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#alternativefacts

C_Felix said:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/22/politics/kellyanne-conway-alternative-facts/index.html


#alternativefacts
First novel ever written on a typewriter was "Hamlet" by Shapkespeare.
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Semantics - bad ones but that's all it is, I think. What she seemed to be doing was poking fun at the media by saying they each had their own facts. "Well let's see our facts compared with yours because yours have been wrong."

That's my take on it.

I don't mind that these people are a bit (or a lot) clumsy with their speaking (if that's all it is). Who needs another forked tongue slick talking politician that lies and gets nothing done? Gawd I hope that's all this is anyways.

I read she is the first woman to successfully (win) run a presidential campaign. Any credit for that?
 
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mgidm86 said:
Semantics - bad ones but that's all it is, I think. What she seemed to be doing was poking fun at the media by saying they each had their own facts. "Well let's see our facts compared with yours because yours have been wrong."

That's my take on it.

I don't mind that these people are a bit (or a lot) clumsy with their speaking (if that's all it is). Who needs another forked tongue slick talking politician that lies and gets nothing done? Gawd I hope that's all this is anyways.

I read she is the first woman to successfully (win) run a presidential campaign. Any credit for that?
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Semantics like a Trump apology is a semantics issue?

Or is this a Conway apology? Did you watch her say it? She had a hard time keeping a straight face. I can just hear the conference now:

"Just call them alternative facts, Conway."
"I dunno Spicer, I'm not sure that will work."
"Just do it."
"OK."
 
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mgidm86 said:
Semantics - bad ones but that's all it is, I think. What she seemed to be doing was poking fun at the media by saying they each had their own facts. "Well let's see our facts compared with yours because yours have been wrong."

That's my take on it.

I don't mind that these people are a bit (or a lot) clumsy with their speaking (if that's all it is). Who needs another forked tongue slick talking politician that lies and gets nothing done? Gawd I hope that's all this is anyways.

I read she is the first woman to successfully (win) run a presidential campaign. Any credit for that?
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Let's get real, shall we?

merriam-webster said:
2lying
adjective ly·ing \ˈlī-iŋ\
Definition of lying: marked by or containing untrue statements : false <a lying account of the accident>
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mgidm86 said:
Semantics - bad ones but that's all it is, I think. What she seemed to be doing was poking fun at the media by saying they each had their own facts. "Well let's see our facts compared with yours because yours have been wrong."

That's my take on it.

I don't mind that these people are a bit (or a lot) clumsy with their speaking (if that's all it is). Who needs another forked tongue slick talking politician that lies and gets nothing done? Gawd I hope that's all this is anyways.

I read she is the first woman to successfully (win) run a presidential campaign. Any credit for that?
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Just to be clear, do you think that there is a matter of fact about how many people were at the inauguration? Do you think that this is merely a matter of opinion, and decent folk might disagree by an order of magnitude or such?

ETA: Yes, Conway gets complete credit for helping elect the worst candidate in modern history. She should be mighty proud, because she really did do a great job in helping him into office, God help us all.
 
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So what are the logical rules on how to use "alternative facts"?
Do they cancel each other out if you use an alternative, alternative fact about the same subject?

Example: In binary logic if A=1 then (Not A)=0. Therefore (Not, Not A)=1. So if that is how alternative facts work, then an alternative, alternative fact should be true.

Another option might be that alternative facts only work in alternative universes. If that is true then the limit on alternatives to actual facts might be limited to the number of alternative universes. This might be a set without limits but you will need a theoretical physicist to come up with a valid theory. Or an invalid one given that ideas like this probably cannot be proved even if they are true.

Or as a third option, maybe alternative facts are conditionally real from a post modern perspective where all Trump logic is considered a separate culture and all cultural perspectives are considered to be equally valid. Of course, if that is the case then the flat earth people have a perfectly valid world view as well.
 
Doubt said:
Or as a third option, maybe alternative facts are conditionally real from a post modern perspective where all Trump logic is considered a separate culture and all cultural perspectives are considered to be equally valid. Of course, if that is the case then the flat earth people have a perfectly valid world view as well.
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It's this one. Socially constructed truth. The actual number of people at the inauguration doesn't matter. What matters is how many I believe were there. When enough people believe something is/was true, that forms the basis for other truths to come.

This is fairly common with historical facts and facts that don't, themselves, have enduring consequences. Was Bill Cosby a rapist? Steven Avery a murderer? Jesus Christ the Son of God? Lots of socially constructed facts around. Find a different social environment, find a different fact.
 
marplots said:
It's this one. Socially constructed truth. The actual number of people at the inauguration doesn't matter. What matters is how many I believe were there. When enough people believe something is/was true, that forms the basis for other truths to come.

