All languages will die out eventually, and when they do no true propositions will exist; — Michael

This was it. This sentence doesn't make any sense. I think we agree on that now?

This was it. This sentence doesn't make any sense. I think we agree on that now? — frank

It does make sense. Propositions are features of language; ergo if there is no language there are no propositions.

It does make sense. Propositions are features of language; ergo if there is no language there are no propositions. — Michael

Ok. You're saying that if there are no humans, there is no truth. That's anti-realism.

You're saying that if there are no humans, there is no truth. — frank

I'm saying what I said here:

What some are saying is that "a truth" means "a true proposition" and "a falsehood" means "a false proposition", that a proposition requires a language, and that a language requires a mind.

This is not to say that a mind is sufficient; only that it is necessary. The (often mind-independent) thing that the proposition describes is also necessary (to determine whether or not the proposition is a truth or a falsehood).

So the claim is that when all life dies out there will be gold in Boorara but no truths or falsehoods because there will be no propositions. — Michael

If there are no truthbearers, there is no truth... about anything.

If there are no truthbearers, there is no truth... about anything. — frank

Given that "a truth" means "a true proposition" your claim is just the claim "if there are no truthbearers there is no true proposition about anything". Well, yes. Nothing true is being said or written or believed, etc.

But there's still gold.

Given that "a truth" means "a true proposition" your claim is just the claim "if there are no truthbearers there is no true proposition". Well, yes.

But there's still gold. — Michael

That last sentence only makes sense as an assertion at a possible world.

That last sentence only makes sense as an assertion at a possible world. — frank

Language currently exists and so I can assert the true proposition "gold will continue to exist even after all life dies".

But the claim that the true proposition "gold exists" will continue to exist even after all life dies is Platonic nonsense.

But the claim that the true proposition "gold exists" will continue to exist even after all life dies is Platonic nonsense. — Michael

That's not even a Platonic stance. We're not talking about Plato here. Platonism in logic is just the acceptance of abstract objects. They don't have locations. They don't have temporal extension, so they certainly don't "exist" after all life dies.

We are talking about Platonism.

See for example the SEP article on propositions that you referenced:

The proposition that there are rocks, which we denote <there are rocks>, does not entail the existence of any beings that have or are capable of having mental states. It entails this neither in a strictly or broadly logical sense. That is, it is possible in the broadest sense for <there are rocks> to be true in the absence of all mental states. But now, if this proposition is possibly true in the absence of mental states, then it possibly exists in the absence of all mental states, and so is mind-independent. This is an easy argument for the mind-independence of at least some propositions.

...

But if the Easy Arguments succeed, it seems that to accept propositions, we must accept Platonism. Conceptualism about propositions seems ruled out.

I disagree with Platonism.

A truth is a true proposition. Propositions do not exist in the absence of language and so true propositions do not exist in the absence of language and so truths do not exist in the absence of language.

But gold does exist in the absence of language. It's very straightforward.

I think 'ignore' would be more appropriate…. — Wayfarer

I think ‘finds fault’. Which is rather easy to do, when either the original is merely re-arranged, or, conditions are attached that were excluded as irrelevant in the original.

Doncha just love it, when you invent something, and some guy comes along later and tells everybody you invented it wrong?

I disagree with Platonism. — Michael

I don't think you understand what it is, otherwise, you wouldn't keep talking about propositions existing at a certain time.

But gold does exist in the absence of language. It's very straightforward. — Michael

Ok. You don't need to say anything about propositions to make that point.

@Janus, here is a different but related idea that Paine cited two years ago:

It is also worth considering how time can be related to the soul; and why time is thought to be in everything, both in earth and in sea and in heaven. It is because it is an attribute, or state, of movement (since it is the number of movement) and all these things are movable (for they are all in place), and time and movement are together, both in respect of potentiality and in respect of actuality?

