"greater than 3" isn't. Any relation can be reinterpreted as a single-place predication.

The picture theory of meaning? Do you really want to invoke that?

The left side of a T-sentence is about the sentence. The right side is about how things are. <"The cat is on the mat" is true> is about the sentence "The cat is on the mat". <The cat is on the mat> is about the cat , not about the sentence "The cat is on the mat", and not about any picture of it raining, mental or otherwise.

<"The cat is on the mat" is true> has the form f(a), were "f" is "is true" and "a" is "The cat is on the mat". A single-place predication. Relations have the form f(a,b). Truth is not a relation.

Shouldn't it at the very least be a property of a pair <sentence, interpretation>? — Srap Tasmaner

Well, no. The interpretation is not a part of the sentence. In formal systems the domain is not a part of the sentence, but is part of the way the sentence is used - it's in the semantics, not the syntax. The interpretation assigns elements of the domain to the various variables. "The cat is on the mat" is true only if the cat is one of the things that is on the mat. The domain and interpretation are not part of the true sentence but part of the language in which the sentence occurs, or better, the use to which it is put. That use is what "binds" the cat to "the cat". There is no need here for a picture-of-cat that sits between the cat and "the cat".

Well what am I supposed to do with a post like that? There's nothing here to disagree with, nothing to take umbrage at, not even a pernickety point to pick apart. No fun at all.

Shouldn't it at the very least be a property of a pair <sentence, interpretation> — Srap Tasmaner

The wouldn't you need an interpretation of the interpretation?

isn't saying things that are true is just something we (sometimes) do? Like using a paperclip to replace a cotter pin?

Dumbed-down quantum theory. — GrahamJ

Then set out the full version.

Who, me? I didn't offer an answer, either.

Folk thinks such questions are profound metaphysics, when they are just differences in ways of talking about the issue. We can choose to talk about the future as fixed or as indeterminate; we can choose to use classical or non classical logics. The choice depends on what we are doing and what we want to say.

Once again what looks like metaphysics is a choice of language.

Outside of both classical and nonclassical logic.

Illogical, then. Fine.

Seems to me that you are not saying much at all. Nihilsum doesn't do anything.

Last night I saw, upon the stair,
A little man who wasn't there!
He wasn't there again today,
I wish, I wish he'd go away!

Ok. You previously implied that he answered the question of the facticity of future events, by offering the video as a reply to Janus' "Does it have a truth value before the coin toss is completed?" He doesn't answer that question, but only provides a bit of physics as background.

He's one of the best sources for questions about physics. — frank

Seeing as he doesn't provide an answer, that's pretty sad. But also probably accurate.

Missing out on what? He doesn't say much at all, ending up waffling on about Venusian factories.

I'll not watch the video. I did look at the transcript. I do not think the author provides an answer to his own question. You seem to think he does. Where does he commit?

That's not an answer. But where and how does it say that? It looks to me to just hand wave at "quantum". Physics doing philosophy, badly.

Postmodern fear of knowledge. — jkop

I'm stealing that phrase.

...defies conventional logic... — mlles

There are already well-developed systems of nonclassical logic that have at least a third value, so nothing new in that.

— adapted from wikipedia — GrahamJ

About as weak as reference as could be imagined... What the fuck is "|ψ⟩=α|nonexistence⟩+β|existence⟩"?

What is it that you think the video shows? It doesn't appear to provide an answer to the titular question...

No. But determinism might use biconditional logic, while indeterminism might include an "undecided" evaluation.

Does it have a truth value before the coin toss is completed? — Janus

Seems to me that logic alone should not be able to commit us to a view on the truth functions of statements about the future. Rather if we hold that statements about the future are either true or false, we can adopt a biconditional logic, but if we think otherwise we might adopt an alternative logic. — Banno

That is indeed the 'strange loop': logical priority is a product of the brain, which in turn is a product of evolution. — Wayfarer

No, no. No strange loop. That's something quite different. You want the brain to generate reality, which presupposes that before there was reality there were brains - logically, as well as temporally and causally. Prestidigitation.

It won't work.

I thought we reached at least a detente. Ok.

I'm considering the idea that while there are inummerable objective facts, — Wayfarer

If "Our immensely sophisticated hominid forebrain generates the world in which there is space, time, and perspective", then there is an immensely sophisticated hominid forebrain, logically prior to there being a generated world. I can't imagine how you could reconcile these two things. The brain is a part of the world it supposedly produces.

"Objective" is another of those words that detracts from a conversation more than it adds. If "...those philosophies that seek explanation only in objective terms" are muddled, it is not because they leave out the subjective, but becasue they first set up the objective/subjective dichotomy and then ignore half of it. Better to leave the supposed dichotomy aside.

Without that initial construction, 'gold, 'Boorara' and 'exists' would all be meaningless noises. But there would still be gold. )Note: no quotation marks). "There would be no locations, no objects, nothing to speak of whatever" is a step further than your argument will take us. You may conclude that there would be nothing spoken, but not that there would be nothing to speak of. You remain defeated by "...and nothing else changes".