This is fairly common with historical facts and facts that don't, themselves, have enduring consequences. Was Bill Cosby a rapist? Steven Avery a murderer? Jesus Christ the Son of God? Lots of socially constructed facts around. Find a different social environment, find a different fact.
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You might want to review the definition of fact. I don't think 'belief' is in the definition.
 
I thought the report was an onion-like satire, until I saw the news tonight.

It's not so much Trump. Everyone knows he's a liar. It's the extent his toadies are going to, to defend his idiocy
 
mgidm86 said:
Semantics - bad ones but that's all it is, I think. What she seemed to be doing was poking fun at the media by saying they each had their own facts. "Well let's see our facts compared with yours because yours have been wrong."

That's my take on it.

I don't mind that these people are a bit (or a lot) clumsy with their speaking (if that's all it is). Who needs another forked tongue slick talking politician that lies and gets nothing done? Gawd I hope that's all this is anyways.

I read she is the first woman to successfully (win) run a presidential campaign. Any credit for that?
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Wowzers! What you folks won't do to polish the turds coming out of the mouths of these liars! Connie Anne is on record along with Newt as one of the chief proponents of "Facts Don't Matter - It's What We Can Get People to Believe That Matters".

You actually think this is her joshin' with the media and pointing out their flaws? Nonsense. She dodged the question at least six times trying her old fallback dodge, "How come you aren't reporting about X, huh?"
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
You might want to review the definition of fact. I don't think 'belief' is in the definition.
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The commonest example is the value of a $5 bill. It's not in the paper or the ink, it's in our shared belief that $5 is worth, well, five dollars. This is as much a fact as any other.

It may be uncomfortable in a forum where an objective epistemology is held in such high regard, but there's an easy fix. Just think of it a bit meta.

1) There is some fact about the world.
2) Access to this fact is restricted, either because of insufficient access to the past or by way of inherent ambiguity.
3) What people believe about the fact is also factual. That is, we can find out what those beliefs are, and we can do so in the present and experimentally.
4) This second-order fact (beliefs about the first fact) serves the same role in societal discourse as the original fact would, if it were current and accepted.
5) "Of all things the measure is Man, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not"
 
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marplots said:
The commonest example is the value of a $5 bill. It's not in the paper or the ink, it's in our shared belief that $5 is worth, well, five dollars. This is as much a fact as any other.

It may be uncomfortable in a forum where objectivist epistemology is held in such high regard, but there's an easy fix. Just think of it a bit meta.

1) There is some fact about the world.
2) Access to this fact is restricted, either because of insufficient access to the past or by way of inherent ambiguity.
3) What people believe about the fact is also factual. That is, we can find out what those beliefs are, and we can do so in the present and experimentally.
4) This second-order fact (beliefs about the first fact) serves the same role in societal discourse as the original fact would, if it were current and accepted.
5) "Of all things the measure is Man, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not"
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What a pile of nonsensical semantics.
 
marplots said:
The commonest example is the value of a $5 bill. It's not in the paper or the ink, it's in our shared belief that $5 is worth, well, five dollars. This is as much a fact as any other.

It may be uncomfortable in a forum where an objective epistemology is held in such high regard, but there's an easy fix. Just think of it a bit meta.

1) There is some fact about the world.
2) Access to this fact is restricted, either because of insufficient access to the past or by way of inherent ambiguity.
3) What people believe about the fact is also factual. That is, we can find out what those beliefs are, and we can do so in the present and experimentally.
4) This second-order fact (beliefs about the first fact) serves the same role in societal discourse as the original fact would, if it were current and accepted.
5) "Of all things the measure is Man, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not"
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You are confusing fact and perception thereof. Fact Can and most Do exists independent of people perception or interpretation, e.g. natural facts, like the average distance of an hydrogen atom at rest state. We hold the press to try to report this. But then somebody come and VERY obviously tell an utter completely wrong headed lie. This is not anymore a question of perception, interpretation, or fact. It is a question of complete anti factual lie.

If you associate that with interpretation or second order belief , then you may as well use doublespeak and war is peace.

We have always been at war with Eurasia.
 
Aepervius said:
You are confusing fact and perception thereof. Fact Can and most Do exists independent of people perception or interpretation, e.g. natural facts, like the average distance of an hydrogen atom at rest state. We hold the press to try to report this. But then somebody come and VERY obviously tell an utter completely wrong headed lie. This is not anymore a question of perception, interpretation, or fact. It is a question of complete anti factual lie.

