What is considered a fact? The very formulation of the question already shows that we are probably talking about an agreement between people? Let's see.
First of all, I propose to deal with the so-called objectivity. This is a very elusive concept, because there is no publicly available technology to directly measure our perceptions. Therefore, we are forced to proceed from the concept of verifiability, which can only be realized if there are measurements.
In parallel to this, we will need to keep in mind the ambiguity of the word “fact”, and we will also need to understand this conglomerate, in connection with which conversations about contexts are inevitable.
It will also require a conversation about faith, if you dig deeper. It will require a conversation about how faith arises, why we believe in something that promotes faith, and whether faith is so rational, whether it relies on so-called facts.
Objectivity, objective reality are quite dangerous terms if they are not clarified each time according to the context of the conversation. According to my observations, objectivity is often given authority, which at one time was invested in the terms “absolute” and “God”. There are those who want to broadcast on behalf of objectivity. But who really knew objectivity?
If we proceed from the verified information, then it is known that a person does not have all the information, a person is not able to perceive much of what some animals, as well as instruments, are capable of perceiving. In this connection, a person speaks about objectivity only indirectly. A person thinks of objectivity not as direct knowledge, not as, for example, the awareness of observing the dawn, but as speculative knowledge, calculated abstractly, inaccessible directly.
Simply put, the human mind itself does not live in objective reality, since it is forced to deal with limited and mediated information. I have already pointed to limitations, and by mediation we mean that neurons and the nervous system are not universal devices capable of seeing and feeling everything in the world in the fullness of objective reality, but they are also limited by what they can. The mind is doomed to initial limitation and indirectness, which is why we can say that the mind does not deal directly with objective reality.
Moreover, it is difficult to imagine any mind, even artificially constructed by man, that would lay claim to the completeness of perception. Strictly speaking, a complete understanding of objective reality is impossible unless it is an artificially created environment, in which case the imaginary complete knowledge of it can be attributed to the creator of the artificial environment. But we cannot verify the existence of such a creator.
The only, in my opinion, imaginable possibility of a complete understanding of objective reality is the presence of all things having their own consciousness, capable of feeling the fullness of itself. This is a purely speculative construction, which is impossible to verify today, just like the speculation about the creator of all things.
We have to admit that in reality we are dealing with subjectivity - ourselves and our own kind. Our understanding of the world consists of personal understanding, which communicates with the understanding of others, from which a scientific worldview can be formed, subject to the imposition of additional restrictions, such as testability, measurability, and reproducibility by experiment. Facts in this case are usually considered to be those measurements that any person trained in a modern scientific context will read in the same way as others, without disagreement.
According to some open sources, the word “fact” comes from the Latin “factum”, which means “done” or “occured”. This is the past participle of the verb "facere", meaning "to do". The word "fact" came into English in the 16th century and was originally used in a legal context to mean "an act, a deed, a crime." Later, in the 17th century, it acquired the broader meaning of "a thing that has actually happened or is true."
Thus, in order to talk about a fact, one generally requires the ability and possibility to isolate it as such, to distinguish it as an event, for example, the reaction of an instrument and the ability to read the measurement of an instrument. There must be such a possibility.
Then, an additional aspect of the meaning of the word fact is that it must be verified. For example, I see the sunrise, I tell my neighbor about it, my neighbor looks and confirms that also sees the sunrise. We are recording a fact. It can be clarified by the time of dawn, geographical coordinates, this will complicate the matter, but initially the fact is that we both observed the dawn and checked with each other.
Looking at this further, we can talk about the limits of fact-checking requirements. What if we both imagined the dawn? How many people must confirm our observations to consider this a fact? Why do we even call it dawn, and not any other term, and why do we see an event in this? One answer is that we were taught that way.
It is also impossible to ignore that a person intuitively accepts the dawn as a fact when alone with oneself, and a person does not need confirmation from a neighbor in order to consider the dawn a fact when alone with oneself.
Such reasoning also leads to the understanding that the word fact can have a colloquial, intuitive, elusive meaning, and it will take a lot of effort to consider all its shades, although on the surface it looks simple.
