Cybernetics & Human Knowing - Thesaurus pilot project
Edited by M&T Thellefsen

Facts as construct

Definition
There are, in a sense, no facts in nature; or, if you like, there are an infinite number of potential facts in nature, out of which the judgment selects a few which become truly facts by that act of selection

Facts are contrasted with statements that are untrue or surmised, with untested hypotheses, beliefs and fantasies, and with phenomena

that are subject to change, e.g., with a SELF-FULFILLING HYPOTHESIS.

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Definitions:

Principia Cybernetica
International Encyclopedia of Systems & Cybernetics

 

Principia Cybernetica (web)
Anything described and held to be true; any DATUM that, within the domain of an observer's powers, cannot be ignored, modified or explained away and must therefore be included in that observer's CONSTRUCT or MODEL. Facts are contrasted with statements that are untrue or surmised, with untested hypotheses, beliefs and fantasies, and with phenomena that are subject to change, e.g., with a SELF-FULFILLING HYPOTHESIS. (Krippendorff)

 

Encyclopedia Autopoietica
no def.

International Encyclopedia of Systems & Cybernetics
K. KRIPPENDORFF defines a fact as "anything described and held to be true". He also contrasts facts with statements that may be "untrue, surmised" or hupothetical, or reflect fantasies or beliefs (1986, p. 30)

Coincidently G. BATESON states: "There are, in a sense, no facts in nature; or, if you like, there are an infinite number of potential facts in nature, out of which the judgment selects a few which become truly facts by that act of selection" (1973, p.456)

It could be said that a fact is something that can be observed, perceived and understood within a conceptual frame of reference, which serves mainly to define facts in function of contexts (which can be shifting in time, as shown for examply by astronomical "facts" from Ptolemaic to ’Einsteinian viewpoint, through Keplerian and Newtonian ones). T. SANDOZ writes: "A fact becomes observable at the moment that it becomes interpretable"…and interpretations can be variable: an earthquake is a disaster for the affected people, but for the geologist, it is a manifestation of plate tectonics. Moreover, "A fact is nothing without a theory" (1993, p. 1544)… i.e. any "fact" contains an implicit theory. That would be true also for archaic myths, considered as explanations based on a class of proto-theories.

Now, how do we select our facts?

What we call "facts" are merely constructs of out brains elaborated from our perceptions of "things" or events "there outside" and their processing by our neural networks. Moreover, anyone selects his/her facts according to the personal organization of his/her cerebral networks, as it resulted from training and learning.

As argued by P. DENNING: "Science is a process of constructing facts" (1990, p. 102)

It is not the only one, but it is the most reliable, because it is solidly based on non-contradictory coherence and possible refutation (POPPER).

Facts are thus merely "facts": They are basically a possibly provisional consensus on some representation of "something out there" and should not be given an absolute and definitive value. In the words of the French physicist B. d’ESPAGNAT "reality is veiled" (1979). This caveat is much needed self-protection against many delusions.