Throughout my mid 20s and early 30s there has been an extremely fine line between what ‘fact’ really means.
A definition on Dictionary dot com is “something known to be true.”
Isn’t it known to be true that a woman like this is more physically attractive than an obese woman or a woman with an off-centered face/flat face with no square jaw?
To include all of the population in this including homosexual, let’s say everyone is a casting agent who needs a beautiful woman for a one line role in an A list movie.
Many people will say a physical appearance is an opinion, and then behind closed doors watch porn with woman like this to reach an orgasm faster, many people including myself wouldn’t be able to with an obese woman.
The absolutely absurd amount of times a 1970-1972 Chevrolet Chevelle has been used in Hollywood movies because it’s cool looking. Cool is another thing considered by many to be an opinion but isn’t it known to be true that these years of this car look cool? Especially by the businesses that rent these out to movies/shows and music videos and have an entire lot of older cars before safety regulations and gas consumption change happened in the US and in the mid to late 70s American cars didn’t have as intricate of designs; with models like the 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air and 1967 Pontiac Firebird compared to American cars made in the mid to late 70s and beyond.
and then on the flip side someone could say well who is the best looking woman in the world or coolest looking car? It’s true, what is the most rugged terrain? Desert, mountains, the ocean, the jungle? It’s difficult to determine which is the most rugged of them all because they’re all highly dangerous at times.
At the same time how is a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle on the same level as a 2000 Ford Taurus as an opinion of what looks more cool?
Col vs not cool; attractive vs unattractive is all opinion and not fact. It may be a fact that a particular car appears in more hollywood movies than any other, but that is no evidence that this car is more ‘cool’ than any other; only that Hollywood producers thought so.
‘Cool’ and ‘attractive’ are ideas that change with time and background. I can imagine that the young lady in your link might be quite ugly to someone with a different background to you and me.
This could be the result of a study that comes to this conclusion. This could be an accepted concept in Hollywood. This could be nothing but your opinion.
You could say “It is a fact that a study concludes …”
You could say “It is a fact that these particular people in Hollywood say …”
You could say “It is a fact that I claim that my opinion is…”
You can qualify almost any statement sufficiently to include the word ‘fact’ without any conclusion objectively determined to be true.
If everything was an opinion like stated by the people in this thread, movies, shows, music videos, books, art would be MUCH worse, because there would be no rhyme or reason for anything. Things are done for a certain reason because they look good or they work well and that’s how everyone in this thread has enjoyed entertainment in their lives.
Imagine if Tolkien set Lord of the Rings in a plains setting with no mountains, and how much less excitement would have filled the books and movies. It’s known that massive mountain ranges are epic, they may not be the MOST epic, although it’s a more dynamic terrain with more angles and elevation changes and more to look at than a flat plain.
In Toys, Robin Williams is shown driving an extremely rare Muntz Jet convertible, how can that scene happen with a common Ford Taurus? The car needs to be ultra rare to make Robin William’s character whimsical and unique.
Why would someone want to live their life thinking everything is an opinion? Why would they not want to dig deeper and understand why things happen?
Is dying supposed to be a fact? You can cryogenically freeze someone.
We don’t even know how the universe started so how is anything within it considered a fact? and others an opinion?
In science, a fact is an observation or some data that has been taken. Something that another group of scientists can observe or measure and get the same result.
It is a fact that the temperature right now in NYC is 75 +/- 1 deg F.
It is a fact that coyotes have been observed in all the continental US states.
It is a fact that men prefer thin women to fat women. BZZZZZZZZZT!!!
How do you know you’re not living in a computer program or someone else’s dream where you only perceive that the temperature is at that point? Again we don’t even know how the universe started or where it came from.
Are you proposing that mountains have an intrinsic epicness, that they retain even if there’s no one around to opine that they are epic?
If so:
If aliens visited our planet, and we gave them the right instruments and told them how our temperature scales work, they would be able to measure the air temperature at the top of Mt. Everest. Similarly, they would be able to determine the height of a mountain’s peak above sea level. But how do you propose that they measure the level of epicness?
In philosophy, knowledge is sometimes defined as “justified true belief.” But that just begs the question of “truth.” How do we “know” anything?
In practice, it comes down to certain useful assumptions, such as “reality is real” and “there is such a thing as cause and effect.” They can’t be proven, but without them, we get absolutely nowhere. You can gaze into your navel and wonder about wonderment, but some of the rest of us are hunting game and baking bread.
It sounds to me like what you really want to discuss isn’t fact vs. opinion but objective vs. subjective in creative works.
What makes a song or a book or a movie or a band good or bad, effective or ineffective? Some people do in fact claim that it’s all subjective, but it seems clear to me personally that judgments about such things are a mixture of the objective and the subjective (though it’s not always obvious where the line between these is to be drawn).
Thudlow Boink: (It’s a delight just to type out your name!) I’m reminded of the debate over whether there can be a “science” of aesthetics. Some artistic principles can be expressed as “laws.” Unity of composition, simplicity, consistency, balance, etc. These are the sorts of ideas that get taught in introductory art classes.
But one doesn’t have to go very far to learn that, in art, “breaking the rules” is one of the most important parts of creativity. Picasso learned to paint in the conventional style…and then went off exploring Cubism. Joaquin Rodrigo, composer of the (fabulous!) Concierto de Aranjuez, makes brilliant use of dissonances, which appear to break the rules of harmony and melody. The real fact is that he is exploring a new and deeper set of meta-rules, which are less objective.
