Re: Operational definitions versus anecdotal

[Bob Adsett <bob.adsett@lineone.net>]

Vic

I think that we are in danger of entering an existentialist debate here - I
exist therefore .... :0)

Are facts real, or just abstractions or approximation of reality, based on a
model of what is really there.  Maybe we might like to consider that 'there
is no such thing as fact because there is always variation'.

Fact (whatever that is might be) predicts a situation occurring within a set
of parameters (a probability), but it cannot say exactly when or where, or
even if an event will take place. It seem to me that we might be entering
into the world of Quantum Physics.

To unashamedly pinch (and adulterate) a phrase from the great man "All facts
are true - in some world"

Who knows, maybe facts only exist in a Newtonian view of the universe (where
absolutes can exist) and as we gain a greater level of understanding of the
the shortcomings of this mechanistic paradigm we may come to embrace
probabilities rather than exact truths that we like to call facts.


Yours feeling very convoluted


bob

-- 
Bob Adsett
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