Obviously it's different with matters of fact as compared to matters of perception,
A matter of fact must first be perceived - and, most importantly, bcked up by irrevocable data as a result of scientific research - to become a matter of fact in which people can believe in.
For example, the way we perceive the words diesn't give that much hints towards the world being round.
Ships disappearing at the horizon could just be falling down ... And I don't belive that 10.000 years ago people were able to ound the wold ... But they could come back, indeed, and report that they indeed did not fall down off the earth ...
It needed experiments like developed by Erastosthenes to actually proof that the earth was round, as a matter of fact.
Other than that, facts - as we know them - just didn't exist thousands of years ago - simply because people didn't have the scientific tools to get the same kin of data we nowdays receive with our more delicate scientific tools.
(What we don't know, however, is, whether the so-called
"Antikythera tool" was a rarity in ancient society or the norm. It's because we just can't correlate the lack of items which didn't survive the last thousands of years buried in the earth with the lack of items overall. Wooden devices, however, are "consumed" by the earth much faster, dpending on the environment. There are soils which are so "sour" that even skeletal remains don't survive for long. In deserts, howver, preservation is much better, overall.)
Which means - from a philosphical perspective - that we can only perceive facts as facts if they have been perceived as facts - and been proved as such, of course - before.
What we cannot perceive, cannot be proved. This is the problem with esoterical things lik
PSI or similar stuff.
Today, we heavily rely in scientific data - we shape our own worlds within our minds based on scientific data [side-note : and what happens if scientific data is forged ? - Look at the Piltdown Man, for example, and the buzz it created at the time of its finding, especially].
We tend to just believe "scientists" if thy say that little tiny thingies called "Quarks" actully do exist. However, has anyone of us ever seen their traces (traces !) in a measuring device of a particle collider ?
This means nothing but that the world - as we shape it in our own minds - is STILL often based on what we re told - like people believing in Myths that they were told 10.000 years ago or so - the Gilgamesh Epic comes to mind. Or the Bible. Or the Illiad.
They believed in it - because they were told so. They blieved in it - simply because anyone else did.
A few days ago I held an 2009 issuue of "Psychology Today" in my hands - and to my surprise it contained the results of a study revealing that even 3-year-old children believe what everyone else believes - the question is, why ? Perhaps, the author mused - it's just easier for them. o need for own thinking at that stage of life.
These implications led me to believe ONLY what I perceive with my own logic and senses - or what I can at least find as comprehensible.
That's why - for example - I do kind of "believe" in a thing called "Reiki" - simply because I can perceive it myself.
But I'm also aware of the possibility of my enses being tricked with ... I'm not a fool.
I'm a "critical fool", maybe. :lol:
