myself saying that death is the answer, I am simply saying that those who are hyperfixated on being wrong in their beliefs will cause their own beliefs to destroy themselves because they're out of sync with reality, preventing them from "seeing" where the walls are in life. Bang your head on enough "walls" and you destroy yourself from stress or other things.
But for those who can still be reasoned with, you must understand your system of reasoning and their system of reasoning, and figure out where you both have common ground, then either realize the direction they went in after that was correct (because you're wrong) or realize that the direction that you went into is correct (because they were wrong), then you explain to them how you understand why they made the mistake of going into the direction that they did, and explain why your method is actually in sync with reality.
Reality is our common ground, but when you don't know what is reality and what isn't, it makes you prone to delusion. Say I said in a box there are 3 oranges because I could smell the scent of oranges from within the box, and estimated the weight to be 3 oranges, as well as estimated there to be 3 oranges because of how shaking the box would seem to cause the impact of 3 oranges, but in reality there were only 2 oranges. My estimated guess would be a delusion, because it was out of sync with the way reality actually is. It would be even more of a delusion if after the box was opened and revealed to be 2 oranges, if I still thought there were 3 oranges.
Edit:
A reason why we want reality to make sense is because it lets us think everything we've learned so far matters, that we've accomplished something, and that we can accomplish more. As for why those accomplishments matter to us is because we believe that suffering and enjoyment are real, so it allows us to have hope that we can enjoy life more through understanding.
As well you should.
Speculation about nuclear war suggests that not being able to determine the facts (is that a missile, a bird, a plane, or superman...) might trigger a nuclear holocaust rather than a difference of opinion about which nuclear power is a superior society. But delusions might also be the determinative factor.
We have come fairly close to launching nuclear weapons based on facts (that were not correct).
Quoting Truth Seeker
Or maybe recognize that disagreement over fact and opinion just goes with the territory.
A fact or an opinion? It just doesn't matter that much what other people think.
Short answer: I don't know. That said...
World-wide free trade was thought to be helpful for global peace. A global government (League of Nations first, United Nations second) has been tried. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) has worked so far, but living on a knife edge is a losing gamble in the long run. Global unity has been brought about through universal global threats -- but only in science fiction novels. Now that we have a real global threat (severe climate change) we see new opportunities for instability and conflict.
Over population is thought to be a threat to world peace, or long term survival, but world population before WWI was about 1.8 billion. Before WWII it was about 2.3 billion. The world's two most destructive wars, then, were way before our present (too many) 8+ billion.
We are capable of cooperation, certainly. Humans have cooperated a lot over the last 12,000 years, since the beginning of more settled communities. But we have also fought a lot. A lot of ancient hunter-gatherers died from their brains being bashed in (so says archeological evidence).
We are an intelligent species. Unfortunately, our smart cerebral cortexes are balanced by volatile limbic systems which react with the fight or flight response to real or imagined threats. We are an imaginative species, so we can see threats where they may not actually exist, everything from ghosts, evil spirits, monsters under the bed, angry gods, and so forth to little dictators with nuclear arsenals (North Korea). Given a little encouragement with propaganda, we can see threats behind every tree. And beside all that, there are real, bona fide threats.
I do not think we can expect to have peace and cooperation over the long run. Our best bet is to downgrade our weapons so that we can survive and prosper after our inevitable wars.
Depressing opinion? Depressing fact? Yes.
Mars Attacks! Maybe. The giant asteroid heading for Earth? Maybe. If climate change hasn't done it yet, I'm not counting on either of those.
I agree with the other things you have said. I really hope that we wise up.
In 1968 global warming was not an issue, outside of a small circle of friends in climate science.
Sustainability is an emerging problem. Warming is disrupting climate, ecology, agriculture, oceans, mammal, bird, and insect populations, fresh water supplies, and on and on. Despite the pledges in numerous climate conferences, heat-trapping gases continue to rise, and warming continues, pretty much unabated.
