Is it a Fact or just a point of view ?

If you are one of those who like to find out what is really going on, you may want to understand some of these fundamentals.

First thing first, whatever happened is a fact. Even if you saw what happened, what you saw is only one aspect of what happened. It may not necessary represent the whole truth and hence what you see may not be the fact itself, but merely one way of describing the fact.

Many people assume what they see, feel and experience are facts. While this is TRUE for the person himself but it may NOT be TRUE for others. Hence when such person communicate with others about his 'facts', he may face challenges getting his message across.

But all your senses are the only inputs you can rely on. You can't just ignore them. So all you need to be aware of is that these are just inputs. Inputs can be wrong too. You should discard wrong inputs along the way. The more inputs you get describing a fact, the better it is for you to find out what the fact actually is. These are just your observation, not fact.

Does this mean we will NEVER find out what the fact is ? Well, although strictly speaking in theory and philosophy that might be true, however our real life is NOT just black and white by far.

While some facts require observation from ALL angles, some other facts can be easily identified.

"There is an accident." - a fact

"The driver is drunk." - a fact with test result

"The drunk driver caused the accident." - an idea/guess by linking 2 facts, acceptable by majority most of the time.

"That is a haunted corner, the ghost must have caused the accident." - an idea based on other past experiences, not relevant to current incident, usually less acceptable by others who have not gone through the same experience - haunting corner.

"The brake was broken even before the car was started, hence this is a mechanical failure. But the driver is also guilty of drink and drive" - report after 360 degree police investigation. An acceptable fact with many supporting inputs/views/observation.

So a fact can be identified as early as your first observation, it can also be found after a rather complete collection of observations. But the early fact you can identify is usually a general statement while the fact with many supporting observations is usually more specific with details.

Have you been treating whatever your observation is as fact to everybody else ?