Monday, March 14, 2011

On Brute Facts

Brute facts. They are brute because you can’t change them, they just are. There is no kind way to use them: a brute fact is introduced into in argument to smash an opponent’s argument, not mold it.

Certain people seem to think that they have cornered the market on brute facts. Atheists like to contrast their brute facts with the faith of Christians. An atheist may claim that the facts may seem hard and cruel, but at least they are true, unlike faith, which is ultimately based on wishful thinking.

But those who rely on brute facts to settle an argument don’t know what brute facts are. What they fail to understand is that brute facts don’t exist. For that matter, a fact doesn’t exist outside of an arbitrary definition.

Take something that should be very simple to accept as fact, like length. Two people, Joe and Jake, desire to know the length of a piece of rope. Without making any prior measurements, Joe claims that the rope is 3 meters long. Jakes decides to differ and claims that the rope is not 3 meters long. So, being a couple of bright young men, Joe and Jake decide to settle the argument by measuring the rope using a meter stick. They measure the rope and it turns out to be 2.5 meters long.

Rather than allowing the measurement to settling the issue, Joe decides to be stubborn. No, the rope is 3 meters long. Joe claims that the meter stick is wrong: it is slightly short so it is no longer accurate. So Joe and Jake decide to measure the meter stick for accuracy. They collect all the meter sticks they can find and compare them. It turns out that all the meter sticks have the same length.

Still, Joe is not convinced. Sure, all the meter sticks they have collected prove that there is consistency among the meter sticks, it does not prove that any one of them represent a true meter.

At this point in the narrative, it may seem that Joe is making a frivolous argument and is simply being stubborn rather than admit his error. But Joe has a point. Has there been a brute fact so far? The original meter stick may very well be too short. Joe is also correct in noting that repeatability is not the same thing as accuracy. A meter stick that is 4 cm short will always provide measurements that are 4 cm shorter than the true length of an object. Additionally, multiple meter sticks that are all 4 cm short will all give precisely the same length for an object, but they will all be wrong.

But what’s the probability of several meter sticks all being 4 cm short? Very high, if they were all manufactured at the same time in the same place in the same manner.

How can Joe and Jake be certain that they did not collect all the meter sticks created from one bad machine? Well, they can measure their meter stick against the standard for a meter. A meter is the distance traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458th of a second. Assuming Joe and Jake have the necessary equipment to measure light in a vacuum and 1/299,792,458th of a second, they may then verify the length of their meter stick. They measure the stick and verify that it is a meter.

But Joe refuses to give up. No, that definition of a meter is not good. It has just got to be the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/271,451,789th of a second. Jake counters the distance traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458th of a second is the definition of a meter. Then Joe questions who made that definition…

And then it hits both of them: a meter is an arbitrary unit of length. “Definition?” I thought there would be a brute fact behind the length of a meter.

Arbitrary should be explained at this point. “Arbitrary” is not the same thing as “random.” To say something is random is to say that the occurrence of an event was not controlled. Arbitrary events are controlled but arbitrary events are not the direct cause of previous events. For example, Marge painted her room purple because she likes purple. Obviously, Marge’s likes controlled the decision in painting her room purple. But Marge also likes white unicorns. Why didn’t her like of white unicorns cause her to paint white unicorns on the walls of her room? Simply because Marge arbitrarily chose one action over another. There was no necessary cause but there was reason.

The same can be said with any definition devised by man. A meter is the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458th of a second because a group of men settled upon that definition. There were reasons for that definition, but nothing that dictated that that must be the definition of a meter. Rather, an arbitrary standard was chosen in order to make all measurements uniform.

But that only shows that human measurements are arbitrary. The fact that the units of measure are arbitrary should not affect the validity of the world that they are used to measure. No, but…

What happens when Joe and Jake discuss the color of the sky? Jake says the sky is blue, Joe says that it is green. To prove that Joe is wrong, Jake takes a blue card and holds it up to the sky, illustrating that the card and sky are both blue. While Joe agrees that the card is blue, he claims that the sky and the card are not the same color. Jake claims that Joe is just being silly. Obviously, Jake sees that the card and the sky are the same color, so Joe must see the same thing. But Joe points out that Jake can not know what Joe sees: only Joe can perceive the world according to Joe’s sense.

How can Jake prove to Joe that the sky is blue? Jake can ask every person in the world what color the sky is and they may all say that the sky is blue, but Joe just claims that only proves that everyone’s eyes are precise: it does not prove that they are accurate.

Jake then acquires a spectrophotometer, measures the wavelength of light coming from the card and the light coming from the sky and shows that they are the same wavelength. Joe reminds Jake that all he has done is use a sophisticated machine in place of a pair of human eyes: just because the spectrophotometer agrees with all of mankind that the sky is blue, that still only shows precision, not accuracy.

Frustrated, Jake claims that the sky must be blue because the interaction of sunlight with the atmosphere scatters blue light. Joe asks why this must be so. Jakes say that multiple scientists came up with the laws that dictate the behavior of light. Joe claims that the agreement of the scientists only proves precision, not accuracy.

At this point, Jake throws up his hands and leaves. Clearly, Joe will never accept that the sky is blue, just like he never accepted that the rope was 3 meters long.

Why did Jake fail to convince Joe? Was Joe so stubborn that he could never be convinced? Partially, but more importantly, Jake could not muster a single brute fact that Joe had to accept. Every fact Jake referenced to prove that the rope was 3 meters and that the sky was blue relied on an arbitrary definition or consensus among multiple people.

Such is the way with brute facts. Every brute fact ultimately rests on the observations made by a person or persons. But what standard exists to prove that all of those observations are accurate? Even if every person in the world agreed on one observation, that can only demonstrate precision, not accuracy. So what standard exists to prove that any human observation is valid?

Here, then, is the bitter irony: brute facts can not trump faith. Rather, brute facts must rely on faith. Why? Faith does not appeal to wishful thinking. Rather, faith appeals to a higher standard. Only by referencing an authority outside of human observation can human observation ever be verified.

The Christian has a standard he can point to prove that human observations are valid. That standard is God, and He gave us His standard in the Bible.

What standard does the atheist have? None. Since he does not believe in God, removed the one thing that can every verify the validity of his observations.

2 comments:

  1. The same argument applies in Algebra. Can anybody prove that 1 + 1 = 2? Inductively it is true and the whole of Mathematics depends on it. But is it really true? What if 1 + 1 were to equal 3 instead?

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  2. True, Edgar. As far as I can tell, 1 + 1 = 2 is a definition. Therefore, it can not be brute fact. It's truthfulness must be based on something else.

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