Facts, but there is usually more to the story ...

I have learned that "facts" are inadequate to  account for reality and history.  More is needed than "facts".  One can read the words of a sentence, and fail to comprehend the message of the sentence and the same with "facts" versus the actual "truth".  The fact of the matter is that actual truth has lost something very valuable in its reduction to just "facts". Facts are like integers, they fail to accommodate the many instances in which the correct answer is to be found in the infinite range of rational and irrational real numbers between any two integers. 

Here are some of my favorite quotes about facts.

"It is not so very important for a person to learn facts. .... --Albert Einstein (quoted by Philipp Frank in "Einstein's Philosophy of Science," 

and another "It is best, it seems to me, to separate one's inner ... "If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." --Albert Einstein ...

and another You can understand the facts of life. But facts of love are much different. .... Albert Einstein

I do appreciate that knowing certain facts and sorting out the false ones from the true ones is important to gain information about anything which is under investigation or study, but facts alone are not sufficient. I do practice the scientific method, but have learned to advance further with my mind to go beyond what my mind and the scientific method have collected into the unknown, into the "answer box" that researchers find if they try hard enough (the collective consciousness?). Perhaps a prerequisite to being able to do this requires letting go of the "facts" and what we "think" we know and having a willingness to learn.... a desire to learn ... Mathematics taught me this ability or developed it and perhaps there are those who consciously choose not to learn in order to protect and defend their "facts" and what they already "know".

Many times it is what is not said or not written that matters.... the space between the words, the meaning of it all. When we speak words, it is merely noise.... what is communicated with the words/noise is the intended message sent by the speaker that must be comprehended. If someone in an audience is so focused that they hear only what they want to hear they will never receive the true input, because they have their "facts" placed uppermost in their mind rather than like a child being open to accept and discover without first comparing to their store of facts. The audience member has rejected and filtered out and has a predisposition to accept only what will not threaten or disturb the present state of mind