It isn't a question of too many people. It's a question of how many people will have a chance at a decent life, and how many will suffer from intolerable heat, drought, flooding, new diseases, economic decline, crop failure, fishery collapse, etc.
Malthus didn't know about the HaberBosch process (around 1900), which produces nitrogen fertilizer from the air, or Norman Borlaug's 1950s-60s Green Revolution research in plant genetics -- both of which greatly increased food production in the 20th century. "Past performance does not guarantee future results" as economists say.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10062021/agriculture-greenhouse-gas-emissions-food-production-climate-change-paris-agreement/
This makes sense. One of our appalling practices is growing corn for alcohol to add to gasoline. That aside, animals (including ourselves) are not all that great at converting plant matter to animal protein:
Feed conversion
(feed/edible weight)
4.5 for chicken
9.4 for pork
25 for beef
Absolutely. The rich -- the wealthiest people -- consume a very disproportionate share of goods. It isn't the they eat so much -- the rich are more likely to be svelte than obese. It's their consumption of materials that matter -- the 30,000 to 50,000 square foot mansions lavishly furnished, the landscaping, the cars, the planes, the yachts, the chrome, the plastic, and the petroleum it all takes.
Obviously their assets should be liquidated as soon as possible -- like, today.
We don't want to leave out the impact of military activities, or exploiting space with thousands of rocket launches burning fuel in the upper levels of the atmosphere.
Then there is the dominance of the automobile and the absence of effective public transit (especially in the US).
We might have different beliefs about the current market value of a house, for instance, but we can list the house for sale in order to find out whether our beliefs correspond to its current market value. What is fact and what is opinion in this case is not something we decide but find out.
Quoting Truth Seeker
There are many more things that unite us as living organisms than there are divisive ideas etc. The ideas of power mad ideologues, preachers, poets etc. are irrelevant compared to the wonders of nature.
Quoting Truth Seeker
Possibly, yet never before in human history has there been so much public attention on sustainability and global climate change. Many of us reduce damage by avoiding unsustainable products, food, and life styles, many businesses are desperately trying to green wash their unsustainable products or replace them with better alternatives.
Quoting Truth Seeker
1 + 1 = 2 is a fact. Pizza tastes good is an opinion. What needs to be worked out here? Look at the philosophers who study the nature of facts, do they seem to get on with each other better? :cool:
Meat-eating humans were never a threat to the natural ecosystem, until modern science/technology began to work contrary to evolutionary selection : a> partly by allowing "unfit" humans to survive long enough to reproduce ; also b> artificially forcing nature to produce more human food than normal ; and c> resulting in an exponentially expanding human population that is overwhelming nature's ability to support life, on a globe of finite resources.
What I'm saying is that technology is the root of the food-supply problem, not meat-eating. A carnivorous lifestyle didn't un-balance the biosphere, as long as the vegetarians could out-breed the predators. One ideal solution to the world-food problem is for carnivores & omnivores (e.g. dogs, cats, and humans) to magically de-evolve into herbivores. That might be the Luddite answer to the (factual?) food insufficiency, and would incidentally end the Moral Evil (opinion) of wolves, lions, and humans killing innocent sentient creatures in order to survive.
However, a technological solution to the science-caused limited-resource problem would be to export meat-eating humans to another planet, such as Mars. Since natural evolution has not prepared the red planet for producing human foods, the technology of terra-forming must be developed by artificial evolution of a lifeless planet into a life-bearing world. Perhaps, by then, the technology for plant-based meat-analogues will be developed to the point where it solves both the insufficiency issue, and the moral problem --- "killing two birds with one stone" (sorry for the predatory metaphor).
