We don't continue to say "X is true" after becoming aware that it is not. — creativesoul
What's the difference between believing that "X is true" and "X" being true? — creativesoul
I wasn't asking about what you call it, but what you interpret it as being. That is, there has to be something by which you know it's a tree and not a car. And for so long as it is just interpretation and nothing more, then you can't know, and my question stands.
— tim wood
I still don't get your point. — Metaphysician Undercover
Meta, what on your view is the difference between belief and truth? — creativesoul
Earlier you concluded that since thought/belief can be false, so too can truth. — creativesoul
It does not follow from the fact that belief can be false that truth can be false. Yet, that is the move you keep making. — creativesoul
Meta wrote:
I think that "true" refers to an attitude which we have toward expressing our beliefs to others, such that we are open and honest in our communications. It is closely related to sincerity. A true belief is one which is expressed openly and honestly, not held in secret for the purpose of deception. When you express your beliefs in the way that you really believe them to be, you are expressing true beliefs.
I think that "true" refers to an attitude which we have toward expressing our beliefs to others, such that we are open and honest in our communications. It is closely related to sincerity. A true belief is one which is expressed openly and honestly, not held in secret for the purpose of deception. When you express your beliefs in the way that you really believe them to be, you are expressing true beliefs. — Metaphysician Undercover
It is quite evident that when we say "X is true" we do not have absolute certainty, and some times the belief which was said to be true turns out to be false. — Metaphysician Undercover
if knowledge consisted of absolute certainty, which it does not — Metaphysician Undercover
It is quite evident that when we say "X is true" we do not have absolute certainty, and some times the belief which was said to be true turns out to be false. — Metaphysician Undercover
The point seems important to the discussion. I do not see where and how you bridge the gap between object and interpretation. Let's try it from your side. Let's imagine you say, "That is a tree." You don't actually have to say it; you could just have some notion that translates into "that is a tree." What does "that" refer to? Do you begin to see the difficulty? If it's another interpretation, then you never escape from an endless chain of interpretation. On the other hand, if there is something about the tree that is not merely interpreted by you, then you have a grasp of reality not interpreted. — tim wood
You have already mentioned sensing, perceiving, apprehending, but then you say these are how we "interpret" reality. Interpret? Are you giving interpret two - at least two - different meanings? — tim wood
Or are you satisfied that you can never know it's a tree? but if you cannot know that, then you cannot know anything. And more toward the point of this thread, you can never utter or even think anything true. — tim wood
So the question: how do you bridge the gap between object and perception, or alternatively, how do you get from interpretation to reality? — tim wood
Sincerity is not equal to being true. — creativesoul
You really don't need all this business about changing the meanings of "truth" and "knowledge." That horse has lost before it even gets out of the starting gate. — Srap Tasmaner
It is not perfectly clear that you can start at (2) and claw your way back to (1), but of course you can just leave (2) alone and plump for (1) immediately. You can even secretly believe (2) if you want. — Srap Tasmaner
What you say is true, even though you don't know it. — Srap Tasmaner
In this case, you arguably do know the right answer -- you got "1066" from reading the book after all -- but you have almost no certainty to go with your knowledge. A rising inflection when you answer is appropriate. — Srap Tasmaner
The goal is to model a speech community without using the concept of truth.
