Facts in Social Imagination ... An Information Reality

Charles H. Cooley, was not an informationist in his times but could have been in ours. His work is key to understanding social reality and its source. For Cooley, as we read his work, all that social reality is ... is exchanged information. And, that exchange takes place in the human mind. For Cooley, the human mind was/is the locus of society. Why? Because, you can never know society or anything about it for that matter outside of creative social imagination - social collective thought which is constantly in the comparative elaborate process of mental organization or synthesis which for Cooley was rendered necessary by complexity in the elements of our thought.

In its social aspect for all, or nearly all, social reality is a series of information bits, selected, as in  choices made that relate in one way or another others in the social environment... it is an organization of comparatively complex social relations. It does not matter if we are talking about rich people, poor people, local people or those at the top of society in government i.e. The process is the same. Human beings as conduits of information exchange know only what they can agree upon 'arrive at/conclude' through social interaction; as I have written before social reality is agreement reality. We agree that this is this and that is that not because it, as in anything even people, exist in some absolute form known to all immediately, no...certainly not. It is what it is because we agree it is something. Its the same experience regarding science or any other man made subject of discussion in the social reality.

One should be asking more questions regarding the kind of information shared/exchanged. If it is productive for mankind's general welfare or not. Given that this world is in a state of entropy which can be experienced just by observing the environment around us and in our information exchanges we can recognize when information has weakened or been misunderstood. And, even in our social imagination there are mis-understandings. There is a either agreement about that or not which complicates and confuses the whole social reality.

Let it be said, when anything is agreed upon it is through the operation of social dynamics of subordination and domination. They are the underlying mechanism or modus operande for the comparative process. The decision to act 'choose' one bit over another when it comes to information is not made merely by the individual; no he/she will and cannot act alone. In the end, the choice is made by the group and all else follows.

Individuals in that group being parts of it feel as if they have made a choice. In this, group event 'process' of which individuals are part, they find the meaning of the group and their part in the group and this seemingly provides an advantage for them personally but only because it has become what is personal among us. If there were no agreement among the many about something there would be no meaning either and it would not 'feel' personal for the one if it had no meaning for the group.

You can say to me that the sun is a star and I will agree and then you will say... you see that is a fact. I will say its only a 'fact' because we agreed and we agreed with many who agreed before us. There was a time when the earth was the center of the universe and people agreed that was a fact until Copernicus came along. Now that begs the question how could one man be the catalyst for the dissemination of 'new' information? The source of all information appoints times and places and that source is the creator of all information.  Just read Kepler.

Facts are information bits. Those closer to the source have a better idea of what is real, what is true in the social imagination. All information is subject to that even in science. Facts are only that which we agree on as they are as received in a certain order; who agrees and why they agree is what makes them into a social fact. You cannot know facts outside of social agreement - social reality. Why? Because, only the creator could know 'facts' as absolutes in any measure.

For man, absolute facts cannot be known outside of the social imagination - the social reality of information exchange. You can never know a 'fact' about anything; evolution, the cosmos, math, language, history... etc. outside of social reality. ... as you can never be outside of the framework of social imagination; what Cooley called = an organization of comparatively complex social relations.

Man is not just any 'animal' exchanging information.  As a created being, he recognizes that there is a source of all information and in that source is contained the truth of everything.  That source is man's only reason for living, only means of being alive, and reason to be able to exchange information.  "In Him, we live, move and have our being" ~ Acts 17:28. Given that, in the social quantum of social reality, there is always potential for agreement among men...