Search Ideas

We can redefine ‘hard to vary’, but we’d need still a working implementation in the form of computer code.

… Demeter scores 25% and axial tilt scores 100%.

Now do this universally, for any given theory.

When you say it's 100% true that it's raining, "the facts" you correspond to are already facts within that framework, and not reality.

I think of them as facts of reality. I don’t think about ‘frameworks’. I think the idea of frameworks invites relativism.

We don’t need the molecular level for this. Truth is a very simple concept. No need to complicate it.

[W]e have no way of verifying that our conceptual carvings track or pick out entities and relations in reality. … [This] definitely rules out absolute truth.

I don’t see how it does. That we have no way to verify our theories (“conceptual carvings”) doesn’t rule out absolute truth. It does sound like we have different notions of ‘absolute truth’ in mind. For mine, see #4894.

Ironically, your idea that theories can be “more true than others” rules out absolute truth in the sense that truth leaves absolutely no room for deviation. Absolute truth is a binary: true or false. Nothing in between.

If you agree that truth is correspondence with reality, and not with the facts within our conceptual framework, the problem reemerges.

I disagree because I think this sets up a false dichotomy.

When I wrote “Truth means correspondence with the facts”, that means with the facts of reality.

Hi Ed, welcome to Veritula. If this idea is meant as a criticism (it sounds like one), be sure to revise it and check the criticism checkbox. See also ‘How Does Veritula Work?’

A contradiction in The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch? 🤔
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xmngAmZMEuo

Steve Jobs was a good writer.
He wrote clearly and simply.
Anyone can understand him.

From https://x.com/WebDesignMuseum/status/2049544240213196807

In that case, I'm unclear what "100% true" means.

Perfect correspondence with the facts.

For example, if it’s currently raining, and you say it is, then your statement is 100% true.

Nice, yes. I do see Deutschians using the concept, especially in the context of the fun criterion. But in the general public inexplicit knowledge is underrated, I agree.

Value isn’t in the object itself. It’s in the owner’s mind. If the owner doesn’t consent to the replacement, the value may well be lower.

For example, imagine somebody replacing your teddy bear from childhood with the ‘same’ one but new.

Not to be a stickler but I think you mean ‘inexplicit’.

Implicit = not said directly but implied. Can still accompany explicit speech though.
Inexplicit = not expressed in words or symbols.

At least that’s how I use the terms.

…as the postmoderns pointed out…

Citation needed.

I think you misunderstand both my own argument and the meaning of ambiguity.

You’re saying that, to hold a true idea in the sense of absolute truth in my head, I’d have to have perfect definitions, which require infinite amounts of information, and having all that information is impossible. Right?

While you obviously know what those words mean, you do not have absolute, 100% defined boundaries of what they refer to and what they don't.

I think it’s enough to know what the words mean for the idea to be true. We don’t have to have “100% defined boundaries”.

Truth means correspondence with the facts (Tarski). Not infinite precision.

I think a ‘trick’ cynics use (not maliciously, still I like to call it a trick) is to set an unrealistically high standard for truth. And then, when no idea ends up being able to meet that standard, they say the idea can’t be true.

You probably missed this in The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gTvuzxY-SXg

Rational Decision-Making

Expanding on #2112…

If an idea, as written, has no pending criticisms, it’s rational to adopt it and irrational to reject it. What reason could you have to reject it? If it has no pending criticisms, then either 1) no reasons to reject it (ie, criticisms) have been suggested or 2) all suggested reasons have been addressed already.

If an idea, as written, does have pending criticisms, it’s irrational to adopt it and rational to reject it – by reference to those criticisms. What reason could you have to ignore the pending criticisms and adopt it anyway?

Or, simplified:

It is rational to adopt only those ideas which, as written, don’t have pending criticisms, and to reject ideas that do.

Follow me on Instagram for more fitness tips: https://www.instagram.com/lets.recomp/

‘Are all our ideas false? 🤔’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrQ9lrYGObc

If it introduces falsehood only fallibly, then it might fail sometimes, and the target idea would still be true after all. So no, it would need some infallible way – ie, a criterion of truth.

If it introduces falsehood only fallibly, then it might fail sometimes, and the target idea would still be true after all. So no, it would need some infallible way – ie, a criterion of turth.

Couldn’t the mechanism introduce falsehood by other means? For example by introducing contradictions. Then it wouldn’t need a criterion of truth.

In this related article, I write:

If we could not speak the truth, our minds would have to have some subconscious mechanism that evaluates our ideas and detects and rejects true ones, or modifies them a bit to introduce errors, before we become aware of them. Otherwise, we could still utter the truth, if only “by chance”, as Xenophanes says. Such a mechanism would itself depend on a criterion of truth. So the epistemological cynics, though inspired by Popper’s fallibilism, and even though they would call themselves ‘fallibilists’, are not actually fallibilists. Whether they realize it or not, they rely on the existence of a criterion of truth and (simultaneously, ironically) reject the possibility that some of our knowledge is true.

… 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.

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.

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.

Knut, you’ve won the bounty. You need to integrate with Stripe to get paid.