Events vs Facts
Welcome to my definition of the world.
A few months ago, I got into an earnest discussion with a friend from work about “truth.”
He said he had always been compelled to “tell the truth.” And my immediate reaction was: How can you ever know the truth?1
Many moons ago, I read a book that deeply impacted how I viewed the world: Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s The Black Swan. One of his arguments in particular struck me:
The lack of something does not prove its nonexistence, the fact that something hasn’t happened doesn’t mean it will not.2
If we’ve only ever seen white swans, that doesn’t mean black swans don’t exist. And more relevant to our current situation (read: Covid), just because global travel has never ground to a halt in recent memory (before 2020, that is) doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t.
This simple idea rooted itself deep in my mind and planted a skepticism of reality or, more accurately, our perception of reality. I’m not about to argue that the world is flat, but I am very skeptical of things I cannot know directly. (And it’s arguable whether we can ever really know things.)
Which leads me to the question of: How can we ever know the truth? The truth about an object, an event, a person. We can only know what we perceive, but we are bounded by incomplete information. Not to mention human perception is deeply flawed and coloured by emotions and biases.3
My colleague and I got into a rather deep discussion about the nature of truth, one resolved through a discovery that we had different definitions of it. I’m not going to get into that as I don’t want to bore you to death.4
I want to get back to the title of this email: Events vs Facts.
For as long as I remember, I’ve always defined events as something that occurs, and facts as our perception and/or retelling of events. This is not the global definition of these two words, and you’ll find variations depending on which dictionary you’re looking at or who you’re asking. But humour me with my definitions for a minute.
An event is something that occurs. A fact is our perception/retelling of events.
In my worldview, events are necessarily objective. They are just things that happen. A flower blooms. A car double-parks in front of a store. A person cries. My heart flutters. But facts, being our perception and retelling of events, are necessarily subjective.
Let’s take the double-parking example. A passerby might see this event and later that day tell his buddy that he saw someone inconsiderately double-park, what an ass. But the driver of the vehicle might be in a veritable emergency: his daughter is in critical condition in intensive care and he’s picking up his wife who’s a clerk at the store to go to the hospital and be with their daughter. So to him, the double-parking (which was only for a few minutes as he waited for his wife to come out) was entirely justified.
The double-parking is the event. But the facts about it being told by the two individuals are completely different, yet equally valid and true in each person’s mind. Bounded by limited information, the passerby portrayed the event as a condemnable act of douchebaggery (he didn’t know the cause of the event, nor that the double-parking was only for a few minutes). Possessing a more complete picture, the driver perceived the event as an unfortunate yet necessary occurrence justified by the extraordinary circumstances.
And now you begin to see why I believe the truthfulness of a fact can never be objectively established, why the truth can never be known.
What about you? Do you have different definitions of “events” and “facts” to mine? What’s your position on the knowableness5 of the truth?
Leave a comment and let’s have a discussion.
Until next Friday… Stay cool, stay safe, stay thoughtful,
Val
My thinking falls into a school of thought known as Postmodernism. I’m not a full-on Postmodernist, but I certainly lean in that direction.
Keep in mind that I read this book decades ago and may be misquoting or misremembering which book it’s from. But that’s essentially the idea.
Promotional insert: my boss has written about our many biases and why we cannot trust ourselves, check it out.
If you want me to get into it, just leave a question in the comments plus a warm cookie.
I totally made it up, but turns out it’s a real word.