Names and faces to bikes

natureboy
then you're saying that whether or not something is a 'fact' depends on the mental state of the believer

No, I did not say:

*When someone is convinced, that is: when a notion is held with certainty, that it is indisputably the case, it is a 'fact'.*

What I did say was:

*When someone is convinced, that is: when a notion is held with certainty, that it is indisputably the case, we label it as 'fact'.*

natureboy
For a statement about the physical world to be a fact, it would have to have the status, essentially, of an extremely well verified theory, where there was such a weight of supporting evidence, possibly including the everyday experiences of millions of people, that it would be extremely unlikely that the 'fact' could ever be contradicted.

Like I said earlier we may be drifting into semantics - but, to me at least, something with the status of an extremely well verified theory is just that, an extremely well verified theory, I feel no need to artificially promote an extremely well verified theory to 'fact' status.

Also "the everyday experiences of millions of people" has no bearing on what is or what is not 'fact', I refer you to your own point about a flat earth, there was a time when all of mankind believed the earth to be flat, as you correctly point out: that would hardly make it a fact.