Trivial, yes, but perhaps not as trivial as is commonly supposed. It has the singular advantage of being correct, which is more than can be said for other, more profound theories of truth.

Not sure what you want here.

I suspect the conclusion in your argument is trivial, rather than significant. it's true that there are sentences. "There is gold in those hills" says there is gold in those hills.

So you take him literally, but not seriously. As opposed to taking him seriously, but not literally.

So whether you're a realist or an anti-realist or an idealist, the bare assertion that "it is raining" is true iff it is raining says nothing to address any metaphysical issues – or even issues about truth. — Michael

That's all fine. There is very little that can be said about truth.

...cardboard boxes have 8 corners — Michael

Not the ones Toblerones come in.

Trump as Pompey, not Caesar. Maybe.

Well, it's not looking good, at the hands of "the patriot of the year".

A shame for the US, but democracy may thrive elsewhere.

it will be interesting to learn, over the next few years, if the institutions that underpin democracy are as strong in the USA as in South Korea.

I addressed that previously:

I've tried to be clear that ultimately neither realism nor idealism will do. The part of what you say that I agree with is that we construct our understanding of how things are; I've set this out in some detail in posts about both "counts as..." and direction of fit. The part on which it seems we disagree is that since not just any understanding will do, there is something else that places restrictions on the understanding we construct. — Banno

The substantial difference is that for us the past already happened, is thus fixed and has left its traces. The future is yet to happen and so is not (for us at least) fixed. — Janus

This again brings out the difference between something being true and it being know to be true. We don't know if the coin we are about to flip will come up heads or tails, but it would be an error to conclude that therefore "the coin will come up heads" has no truth value.

don’t read that as supporting metaphysical realism. — Wayfarer

Nor do I?

It was @Wayfarer who introduced "If everything remains undisturbed then there will be Gold", quoting someone else.

Seems to me that logic alone should not be able to commit us to a view on the truth functions of statements about the future. Rather if we hold that statements about the future are either true or false, we can adopt a biconditional logic, but if we think otherwise we might adopt an alternative logic.

That is, our view on what truth values statements about the future can take will decide which logic we adopt.

We then have the task of showing that the logic is consistent.

Debate? Not so much.

I like your explanation of truth in a world against truth at a world. And I think the argument you presented yesterday is quite interesting. I think there is an ambiguity going on in P2 over what it is for a sentence to exist, but there might be some value in your suggestion to treating the antecedent of the T-sentence as an utterance rather than as a proposition.

What I don't think is that this poses a problem for realism.

You are misrepresenting what
I have said. Just as you misrepresented what Michale said.

Sure, I already addressed that. Yep, there are sentences.

What's suspicious about Tarski? — Michael

Nothing. It's your argument that is suspicious. I made the mistake of understanding P2 as an instance of existential generalisation, but it isn't. Existential Generalisation would allow "If the sentence "gold does not exist" is true then some sentence is true". But your P2 claims something different. And it's not at all clear what it might mean for a sentence to exist.

It is suspicious that it predicates truth to sentences in it's own domain. I suspect it would fall apart if formalised, but how to formalise it? Using Tarski's approach we would have the sentence in the metalanguage; using Kripke's approach might be interesting.

SO are you happy with that conclusion?

C2. If the sentence "gold exists" does not exist then gold does not exist — Michael

So do you interpret this? That if the language English had not developed, then there would be no gold?

Perhaps you are.

IF you like. For our purposes, this doesn't enter into consderation.

The sentence "gold exists" doesn't exist if the English language doesn't exist. — Michael

Sure. And the English language does exist. So if our domain includes English sentences, the sentence "Gold exists" is a member of that domain.

That's all that the argument can conclude.

It's just the ordinary sense of "exists": the Earth exists but ghosts don't. — Michael

I do not think it is that complicated. To make use of existential generalisation all one needs is for "there is gold in those hills" to be in the domain. A pretty minimal existential commitment to there being sentences. No need to decide if it exists like a ghost, or like a chair, or like a number.

Someone must have done some work on this. — J

The key work on Indexicals is apparently Kaplan. Much of the discussion thereabouts also involves demonstratives. It's not an area I've looked at in detail, and it has some curious results... logical necessity becomes a bit unstuck...

Might be an interesting read-through topic; it would require quite a bit of work. Is "I am here now" a logical truth? Intuitively, anyone who utters such a sentence is uttering a truth; yet it is not true in every possible world that I am here now - I might have been somewhere else...

The real problem here is that this hasn't been described in a formal logical or mathematical theory that it is so. — ssu

Yep. There are ambiguities here that formality might serve to iron out.

I'm happy to go along with it's being valid, with some reservation about what it means to use existential generalisation over a truth statement. That is, it's not clear what <"There is gold in those hills" exists> is saying, beyond that "There is gold in those hills" is an element in the domain under discussion.

Sure, there are sentences such as "There is gold in those hills". Does that imply Platonism? I don't think so.

So what do you take it to imply? Where does this lead?