We know that a colorblind person also sees the dawn, but the colorblind person’s description of the color characteristics of the dawn will be different. The colorblind person, however, will be able to state the fact that dawn has arrived, although for that person this fact will be different. We see that, despite some differences in perception, we can talk about a general understanding of events, still using the concept of fact. What difference could there be to make common understanding impossible, and, conversely, what makes common understanding possible? Issues worthy of separate consideration.
In order to talk about such things, we have to turn to the understanding that the entire world of facts is created inside a person, and not outside, no matter how much we would like simplicity of reasoning about objective reality. The known is that this objective reality is not directly accessible to us, and we have to deal with what actually is accessible - for me, for the colorblind person, and for everyone else.
In the example with dawn and the colorblind person, we see that the fact of dawn is not the same as objectively dawn in the fullness of this concept. Dawn also has color parameters, but they are not required as key parameters for registering the fact of dawn. It is enough to note the appearance of the sun's disk or a significant change in illumination if the weather is cloudy.
You can confidently talk about dawn without observing the solar disk at all. In this case, no instruments are required and no one questions the fact of dawn, although there may be a catch here: there is weather when the sky is completely covered with heavy black clouds, and in such weather it seems that the sun has not risen, or has already set, to such an extent little light passes through such clouds.
Then the question arises - what is meant by dawn - a literal, intuitive increase in the intensity of illumination, or a certain position of the Sun? As we see, if you look closely, intuitive simplicity disappears in relation to the so-called fact. Even if we have a device for measuring illumination, what illumination is considered the beginning of dawn? Will this work as expected in exceptionally cloudy weather? Or is it better to rely on time and calculations, taking into account astronomical knowledge? We have again come to the division between the exact sciences with their terminological unambiguity and the intuitive language, which cannot be prohibited from using terms as its bearer pleases.
It is also known today that the contents of our mind are not just a transmission of the surroundings without distortion, but rather an internal work of art that creates a picture of the world that seems to be stitched together and seems continuous to us. But this continuity is easily destroyed if you take a closer look. Search for yourself and you will find the evidence.
Let's go back to our dawn. The event of dawn is a fact of direct perception, on the one hand. It can even be measured somehow. For example, marking the time and the fact that someone reports seeing a certain phenomenon, calling it dawn. An interesting way of writing, as if we ourselves do not know what dawn is.
On the other hand, the concept of dawn lives in us even without observing the dawn. Attached to this concept is the knowledge that the Sun does not walk across the sky, although we see it that way. What, then, is considered a fact? The fact that I directly see the movement of the Sun across the sky? Or the knowledge that the rotation of the Earth creates the impression of the Sun walking across the sky?
Perhaps I will surprise you with my version of the answer to the question posed. Both are facts, but in different contexts, the first - in the context of direct observations, the second - in the context of modern astronomical knowledge. And even when I know that in the astronomical context the Sun does not move across the sky, and this is an illusion, nevertheless, in the context of observations, for me the movement of the Sun along a very specific trajectory in the visibility zone will remain a fact.
We see that we cannot find the literal, absolute meaning of the word fact, and we will need to negotiate and clarify, including in what context we are talking about facts, and what we want from this conversation. We also see that the fact does not include the entire volume of reality, but only some individual aspects of reality, and only those that are measurable. For example, the fact that dawn has occurred does not include information about, say, the effect of dawn on atmospheric pressure or, for example, on background radiation, and so on. This is important to understand: facts are not the entirety of reality. Facts tell us something, but there is always something missing. It is also important to understand that the methods of recording facts and the methods of their transmission can introduce their own distortions.
In open sources it is customary to talk about the singularity of the fact. This brings us to the concept of event. If an event can be confirmed, then it can be considered a fact. But how can we confirm an event in life that has already passed, and we have not taken measures to collect evidence? We retell them. In this case, distortions are possible, both of a linguistic and communicative nature, implying the transmission of a message between people, and of an internal nature, implying the recreation of an event from memory. There are studies, the results of which give reason to treat one’s own memories with a certain distrust. However, the very first impressions are similar to memories, and when we think about them, we already remember, and this introduces its distortions already at the stage of forming impressions, and so on.