Whether if soul did not exist time would exist or not, is a question that may fairly be asked; for if there cannot be some one to count there cannot be anything that can be counted either, so that evidently there cannot be number; for number is either what has been, or what can be, counted. But if nothing but soul, or in soul reason, is qualified to count, it is impossible for there to be time unless there is soul, but only that of which time is an attribute, i.e. if movement can exist without soul. The before and after are attributes of movement, and time is these qua countable. — Aristotle, Physics, 223a15, translated by R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye

So I'm asking:
1 ) Take the world without humans.
2 ) Imagine that nevertheless one human existed.
3 ) Get that human to look at Boorara.
4 ) Imagine that human asserts "There is gold in Boorara".

The assertion in ( 4 ) would then be a true assertion, right? But there were no asserters in ( 1 ), so no assertions, so no true assertions. But that process still gives you a roundabout way of mapping a state of affairs (the gold being in Boorara) to an assertion ("There is gold in Boorara"), albeit now through modal contexts. — fdrake

But what is continually happening is that folks are sneaking in (2) despite (1). So there is a human in a world without humans, and there is language in a world without language, etc.

For example:

But gold does exist in the absence of language. It's very straightforward. — Michael

Michael is here trying to use language in the absence of language. He thinks it is straightforward to achieve the effect of language even in the absence of language.

Again, fabricating stuff. Try reading. — Banno

Fortunately at this point in the thread everyone is simply ignoring your plea to "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" Such is always only a matter of time.

I agree with Aristotle that time is in one sense measurement of change (movement) and have recently said as much in this thread I think, or perhaps in some other thread. I don't agree with Aristotle's assertion that time is only measurement of change—I think time just is change. But then how we choose to define the idea of time is a matter of which definition seems the best fit.

But the claim that the true proposition "gold exists" will continue to exist even after all life dies is Platonic nonsense. — Michael

Yep.

The accusation of Platonism is another fabrication from .

The claim that the true proposition "gold exists" will continue to exist even after all life dies is Platonic nonsense, but there will still be gold.

What some are saying is that "a truth" means "a true proposition" and "a falsehood" means "a false proposition", that a proposition requires a language, and that a language requires a mind. — Michael

Yes. There's an ambiguity in "truth" such that "a truth" is also used to talk about a state of affairs that is the case - It is true that there is gold in those hills. It is true that there would still be gold even if there were no propositions. That is unproblematic. For most folk.

So the claim is that when all life dies out there will be gold in Boorara but no truths or falsehoods because there will be no propositions. — Michael

'Gold in Boorara' is just shorthand for 'any empirical fact'. And the assertion of any empirical fact, even one that would be so in the absence of any mind, is dependent on many factors, linguistic, geographic, etc. Given that one is in possession of this manifold, then you can be sure that there must be many facts of which nobody is aware, or ever will be aware. Lasseter's Reef may well be out there somewhere. We know of vast areas of space and enormous periods of time in which there were no humans, so no human minds. Those are objective discoveries, no less certain than that there is gold in Boorara. But I still maintain that asserting those fact absent any perceiving mind still relies on an implicit perspective. Humans have the intellectual facility to measure and depict such facts, and to communicate them to others. When you talk of undiscovered gold and unseen planets, I will know what you mean because we share a common framework of understanding, language, concepts etc. But to really know the world as it would be without that conceptual framework is impossible, as it would mean abandoning or standing outside of conscious thought and language altogether. So 'the argument from unknown facts' is really an example of what Schopenhauer calls 'the subject forgetting himself':

Since all imaginable characteristics of objects depend on the modes in which they are apprehended by perceiving subjects, then without at least tacitly assumed presuppositions possessed by the subject, no sense can be given to terms purporting to denote the object. In short, it is impossible to talk about material objects at all, and therefore even so much as to assert their existence, without the use of words the conditions of whose intelligibility derive from the experience of perceiving subjects — Magee, Schopenhauer's Philosophy

Perusing the SEP entry that has been mentioned, Challenges to Metaphysical Realism, there are many convergences between this general style of argument and Hilary Putnam's 'conceptual relativism'. I'll do some more reading on that.

If I may...

