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On facts and things that can and cannot be facts

3 mins

For most of the notes here to make sense, it’s fairly important to align on the definitions of a “fact” and a “proposition” as they are used on this website.

Proposition #

We will call a statement a proposition when that statement can be true or false. A proposition may or may not be a fact depending on whether it’s true, but a statement that is not a proposition is a priory not a fact.

When used here, propositions shall have three qualities:

  1. Propositions use objectively measurable terms.

    “Objectively measurable” means that if several people would perform a measurement or evaluation, they would arrive to substantially the same result regarding the fact at hand.

    For example, in a statement “Fred is a good guy”, “good” is an ethical term that is not objectively measurable (“yay/boo theory”). Therefore, this statement is not a proposition.

    On the other hand, a statement “Fred said that he has successfully passed a literature exam on the 1st of April 2024” uses objectively measurable terms, and therefore can be a proposition.

  2. Propositions leave little room for interpretations. They do not use sarcastic language, loose analogies, or too vague definitions.

    For example, “George asked a teacher when her birthday is” can be a proposition.

    On the other hand, a statement “George always sucks up to his teacher” is not a proposition.

  3. Propositions are falsifiable.

    A statement is a proposition when evidence that proves it wrong can technically exist.

    For example, saying that the speed of light is ±300,000 km/s is a falsifiable statement. If the measurements of the speed of light demonstrate that it significantly deviates from 300,000 km/s, it would refute the original statement. Therefore, this statement can be a proposition.

    On the other hand, saying that an invisible and undetectable flying spaghetti monster lives on the Moon and watches over the Earth through a tiny invisible and undetectable telescope, is not falsifiable and is not a proposition.

Note that if a statement is not a proposition, it does not mean it’s false. It means that in scope of this website, we will not make a judgement on whether it’s false or true.

For example, a statement “If Stalin had blond hair, a lot of people would kiss his ass”, does not fit any of the three criteria.

On stretching the definitions #

The goal of the criteria above is to rule out statements that are not worth debating on. There’s no point in nitpicking or stretching the definitions.

For example, when we say that “objectively measurable means that several people could obtain the same result”, it implies accuracy and not precision. If we say that Fred’s height is 1.90m, and two measurements show 1.905 and 1.895, we’re still talking about an objectively measurable term.

Fact #

We will call a statement a fact when two conditions are met:

  1. It’s a proposition.

    The statement in question has to correspond to the definition above.

  2. It’s proven.

    Now this is more interesting. Unless the fact is related to logic or mathematics, we will use the proven beyond reasonable doubt definition.

Now armed with these definitions, let us proceed. ■

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