If you look closely, our perception itself includes distortions that introduce something from our personal settings into what is happening, in connection with which even scientists make mistakes. For example, Piaget believed that he was collecting only facts when he studied the psyche of children, and Vygotsky showed that Piaget did not avoid distortions. In turn, other scientists criticize Vygotsky, moreover, according to the same principle by which Vygotsky criticized others, and so on. We have to admit that the fact is not as simple as it seems intuitively, and it makes sense to study it in its depths and the mechanics of its appearance.
The mind thinks in models. One can try to describe the contents of the mind in terms of intellectual objects (models) and connections between them. The concept of fact cannot escape this fate. One can try to break down into speculative phases how a fact appears.
The first is the mysterious, inaccessible to us either in full or directly objectivity, in which something happens.
The second is that a person extracts certain signals from this integrity, being, moreover, an organic component of this integrity. It is interesting to note here that a person as a whole is an objective reality, but the ideas of a person’s mind are no longer there, for the reason that consciousness cannot accommodate all the complexity of reality.
Third, models are formed and created. The very appearance of a model can already be called a fact in a certain sense, an event inside the mind. This is something accomplished and registered by the psyche itself as a fact for itself. The subject that this may require somehow communicating and proving something is a separate conversation.
We can talk about the production of information in connection with the above. Often information is attributed to some kind of objective universality - I think this is a fundamental mistake. Information, in my opinion, makes sense only as a purely internal concept of the mind, relating to the mind.
The mind produces information within itself. It is the mind's way of responding to objective reality. It is important for me to emphasize this quality of information, since it is precisely the reasoning about information “outside” that shows to what extent a person is capable of becoming confused between “internal” and “external,” mistaking what is inside for what is outside.
Any information has meaning only for the mind, and not just any mind, but only such a receiving mind that is able to understand the coding used by the transmitting mind. Try telling your cat about the facts, I doubt it will be interested. But if a familiar word is heard in a long story about facts, the cat may react specifically to it. Try telling the facts to the tree. I doubt you'll have a lively conversation.
Because information is a product of the internal mindwork, then a fact as a certain unit of information is a subjective thing, not an objective one. And this should be treated with caution.
Now let's look at the expression attributed to Erich Fromm "We accept only those facts that correspond to our beliefs, and ignore those that contradict these beliefs." I do not vouch for the literal accuracy of the quote. But this phrase is interesting in itself.
It's about accepting the facts. On the one hand, a fact is something that, it would seem, cannot be ignored. But, taking into account what has been said, it is not entirely clear whether we are talking about the events of my own life, about personal experience, or whether we are talking about the knowledge that something is described as a fact and I know about it.
Be that as it may, acceptance differs from recognition, as it seems to me, - while agreeing with the presence of a fact, we internally reject it if it does not fit into our character, and tend to downplay its significance, or even ignore it completely. Our mind allows own interpretations and it does that naturally and automatically.
One can only guess what facts the author of the quote meant; I don’t have the opportunity to ask personally. But, substituting both strict scientific facts and simply life events into this formula, I see that the formula works for all types of variables called “facts”.
To summarize the analysis of this phrase, I believe it is indeed possible, despite the reliability of the facts, to ignore and reject the facts by a person whose character in one’s beliefs contradicts the meaning of the facts.
I think that in connection with the topic of facts, it is also interesting to talk about point of view and opinion, and how they are related. I am interested in the idea that there can be many points of view at the same time, we can accept different points of view, but an opinion appears in the case when a connection stretches from some point of view to something in the depths of the ego that this point of view will approve. An opinion is already, it seems, a prototype of a certain position that a person may possibly defend.
In my view, the conversation about what is considered a fact raises many interesting questions, and the topic seems to be inexhaustible. I will be glad to see the feedback.