Fallibilism vs. Cynicism
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With an account, you can revise, criticize, and comment on ideas.Our ideas can be 100% true in the sense of absolute truth. It’s possible to come up with true ideas. There’s no criterion of truth to tell that they’re true, but they can still be true.
I think you run into the problem of definitions. An idea cannot be absolute, perfect truth without total, perfect, complete definitions for its terms. This isn't required for knowledge - the terms can be rough because the ideas are tentative. But for absolute truth, the boundaries of meaning of your terms must be completely determined. But, as the postmoderns pointed out, this requires infinite information - the complete determination of any one term requires its distinction from all other terms. In fact, they didn't go far enough. I'd argue you would need to know the distinction between the term and all other possible terms.
You have to know perfect definitions in order to have the idea in your head be perfectly true. Perfect definitions require infinite information, therefore you cannot know perfect truth.
Hi Rob, welcome to Veritula. It’s nice to meet another software engineer. Be sure to read ‘How Does Veritula Work?’ and ‘How Do Bounties Work?’ to make the most of V.
Re: definitions, you raise an argument others have made before, namely that language has some unavoidable ambiguity or incomplete information, which necessarily introduces error. I already addressed that argument in the article linked in the discussion header:
I don’t know if I agree that natural language is always ambiguous, but even if so, I don’t see how that implies error. We can make ambiguous but true statements. ‘I’m currently located in a hemisphere’ is ambiguous as to which hemisphere, but it’s still true. We could be silly and ask, on which planet? This one. Earth. We all know what we’re talking about.
Therefore, I disagree that we need perfect definitions or infinite precision to find absolutely true ideas. (But correct me if I’m wrong to think you’re making the same argument.)
I suggest you read the article in full, otherwise you may inadvertently make more arguments that have been addressed: https://libertythroughreason.com/fallibilism-vs-cynicism/
There’s also https://blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/don-t-take-fallibilism-too-far.
… for absolute truth, the boundaries of meaning of your terms must be completely determined.
You seem to be using ‘absolute truth’ differently than others. Wikipedia:
Absolute truth is a statement that is true at all times and in all places. It is something that is always true no matter what the circumstances. It is a fact that cannot be changed. For example, there are no round squares.
This is what I think Popper had in mind. Also that absolute truth leaves no room for deviation (which I think is the reason it’s “true at all times and in all places”). Nothing related to definitions or meanings. Popper wasn’t very interested in definitions.