At this point in time, the vegan/vegetarian approach seems to be focused on the moral side of what they view as an ethical/existential problem. And I doubt that they would be satisfied with a pragmatic technical solution to a moral problem, even though it might indirectly address the ethical evils. So, how can the rest of us decide which is an objective fact (insufficiency), and which is a subjective opinion (morality) ? :smile:
GRASS-EATING CARNIVORE
Now you have stated an opinion I don't agree with, and we were getting along so well! :smile:
There surely is a lot of disagreement over religion and politics, but when it comes to war, I think the stakes are almost always material: Who is going to have control over resources (land, water, minerals, labor, etc.)
Take, for instance, the conquest of the Eastern Roman Empire by the armies of Islam. There clearly was a religious overlay: Islam vs. Christian. There had been earlier religious overlays to the Roman expansion throughout the Mediterranean Basin, and then to the conversion of the Empire to Christianity. Power politics too. But under the religious and political overlay was the on-the-ground reality of land, and who controlled it. Land is a very material concern: Who gets to concentrate the wealth that farmers, miners, urban centers, traders, etc. create?
Some wars are murky: What was at stake in WWI? The years of stalemate in the trenches, the appalling number of dead, the static lines of battle... it's hard to see what the Central Powers vs. the Triple Entente were after. It seems like the balance of German land and population was one problem. German industry was very successful, but a lot of German soil was not great for agriculture (too much clay, too wet, to chilly...
France was in much better shape agriculturally, and was on a par with German industry. Great Britain didn't have to depend on its small island for food and markets: it had the Empire and it ruled the seas. Control of the seas enabled GB to blockade Germany, which helped starve the Germans into submission.
WWII is much clearer: The politics were crystal clear, and the material aspirations of the Nazi regime were front and center.
I agree with you. We do need to know the difference between a fact or an opinion. Believing in a God can not be a belief about fact because there is no substance that can be empirically studied. However, we can study animals and learn about humans.
Religion has to be opinion. An opinion that a mythology is true. The temperature of the sea and reality of increasing natural disasters are a fact. Believing a God will save our sorry asses and give us a new planet to destroy, is not based on fact.
One is in our heads and not empirically studied. The other can be empirically studied. However, :chin: math is pretty abstract and not exactly matter but it is amazing what we can know with math. Is there a word for this that is other than "opinion" or "fact"?
And so do most animals. What makes us different is our ability to think about such things. We want to believe our wars are just wars, whereas animals don't ask the question, they just chase away the immigrants. :lol: Do we have anything to gain by allowing the immigrants to move in or take control of a neighbor's homeland? What are the morals we might gain from Greek and Roman history versus the success of Christianity and other religions?
:gasp: Just because the factory farm produces plants instead of meat, that does not make them sustainable. It is not possible for us to use soil over and over again without replenishing the nutrients in the soil and even than this does not give us the soil that is replenished by volcanos or flooding or an ice age that shoved top soil into valleys. One of the most important nutrients is phosphate and if current usage of it continues, the world's supply maybe depleted by 2050. Just as serious is our fertilizer is made with petroleum. We are less worried about that than we were before fracking made oil more available to us but believing our farming practices are healthy and sustainable is just wrong. Not only are we depleting the minerals but we are polluting rivers and oceans. "GeoDistinies" by Walter Youngquist.
The huge industrial farms we have today resulted from a study to improve the lives of small farmers. Instead of the study improving the lives of small farmers, it destroyed them because the study revealed the industrial farms could feed more people than small farmers can feed. So the small farmers were sacrificed for the good of the millions of hungry people.
Now we have the global warming that is rapidly depleting our water supply. In area fed by meling glaciers, we can see the trouble coming but the depletion of underground water is not so visible. The world is about to experience severe water shortages that could lead to desertification of our once fertile land.
The moral of this story is the ancients were correct when they foresaw the day when there would be more life on earth than the earth could support. There is nothing mystical about the Biblical last days. It is just Fibonacci math and knowing the struggle for survival.
I do not mean becoming vegetarian would not improve things temporarily, only that solution is temporary.
At this point in time I don't know if there are any good solutions but I am very excited about the possibility of a New Age that could be more moral than any previous time in history. To prepare for that we must consider the possibility that we are in the Resurrection now. The past is being brought into the present by the archaeologist, geologist, and related sciences. It is our job to learn all we can, and reevaluate everything, so we can move into a New Age that is so different from the past those in the New Age will not be able to relate to the history of our past.
You know, like a Star Trek show where an advanced civilization makes us look primitive.
Be careful you might get what you wish for. It might not be what you want.
I have no desire to go to heaven. The idea of living eternally in perfection is not desirable. There would be no good movies or novels without problems to overcome. I have no idea what would motivate me to get up in the morning. Without problems to resolve, what would give me a sense of propose? Might such a life be intolerably boring?
"Might is right" is pretty primative and comes from the notion that God is the might and chooses who will live and who will die. Really? what kind of statement is "might makes right". You jest, right?
A notion of a New Age was carried by Masons and the forefathers of the US. It is part of the Enlightenment and hope for our democracy.
Spirituality may or may not be part of a person's understanding of the New Age. It is a time of technology and the end of tyranny. A time of peace on earth resulting from advanced intellectual strength and I believe we can achieve this if we do not destroy our planet before we do. This mental evolution means people in the New Age will not be able to relate to our more our primitive past that is dominated by being as animals without a well-developed intellect.
Where do you live, Chicago, New York, L.A. the jungles of Africa? We institute governments to protect ourselves from ourselves. However, that alone is not enough. :heart:
There can be no liberty without education for liberty, and perhaps there can be no security until every child experiences security. For sure, technology is essential to better lives, but until we figure out governments must be funded by thesource of income, we will not achieve the economic power required for better lives. When machines replace human labor, the source of income is those computers and machines and they must be taxed because they replace the human laborer that is taxed.
This is not a new idea, taxation began with property taxes, and our machines are property.
Securing the resources for low and high-tech economies can lead to war, so we have to be 100% honest about our need for resources and how to share the resources with the world. This is an intellectual feat we have not achieved. Religion has not helped us one bit when it comes to sharing the earth with others nor has the Bible given us the intellectual capacity for the honesty world peace requires.
Yipes as I struggle to imagine a perfect world, I am reminded of the novel/movie Brave New World. Have you seen it?
It could be fun to form a group that can commit to watching that movie 30 minutes at a time and then comment after each viewing. We must remember our best intentions can go very wrong.
For darn sure we are not going to achieve our full potential with the God of Abrahman and Biblical explanation of reality. As long as we cling to superstition we will not have good judgment about reality and ourselves.
Not where he grew up. He has dealt with a lot of killing and lawlessness. There are areas on earth that are not healthy for humans because humans tend to fill their heads full of lies and than act on them in destructive ways. Hum, that could make a good thread. What is required for safe communities?
That is a delicious question! But I want to point out the killing of which Truth Teller speaks is emotional and I don't think the US has ever dealt with the number of emotionally unstable people that it has today. Our western TV seems to focus on killing. Every episode someone is killed and that probably is not a realistic account of our past. But today the number of mass murders committed by emotionally unstable people is alarming. I think we need to get past the notion of good and bad people, and be more scientific about our understanding of such behavior. The moral being a matter of cause and effect.
I have noticed some people have a strong opinion of what it means to be a strong person and how this person should have control. I am not sure if they are part of the problem or part of the solution.
Why would anyone leave Bangladesh? I think of Bangladesh as very exotic and with a rich history. Meaning, that some of the earliest people at least passed through the region and later inhabitants developed pottery and things of metal. They had a very impressive military with elephants, surely the tanks of their day. That may have kept Alexander the Great from tromping all over them.
Today Bangladesh is one of the most threatened countries because of global warming but when the first people walked through it must have been a paradise with abundant food. I would love to go back in time and check it out.
