[Neurons] 2020 Neurons #63 SEARCHING FOR THE FACTS

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall   

2020 Neurons #63

November 23, 2020

 

 

SEARCHING FOR THE FACTS

"Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts."

Sergeant Joe Friday from the 1950s TV show Dragnet

 

Whenever there is a difference in opinion or a conflict about the best
option, we seek to solve things by asking, "What are the facts?"  We do this
because we believe that the facts will solve the differences.  If it were
only that simple!  It isn't and here's why.

 

Obviously, if we are to get to the truth about anything, we have to start
with the facts.  A fact is something that "has actual existence, a piece of
information presented as having objective reality."  A fact is an external
referent which you can point to, an empirical thing that you can see, hear,
smell, taste, touch, etc.  While that, on the surface, makes sense and
sounds easy, it is not.  And that's because as Sir Authur Conan Doyle noted:
"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact."

 

When it comes to facts- there are all kinds of facts.  There are true facts
and false facts, there are clearly stated facts and ambiguous, convoluted
facts which are hard to make sense of.  There are misrepresented facts,
second-hand facts, emotional facts, biased facts, fallacious facts, etc.
Given that there are multiple kinds of facts, we start with empirical facts,
yet even these are colored by our perceptual lens.  

If you perceive something as blue and I see it as green, what is the true
fact?  Obviously, neither.  Color is not a fact.  Color is a function of the
rods and cons in your eyes and my eyes, it is not something "out there" in
the world.  We cannot say, "It is a fact that his shirt is red."  That's an
evaluation.  In this case, a perceptual evaluation and one not made
consciously.  It is an unconscious function of a person's visual capacities.

 

This explains why we have ask, "Is it a fact or an evaluation?"  And
sometimes it takes a good bit of thinking to figure that out.  Those who
don't know the difference between descriptions and evaluations will tend to
confuse their evaluations with descriptions.  Many of the things we call
facts are mental maps which we trust refers to a valid and true reference.
Yet whatever you call a fact, it is also incomplete.  It is an abstract from
something and therefore not all of it.  Facts also are tentative due to the
fact that reality is forever changing.   Facts are contextual, they depend
on the context in which it occurs.

 

What makes it hard for each of us is that your facts and mine are perceived
through our mental filters.  That's why, right from the start, it is
difficult to get unbiased and clean facts.  It is also why we even argue
over facts.  With any problem-solving discussion, we always want to begin by
starting with the facts.  "Okay, so what are the facts that we know for
sure?"  The thought is that this will simplify things and give us a
foundation to start from.  And while that's true, it is not that simple.

 

Then there are "facts" from every domain of knowledge.  These are logical
facts, social facts, psychological facts, economic facts, political facts,
etc.  All of these are actually evaluations.  In each field, there are
frames-of-references creating and coloring observations and experiences that
are now called "facts" in those areas.  That actually makes them meta-facts-
facts about facts.

 

We often say "It is a fact that John lied."  The statement sounds factual.
If you're not skeptical, you might quickly conclude, "Yes, that is a fact."
Or, "No, that is not a fact."  But any statement about a "lie" is not an
empirical fact, it is an evaluative fact-an evaluation.  Framing a statement
as a lie is one possibility among many others.  What else could it be?  It
also might have been a mis-statement, an exaggeration, a partial truth, a
joke, humor, sarcasm, an attempt at optimism, and so on.  What is it really?

 

These meta-facts actually suffer from ambiguity.  That's because by
themselves, facts do not have meaning.   It takes a meaning-maker (you and
I) to give meaning to a fact and we do that through various
frames-of-references.  Our filters and cognitive biases skew our thinking
causing us to miscalibrate things.

 

All facts are not the same because it is so easy to confuse the map with the
territory.  Merely saying or thinking that something is a fact, does not
make it so.  If whatever you are calling a fact is not a sensory-based word,
but a nominalization, it is an evaluation.

 

Finally, there are implied facts.  Linguistically, whenever you use such
words as always, never, none, all, every you are using words that imply some
absolute facts.  Yet these universal quantifiers (the Meta-Model) are
usually untrue.  That's why we challenge them, "always?  There's no
exceptions?

 

To do higher quality thinking- critical thinking- learn to challenge "facts"
and to get back to the brute facts as best you can.  The Meta-Model will
help you do that, training in Executive Thinking ("The Brain Camp") will
help.

 

 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, Neuro-Semantics

P.O. Box 8

Clifton CO. 81520 USA

www.neurosemantics.com 

 

To unsubscribe to Neurons, send request to meta at acsol.net  

Executive Thinking is clear and accurate thinking--- the basis for critical
and creative thinking.

 



 

 

 

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