mousepad wrote:Regarding fact, however, it's a different story. You see, facts alone are meaningless. It's what you DO based on facts that matters.
You don't know what to DO if you don't know the facts involved. Therefore, facts are most certainly NOT meaningless.
mousepad wrote: It's important to understand that. Let's take a simple fact. The sun is shining. That's a fact. But it's completely useless.
it is not. It means we can use a PV panel to generate electricity, rather than not. It means we can see, rather than not. It means photosynthesis can proceed, rather than not.
From one simple fact, we can draw a wide range of conclusions of what can happen, will happen, is happening, rather than what can't, won't or isn't.
mousepad wrote:What's important is that you put on sunscreen because the sun is shining. You see, what you DO is what matters.
And you know what to do, what can be done or not done, because FIRST there are facts involved.
mousepad wrote:The problem now is that every situation is based on a basically infinite amount of facts.
Not a problem. A feature. More facts are better than fewer facts, when deciding what to do, what might happen, what can happen or cannot happen, next.
mousepad wrote:Now comes the big understanding you seem to lack. When you decide to DO something based on FACTS, you have to prioritize facts that seem important to YOU.
Incorrect. You don't HAVE TO prioritize anything. Random behavior is both legal, and allowed.
mousepad wrote:You cannot take action based on all the facts.
Of course you can. You and I both do it every day. We decide to do this, we decide to do that, and always surrounded by an infinite universe of facts. We decide to do this and that without even knowing all the facts possible, because there is no requirement of knowing all facts before action.
mousepad wrote:Because there are too many of them. So you pick the facts you think matter. Or you take the facts that you care about. Or you take the facts you like, or you take the facts your peers consider important.
A correction. You operate from the facts you think matter...FROM THE FACTS YOU KNOW. This is where being shit stupid comes in. People who don't know the important facts, and decide to do something based on their ignorance of facts that matter. Peak oilers of yesteryear certainly fell into this bin, as just one example.
mousepad wrote:The facts you consider important might not be important to me.
And either of us might be shit-stupid of the facts related to the topic in question. And therefore make different decisions. But it still starts with facts, and how many we know of, and they do need to be real facts, rather than the alternative kind. Like bell shaped curves describe oil production. That one was an alternative fact and a half!
