Facts are Facts (?)

Facts are Facts (?):

For heuristic purposes, I greatly admire Ayn Rand’s advocacy for the independent ego of each human mind, apart from the collectivist field. That said, I don’t agree that it necessarily leads to much that is worthwhile merely to take it that “existence exists,” or “A is A,” or “facts are facts.” Nor do I take reason, in itself, as constituting an ultimate trump. Rather, I conceptualize that reasoning intuition (or Reasoned Empathy) is on a higher plane.

I agree that consciousness is fundamental, and I agree that reason is very important. But I don’t believe that non-trivial “reason” should be divorced from the intuition and empathy of any perspective of consciousness with respect to the encompassing field of consciousness. In other words, my philosophy respects not reason in itself, but Reasoned Empathy.

If some common aspect of Conscious Beingness (higher Field?) is itself the sponsor (or espouser) of reason, then should I not seek to be intuitive and empathetic of that aspect? Is not my innate regard for the conscious beingness of other perspectives within the common field of consciousness a source both for enlightened selfishness as well as for altruistic empathy? How or why “should” any particulate expression of a field claim utter independence of the field, any more so than it should claim independence of gravity? Unless to espouse some cousin of solipsism, to put my reasoning above all others, how could I “reason,” apart from intuition and empathy derivative of an encompassing Field of consciousness?

What does it mean to say that “facts are facts,” or that facts (among that which exists) are what they are? Yes, the existentiality of some facts may be objective or commonly shared, even though, perhaps, not even the entire field of consciousness may know all facts. Yet, in potential, facts may cross a range of the unknowable, the unknown, the partly known, the conditionally known, and the trivially known. Aspects of some facts may manifest differently to the appreciation of different perspectives of consciousness. Such perspectives may apprehend such facts: partly or fully; entirely incorrectly, partly incorrectly or correctly, partly objectively or subjectively; indirectly or directly; intuitively or measurably; bound somewhat objectively to all perspectives within one’s common frame of reference; or bound somewhat subjectively to one separate conscious identity. One’s subjective experience of a “fact” easily becomes imperfect or fuzzy, as each such fact is filtered through the accumulation of information that has attached to one’s separately identifiable perspective, orientation, and bias for consciousness.

Some subjective facts may objectively or fully exist or manifest only in relation to certain subjective experiences of consciousness. Not all facts are the same or objective facts to every perspective of consciousness. Nor do all “facts” necessarily exist as facts, in themselves only. Even when unknowable or unknown, facts exist only in respect of a relation, or at least a potential relation, to consciousness. How a potential or fuzzy fact may condense, collapse, or become directly manifest to a subjective perspective of consciousness may well depend upon the then and there psychological and contextual orientation of the perspective that is experiencing such fact, in respect of such perspective’s entire accumulation and integration of information, experience, and space-time context.

Trivial facts do not contradict. But non-trivial facts may easily go un-reconciled and mis interpreted. Facts in themselves do not contradict, but facts as interpreted by a perspective of consciousness may contradict. A perspective of consciousness may not endlessly accumulate un-reconciled contradictions in interpretations of facts without experiencing a breakdown in mental purposefulness. Each perspective of consciousness seeks to assimilate and integrate information consistent with a life path for fulfilling purposefulness. Such path to purposefulness is stressed to the extent a perspective experiences facts which it finds itself unable to integrate or reconcile with its path of beingness. A perspective’s need to survive may push it to force faux-reconciliations of facts by entertaining a din of cognitive dissonance. When the din becomes unbearable, the perspective may experience a nervous breakdown.

It is not always true that no one is entitled to his own facts. But it is true that no one is entitled to his own facts that are objectively apart from what is commonly demonstrable to all – either directly and presently, or by reference to markers that have stored information regarding such facts -- where markers remain that are commonly and objectively demonstrable to all who care to access them. Subject to a shared physical and cultural milieu, juries judge the social utility of contestants and their interpretations of facts.

We are outposts for the experiencing, shaping, and reconciling of unfolding manifestations of facts and events of potentiality. Our participation in purposefulness is in synchronicity with the unfolding choices of our common field of consciousness. One’s individual capacity (Reasoned Empathy) to understand affects the quality of one’s assimilative receptivity to the purposefulness of the common field of consciousness, as it finds expression through each avatar for each particular identity. Our separate faces are avatars for a dance with purposeful choice making.

Except in respect of universally-fundamental, mathematically-expressible laws of physics, and a shared frame of reference that happens to sustain human consciousness, I do not perceive that non-trivial facts tend to present themselves in any essentially common way. Many non-trivial “facts” do not tend to have essence as facts in themselves, but only as they manifest relative to a conscious being and other such beings as happen to be copasetic to each other’s frame of reference. Yes, I can notice when I am shot and when I follow others. But the “fact” that I am shot or that I experience any event means nothing, in any eternal or essential aspect, to the universe, apart from the conscious experience (or potential experience) of it, either by myself or by some other perspective of conscious experience whose frame of reference is affected by my own.

There seems no way to show or know whether any quality (or even the entire coordinate experience of each different perspective’s subjectively conscious experience) of any non-trivial fact is in any essential way necessarily the same to each perspective. Trivial placeholders for mathematical axioms or functions may delineate a coordinate, shared, absolute validity across perspectives of consciousness. That is, one may easily and validly say “A is A.” But that is not to say very much. Once one adds a non-trivial aspect to “A” (such as A person, A moving event, or A physical structure), “A” refers only to an assumed identity for such person, moving event, or physical structure -- even though no such identity is fully known or knowable to any mortal, but rather, is continuously fluxing and changing in quality of relation to context and perspective.

I admire Ayn Rand. But her philosophy of an ideal, reasoning man or conscious mind needs to be tempered with empathetic respect for a common field of consciousness. But for respect for such commonality, it seems incoherent to assert that any values or reasons "should" be shared in common. I accept Rand’s regard for reason, but I temper it as Reasoned Empathy.