And technology can provide a reasonable answer (not shipping people off-planet) in the form of cultured meat. Like any new technology, it needs a time to develop improved product and to become affordable. ATM, it's less than ideal: though not as energy-wasteful and polluting as industrial sized live meat production. The biggest obstacle, as usual, is the consumers' entrenched prejudice, fuelled by the present meat industry, which has a lot to lose.
One huge advantage, when cultured meat becomes commonplace, is that a meat factory can be set up in every town, and several in each city, saving all the transportation costs and fallout. Vegetable and food growing can also be local and urban, liberating vast tracts of land to grow oxygenating, carbon-capturing vegetation and wildlife habitat.
Different people have left Bangladesh for different reasons. Some have left to have a better standard of living in another country. Some have left because their lives were threatened in Bangladesh. Some have left to earn more money for their family. Some have left to have better education.
Quoting Athena
When I think of Bangladesh, I am flooded with sorrow about all the suffering, inequality, injustice and deaths. Please see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacks_by_Islamic_extremists_in_Bangladesh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_Bangladesh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Bangladesh_cyclone
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floods_in_Bangladesh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_Liberation_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_Bhola_cyclone
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Bengal_famine_of_1770
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Plassey
In 1617, the Christian King James I of England & VI of Scotland, the one who authorised the King James Version of the Bible, offered friendship to the Muslim Emperor Jahangir. In return, Jahangir granted trading permission and tax-exempt status to the English East India Company. In 1757, the East India Compay stabbed the natives in the back and took power using deception, bribery and violence. The Company forced local farmers to grow cash crops instead of food crops. During the 1769 to 1773 famine, they increased tax 3 to 4 times the original tax - one would think the Company would remember that they were given tax-exempt status by Jahangir and consequently would give the natives a tax-exempt status but they did the very opposite. 10 million out of 30 million Bengalis died in that famine alone. Of course, there were many more famines during the British Rule:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_major_famines_in_India_during_British_rule
I would love to go back in time and prevent all suffering, inequality, injustice, and deaths. I would love to make all living things all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful but I can't.
'This is text,' is a fact, and it confirms itself.
Is a fact about the universe now, still a fact if we are not part of the universe and have no interaction with it from somewhere external to it? Can there be facts without observation? And thus, do facts exist in the mental realm, moreover the physical realm as per se one's collection of facts(in mind) as opposed to the states of things in a locale?
Yes. But the only way you can confirm that is by going outside the universe and then establishing communications with someone inside.
Quoting Barkon
Yes.
Quoting Barkon
Facts are the verbal description of things and relationships that exist in reality. What you put in your mental realm are memories of factual descriptions.
Quoting Barkon
This does not scan.
Hey, should we start a thread for that? Everyone can pick his/her time in history and place and say what should be changed, why, and how?
I loved Genghis Khan, the early Nintendo game. I loved that we could save the game and repeat a part of it if things went really wrong. I also liked how it expanded my ideas of what is important and how to balance everything. Most important lesson, war can destroy your empire, so don't go to war if it can be avoided. However, if the British are causing the people to starve to death there is no good choice but to try to get rid of them.
Now I need to know what a datum is and this definition causes me to think about the Greek philosophers and what math had to do with the separation of rational thinking from the gods and the evolution of science coming out of philosophy.
A fact is a fact if we are aware of it or not. Washing one's hands in polluted water can spread disease if observers realize that is what is happening or not. Making the ritual of washing of hands in an area that is wet and the well is close to the sewage a hazardous practice leading some to think the ritual of washing hands is not a good idea.
When reading the Bible we might want to do some fact checking before believing it is the word of God.
A theory might or might not be a fact. We can not judge that without checking and rechecking what we believe is true.
It is not factual. It is not science. It can not predict. What we think about myths is an opinion of what is true and believable.
Thank you for the proposal. I have created such a thread: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15185/changing-the-past-in-our-imagination
Quoting Athena
If you loved that game you are likely to love Civilization VI.