If you associate that with interpretation or second order belief , then you may as well use doublespeak and war is peace.
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I tried to distinguish between demonstrable (as you term it "natural") facts and socially constructed truths. As a materialist, of course I agree there are facts which don't care one whit about my personal opinion. However, this is not what we are talking about.

Let me put it this way. Suppose I have an electronic scale I use in my kitchen to weigh out ingredients. Unbeknownst to me, it has a flaw. When the humidity in my house is high, the scale reads as much as 5% off the true, factual weight. The error is not obvious to me because the few times I've checked my scale, it performed well enough. It is also not obvious because the ingredients I measure, and the dishes I make from them, are not greatly affected by the error.

Now, because we have this outside, omniscient perspective, we know what's going on. But if it were just me and my scale, I would never know. I would state, with high confidence, that whatever weight it showed was correct.

Switch to the current argument. I am presented with two sets of evidence, two stories about what the facts are. I assume that at most, only one story can be true (they both might be wrong). I cannot directly check for myself but must rely on others. Whom should I trust and why?

Here are some choices:
1) Believe the narrative which most closely matches my existing bias
2) Try to sort narratives and compare the evidence offered up
3) Check with other people I trust and see what they have to say
4) Ignore the whole thing as not deserving any real work on my part

But underlying all this is the possibility of a defective scale - that is, human beings who think they are correct but aren't. The theoretical existence of indisputable facts does not mean that I have access to them, nor that I will know them when they punch me in the nose.
 
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@marplots

to prevent the narrative bias, we try to stick as close to the objectively observable facts as we can, and only draw what conclusions they provide.

So in the case of the Inauguration crowd:

- we have two pictures of the same place from the same angle, both good quality. One shows a lot more people than the other.
Without any context: which is the larger crowd?
- we have data on public transport on two different days. One shows many more travelers than the other.
Without any context: on which day did more people travel with public transport?

These are as close to natural facts as we can get: functionally identical machines making two measurements we can compare.

How is this open to interpretation?


Edit: I would grant you your kitchen scale example IF we actually had two scales. But Trump and his team have not provided any other data AT ALL. They have just stated that they are right and a lot of data to the contrary is wrong. No explanation why, just false, period.
Even flawed data is better to make an argument with than absolutely no data whatsoever.
 
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marplots said:
I tried to distinguish between demonstrable (as you term it "natural") facts and socially constructed truths. As a materialist, of course I agree there are facts which don't care one whit about my personal opinion. However, this is not what we are talking about.

Let me put it this way. Suppose I have an electronic scale I use in my kitchen to weigh out ingredients. Unbeknownst to me, it has a flaw. When the humidity in my house is high, the scale reads as much as 5% off the true, factual weight. The error is not obvious to me because the few times I've checked my scale, it performed well enough. It is also not obvious because the ingredients I measure, and the dishes I make from them, are not greatly affected by the error.

Now, because we have this outside, omniscient perspective, we know what's going on. But if it were just me and my scale, I would never know. I would state, with high confidence, that whatever weight it showed was correct.

Switch to the current argument. I am presented with two sets of evidence, two stories about what the facts are. I assume that at most, only one story can be true (they both might be wrong). I cannot directly check for myself but must rely on others. Whom should I trust and why?

Here are some choices:
1) Believe the narrative which most closely matches my existing bias
2) Try to sort narratives and compare the evidence offered up
3) Check with other people I trust and see what they have to say
4) Ignore the whole thing as not deserving any real work on my part

But underlying all this is the possibility of a defective scale - that is, human beings who think they are correct but aren't. The theoretical existence of indisputable facts does not mean that I have access to them, nor that I will know them when they punch me in the nose.
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Again, you are entitled to your own interpretation, you are not entitled to your own fact. Your kitchen balance flaw is not a good example. A good example would be that you have 2 container, 1 with 3.5 pounds of sugar, and 1 with unknown quantity. You see that the unknown quantity is smaller in volume than the 3.5 pounds, you see the balance showing 2.5 pounds, but you state that you don't care about the balance or the volume, this is the biggest pounds of presidential sugar, and decide it is 4 pounds. You decide to ignore the measurement and decide to state as a fact that it is 4 pounds. In spite of factually and obviously not being so. And make a tantrum when people reject that as non factual.

That's why it is called alternative facts e.g. complete bunkum, and not alternative interpretation which would be acceptable.
 
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