Their goal is to select answers that will be marked correct. In selecting what they believe is the right answer, they must also have confidence that this is the answer the test-preparer will consider the right answer, that the test has no misprints, that it will be graded correctly, etc. In short, that if they do their part in selecting the right answer, the test-givers will do their part in marking it correct. — Srap Tasmaner
Now suppose that in addition to selecting an answer, you rate your confidence in selecting that answer, say on a scale from 1 to 5. You could imagine the test-givers using this as a sort of wager, and giving students more points for confidently selected right answers than for guesses, but otherwise it wouldn't change much for them. — Srap Tasmaner
But with the confidence mechanic, things can get weird, because students can collude to move the answer. As I tried testing this, it looked like it only took two students out of ten so colluding to make a noticeable difference, and three was overkill. (The idea is for the conspirators all to confidently select the same answer; they'll pick up some help from whoever believed this answer actually to be right, and often enough swamp other answers, including the right one, selected with only random confidence. Thus their choice tends to win more than it should.) — Srap Tasmaner
I wanted to see if we could build up a community's idea of truth from scratch. Test-taking makes a good stand-in for truth because there is a mechanical sense of correctness here, which we can exchange via voting for something like consensus, and we have a way of adding in confidence or certainty as a factor -- socially this would be something like reputation. The goal is to model a speech community without using the concept of truth, but rather explaining their concept of truth. — Srap Tasmaner
But the test-taking example leads naturally to the idea of cheating. In broader social terms, you can imagine cheaters as people who value prestige and standing above truth, and it turns out even a smallish group can collude to manipulate the community's consensus. And by manipulating the consensus they can reinforce their reputation as the people who know and speak the truth, despite having other goals entirely. — Srap Tasmaner
Perhaps you could penalize a student for claiming high confidence and getting the question wrong, but that would be very complicated. — Metaphysician Undercover
Do you agree that you have made a distinction here between what the student believes is right, and what the student believes will be marked as right? — Metaphysician Undercover
The correct answer must be the one believed by the oneself, not by anyone else. So when I am confident that I have the correct answer, I am confident that the answer I have is the correct answer, regardless of how the teacher will mark it. — Metaphysician Undercover
Earlier I wrote:
So, I'm outside this morning doing my normal thing. The adolescent hens, of which there are three, are hanging out nearby. Part of my normal thing is feeding the chickens. They're quite amusing at times. For example, when they see my car pull in the driveway, they come running. When they see me from afar they do the same. I can only surmise that this behaviour is, in part, the result of my feeding them regularly. In addition, these chicks were hand reared from very early on, as a result of losing their mother.
Here's something to consider...
Sometimes the chickens get fed old cereal(cheerios). The cereal is in a plastic bag which is near perfectly clear. I mean, the cereal is quite easily able to be seen through the bag, and yet it seems that the chicks do not take note of that. I say that as a result of the bag never being bothered by the chicks despite it's being left outside and unattended for days on end. And yet, when I pick up the bag and call to the chickens with bag in hand they will come running. At this point, I can lay the bag on the ground and reach into it, grab some food, and spread it around at the chickens' feet and they will eat what's been spread. I can then close the bag with the clip and leave it lay without the chickens ever paying attention to it...
That's a bit odd, but it seems that some things can be surmised from it.
I think most students are asserting their actual beliefs with their actual level of certainty, but some definitely aren't. But then instead of measuring their answers against an "objective" standard like a test key, we are measuring them against the consensus of their community. — Srap Tasmaner
On my view, thought/belief always uses correspondence with/to fact/reality, including situations when that presupposition goes unnoticed and/or unmentioned. — creativesoul
What would count as looking like truth, if not looking like some pre-conceived notion of "truth"? — creativesoul
How do the conspirators choose which answer they will give? A randomly chosen answer will pick up some support, but if it's quite unpopular, though the needle will move they risk still coming out in the minority. They're better off doing some pre-test research to find out what the popular answers are and then going all in on those to make sure they win and our conspirators get the reward.
That raises two issues: the reward will be shared with a lot more people, and that's bad; interestingly, if two answers are roughly equal in popularity, our conspirators get to pick the winner. (The best scenario is to be in the minority who get the answer right, but still better right than wrong.)
So there's some push here toward the consensus representing what most people actually believe, but where there's controversy we're right back to manipulation.
In the case at hand, if reality meets expectation, then the students have gotten it right. That is, they've hedged their bets correctly as a means of getting what they want. — creativesoul
I appreciate your contributions here, Srap... — creativesoul
I don't want to seem stupid but it looks to me as though I'm a pound down on the whole deal.
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