Facts, Honesty, Opinions and Truth

Facts seem easy.

Let’s start with facts.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary has several definitions for the word fact.

The first is “something that actually exists or occurs.”

The Philadelphia Eagles are an American football team.

Yep that’s right.

The Philadelphia Eagles won the last Super Bowl.

Well that’s only true until Sunday February 8th, 2026.

Water freezes at 32°F. Well actually just in Earth-like pressure. In space... oh never mind it’s really weird.

The Earth is 93 million miles from the Sun. Except… the Earth is only 93 million miles from the Sun if its orbit is circular. It’s not. The Earth’s orbit is elliptical. At its closest, the Earth is about 91.4 million miles from the Sun. At its farthest, about 94.5 million miles. So “93 million miles” is a reasonable average but it’s not precisely true on any given day. The “fact” that the Earth is 93 million miles from the Sun is true for less than a minute twice a year.

George Washington (the president) was a person, not a dog.

This is pretty easy. Maybe I was worried for nothing.

The second definition in Merriam-Webster of a fact is “a piece of information presented as true or accurate.”

Wait.

WHAT!?!

Umm...

There is a massive difference between those two. The first one has to deal with something that is true. The second one makes something a fact as long as you really want it to be one. That can’t possibly be true.

Maybe I don’t understand actually what a dictionary is?

Reading....

Reading....

Merriam-Webster’s describes how words should be used.

PHEW!

Until 1961...

😢...😭...😡...

However, it turns out one of the most controversial moments in the dictionary’s history was the publication of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary in 1961. It took a strongly descriptive approach — documenting language as people actually used it rather than dictating “correct” usage. This caused an uproar among traditionalists and literary critics, some of whom felt the dictionary had abdicated its duty as a gatekeeper of proper English.

So there no longer is an official gatekeeper of what words mean in English.

So I don’t leave you in a state of disarray, let’s look at the Wikipedia definition of a fact: “A fact is a true datum about one or more aspects of a circumstance. Standard reference works are often used to check facts... Generally speaking, facts are independent of belief, knowledge and opinion. Facts are different from inferences, theories, values, and objects.”

Well that feels better!

We’re going to stop here for today.

While I don’t agree with Merriam-Webster’s it is important to note that a book with a significant following is defining an incredibly frequent word to mean both something and its opposite.

This is going to take a while to ground ourselves and make sure we’re using language in a shared way. This, like Superintelligence, will become a regular column. More coming soon.

See you next week!