But to really know the world as it would be without that conceptual framework is impossible — Wayfarer

Again, who is it who disagrees? Without language, nothing can be said.

But there is no reason to suppose that language makes a difference to the gold at Boorara.

But I still maintain that asserting those fact absent any perceiving mind still relies on an implicit perspective. — Wayfarer

Does this say anything more than that a language requires a community? Sure, Asserting those facts requires a community that understands assertions. But that is a very different point to those facts being true, asserted or not.

But to really know the world as it would be without that conceptual framework is impossible, as it would mean abandoning or standing outside of conscious thought and language altogether. — Wayfarer

And here again is the little man who wasn't there: "...to know the world as it would be without that conceptual framework", as if that "conceptual framework" were something apart from what it is we understand. When we say that there is gold at Boorara, we are talking about gold and Boorara, not concept-of-gold and concept-of-Boorara. The very idea of a conceptual schema is problematic...

This is why argumentum ad lapidum is important: the rock puts limits on the motion of the foot, just as the world puts restrictions on what is true. What we can do is limited, and especially what we can do with words is limited. Not just any sentence is true.

In short, it is impossible to talk about material objects at all... — Magee, Schopenhauer's Philosophy

...and yet that is exactly what we do. Schop fixated on the "subject" and so could not notice that understanding is a group activity, not a solipsistic one.

While the SEP article provides some interesting insights, it is important to note that it is not representing a consensus view. It might be worth reminding folk of one of the very few results in the Philpapers survey that shows broad agreement.

Idealism and scepticism are very much minority views amongst those who pay consideration to such things.

When we say that there is gold at Boorara, we are talking about gold and Boorara, not concept-of-gold and concept-of-Boorara. — Banno

You will agree, though, that 'gold at Boorara' is shorthand for 'any empirical fact', right? All of your arguments contra idealism are question-begging, because they're pitched at the wrong level of meaning. You say that the idealist argument denies the reality of empirical fact when it does not. I am not disputing empirical facts.

But there is no reason to suppose that language makes a difference to the gold at Boorara. — Banno

Which you are referring to, and relating to me, who understand what you mean by it, as I already acknowledged.

Previously, you denied that you defend the position described in SEP as 'metaphysical realism'.

According to metaphysical realism, the world is as it is independent of how humans or other inquiring agents take it to be. The objects the world contains, together with their properties and the relations they enter into, fix the world’s nature and these objects [together with the properties they have and the relations they enter into] exist independently of our ability to discover they do.

Where do you disagree with that description? Because it seems to me to describe your view in a nutshell.

The fact that idealism is not well supported in academic philosophy neither surprises nor impresses me. It is contra the zeitgeist, to quote a well-known idealist.

You will agree, though, that 'gold at Boorara' is shorthand for 'any empirical fact', right? — Wayfarer

What we can do is apply existential generalisation... If there is gold at Boorara, then it follows that there is gold; and if there is gold, it follows that there is stuff. But the word"empirical" has unnecessary baggage.

All of your arguments contra idealism are question-begging, because they're pitched at the wrong level of meaning. — Wayfarer

Actual I'd flip this and say that you are reading the argument at the wrong level. I am not saying that the idealist argument denies the reality of empirical fact; I would not happily use "empirical". So I think you are misreading me by introducing notions of the "empirical".

Which you are referring to, and relating to me, who understand what you mean by it, as I already acknowledged. — Wayfarer

And yet you have previously said that there would be no gold, or at least no fact of the matter; and here you agree that "there is no reason to suppose that language makes a difference to the gold at Boorara.". Can you see why you seem to me (and others) to be hedging?

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.

If you were to restrict your assertion to "the mind is essential to our understanding of the word" we would be in agreement. But you instead say that the mind is essential to the existence of the world. That's an unwarranted extension.

Even with Quantum.

The Philpapers survey is there just to keep some perspective on the discussion. It is the degree to which philosophers are here in agreement that is extraordinary. There are good arguments in the SEP article, but they are not the orthodoxy.