To all:

Explain to me the difference between truth and fact.

The metaphor would be that, like Neo, you believe in a reality that includes more than the Matrix, but you choose to take the blue pill. For you, truth is that which is in accordance with the Matrix.

This is unhelpful. Neither of these things are distinguishable from the definition of "truth" that you provided. Can you provide examples of facts that are not true?

The underlying challenge is that I think your concepts are backwards. I usually take truth as some sort of reality-correspondence, and facts are the things that we can mutually observe and agree upon.

To elaborate, I think it's possible that there are true statements that we will never know are true. But our not-knowing doesn't make them not-true. Rather, it prevents us from establishing them as facts. Truth is more basic and more fundamental than facts.

It makes them a belief. See the difference?

Of course not.

No. Your framework doesn't make sense to me.

Maybe it will help you to know I come at this as a mathematician. There are mathematical statements that we have not yet determined to be either true or false. The Collatz conjecture is one such example.

But the fact that we don't know whether or not it's true doesn't impact whether or not it is actually true. There either is a counter-example or there is not, and whether we believe it or not makes zero difference.

Beliefs are a mental state. They need not correspond to reality. But that doesn't make reality bend to our mental state (or lack thereof).

So then all facts are true. But then are there true things that are not facts?

No. They are beliefs.

You've now indicated that there's no distinction between truth and facts. All facts are true and all true things are facts.

I think your framework is fundamentally flawed.

Yes.

But I'm sure you will make a distinction. Carry on.

You guys think too much:

Truth: that which is in accordance with fact or reality.

Fact: a thing that is known or proved to be true.

Belief: trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something.

It's really not that hard.

You're not thinking hard enough. You're equivocating truth and fact in a way that's sloppy. You've also adopted my definitions and are now veering away from yours.

This inconsistency is going to haunt you.

I'm saying truth and fact are exactly equal. Nothing sloppy with that equation.

What were my previous definitions?

I have never said anything I experienced was "fact" or "truth". It was what it was.

Truth is what can be proven, with evidence, by repeatable observation, and confirmed by others.

Belief and faith are an entirely different thing.

Actually, that's quite sloppy. Especially when you define one in terms of the other.

I quoted that for you.

Good. I never said you said that.

You're alternating between two concepts. Reality correspondence is not the same as that which can be confirmed by others.

Are there true facts about the universe that cannot be proven?

I haven't even touched that one. I just need you to settle in and add clarity to your concepts of truth and fact.

No. If they are "true facts", they can be proven. Until then, they are a belief, or if you prefer, a hypothesis.

This could slightly veer from what I've said before, maybe, so you know, to clarify.

I would also take issue with your definition of belief.

a belief CAN be faith, that is, a belief without evidence.
But it can also be based on evidence and reasoning. So when you mention confidence, thats correct, but that confidence comes from looking at the evidence and assessing it, and assigning a confidence level.

I have the opposite view. I view truth as a property of statements or propositions. Facts refer to the state of the world. For example:

1. The street outside my house is wet.

is true if the street outside my house is wet. Here, I would say the wetness of the street outside my house is a fact of the world (if it is actually wet). Here I'm referring to the world itself, not my conception of the world. So I would say that truth describes some aspect of the relation between (1) and this fact. In this sense, facticity determines truth. A statement is true if it corresponds to a fact.

From the above the individual Man lives within thoughts which are not his ownership. As the best example the mathematical thoughts are undeniable and truthful and the individual can glean the activity of this thought kingdom within himself.

You cannot "see" the mathematical truth through your eyes, ears,nose,..... for it is not exterior to Man but within. the fact that they are absolutely true leads science to present mathematics within its findings. Kant espoused this viewpoint as in his search for an epistemic basis for knowledge he faltered and called mathematics the sine qua non of scientific endeavors.

In his search for the moral tone he again faltered and called "duty" as the highest that man can achieve.

The question still remains: how does mathematics or thinking relate to our perceptions ?

I walk through a bush laden field and note a partridge fly up as I agitated the bush within my view. I bring thinking into action and bring forth the "concept" causality and see the movement of the bush by myself as causal to the flying of the partridge.

Cause was not within my field of view through the senses but through thinking I can bring forth the "concept" causality and solve the riddle of the partridge's movement.

Prior to bringing thinking into activity there was the "field' or perception and if the partridge flies there is no knowledge until thinking is brought into action. The bringing of thinking into action is half of the human experience while the other half is the perception through the senses.

I look out onto my perceptions and they present as an unconnected panorama of events such as the rain on my head, the warmth of breeze within, the hardness of the planted field. All of these matters are "percepts" to which knowledge cannot be obtained until I bring thinking into action to complete the issue. This is the human being's search for truth.

What is seen with our senses is in effect only one half of the world while we bring together creatively the two issues of percept and concept through thinking.

You see the tree and the thoughts which are behind or the creative aspect of the tree are ours to glean through thinking. Two parts , the percept and the concept. Through our senses we break off a portion of the world and through thinking we bring the world together in the creative process of thinking.

In this presentation "thinking" is a sensory process to which the "Ego" or "I" of Man works spiritually for thinking presents as a spiritual activity.

I relate to the thing which is on my shoulders as "head" while the Italian will call this"testa" whereas the German will say "kopf". the differences of language become apparent as we see individuals who travel the realms of pure thinking bring forth the words within their respective languages but the "thought presentation" to the thinker is the same whether Italian, English, German or Chinese.

the word concepts of the respective languages are and have been related to the earthly but this is the nature of the movement of the spirit of language within our times. The concept has deadened for the human being is unable at present to perceive the spiritual concept in toto for it will bring one into crasis.

The concepts , or thoughts, in which we are immersed now were perceived by us prior to conception in which we lived within thinking. The thoughts can be seen in this aspect as "beings within life", a life within the spirit.

The thoughts or concepts or ideas of more general nature are the living activity of the spirit to which mankind is progressing within a thought borne process. The spiritual world is not dependent upon our senses and exist within concept and idea with natures which do not manifest as an earthly sense.

This is the nature of supersensible thinking, within the powers of man, present and in process of growth of ability. This is the realm of truth.

Haven't forgot the idea of the moral for a man can reach up into the realms of thought beings and bring forth the moral in his earthly activity for it is not abstractions of thought to which we espouse but each thought borne activity presents with moral tone in which the individual man can bring forth in thought activity in his will laden activity inclusive of the earthly.

A man bows his head and accepts the mandate of "thou shalt" and in this acts without freedom whereas as thinker within the spiritual realm he makes the judgement to act in such a manner during a episode of morality and therefore he acts freely or that of "free will", the ethics of freehold or the free man.

So the Collatz conjecture is neither true nor false because of our inability to prove it?

Edit: Are there statements that are unknowably true or unknowably fact?

Alright so I’m going to go deeper on the idea that spiritual development, that moral truth, is about transitioning from a decadent world to a fulfilling reality. As we make progress toward truth, then we will gradually become more conscious and more self aware. We will incrementally become more aware of the decadence and hostility of the world and that the status quo, the trajectory of our life path, is one of destruction. It may feel like a sudden realization that we are drowning.

Our defense mechanism will work against our struggle toward consciousness and reality. As soon as we become aware of our destructive situation, often our pain avoidance immediately kicks in and attempts to throw us back into engrossment with the world.

However, as we open new doors toward truth, they never completely shut. So we may find that old ways of finding meaning, our old ways of being reabsorbed into the world (falling back to sleep in unconsciousness) no longer work as they used to. In Matrix terms, taking the blue pill no longer has the same effect.

Just like how there is a part of us that is resisting this process, there is a part of us that is pushing us toward truth also. It is much more subtle, but it can be forceful as we are getting closer to the self betrayal stage that I mentioned earlier in the thread. The way to identify when this is happening is to look for self sabotaging behavior.

When we self sabotage, that needs to be seen as a serious wake up call. At that point, we need to make a push for massive conscious intervention. Going back into our story, hoping that we can return to a comforting memory of security that we used to associate with the world, should be seen as dangerous.

Here is a scene from the movie ‘Beautiful Boy’ that illustrates what I am talking about: (no sound but it’s the only one I could find)

https://youtu.be/0_zqRRDh9xA

It’s a relapse scene for the main character who is a drug addict. Notice the inability to engross himself into the environment, the self consciousness, the meaning deficit. We can imagine the self hating dialogue happening in his head. Then, we see the self sabotage. The last ten seconds are very important. We see the conscious realization of the path of destruction and danger he is on, which means that spiritual part of him sees him as ready to transition to self betrayal.

He needs massive conscious intervention at that point to prevent him from being hijacked back into unconsciousness. That doesn’t happen though if you’ve seen the movie. The feelings of worthlessness and failure are too strong and he slips back into the world and back into addiction.

This is an interpretation of the scene from a spiritual development perspective. I know it is a foreign interpretation, but I would argue that it is more truthful.

So in your view, facts can be unproven reality? I can go with that framework. I usually conceptualize that as capital-T Truth. This Truth is what's actually out there in reality. (Admittedly, that's a somewhat lazy distinction as far as language is concerned.)

It would require us to use adjectives with "fact" to clarify for other purposes. If I talk about "the fact that the car is blue," I might be referring to the underlying reality of the blue car or I might be referring to the collective agreement that the car is blue (maybe the car isn't actually blue in reality, and we're all deceived about it). Maybe it would be better to talk about "the collective belief that the car is blue" when referring to the statements themselves and not the underlying reality?

A lot of this is kind of just nit-picking to me. But I enjoy a picking a good nit.