We don't continue to say "X is true" after becoming aware that it is not. — creativesoul

Of course not, one wouldn't say "X is true" when that individual believes X is false, unless that person deceives. But that doesn't mean that we don't say "x is true", when we know full well that it is possible that X is really not true. And, this is acceptable use of "X is true". As I explained to Fafner, if we had to know for sure that the falsity of X was absolutely impossible (absolute certainty) before it was acceptable to use "true", this would render "true" completely useless, because we never obtain such absolute certainty. So in reality, to define "true" as excluding the possibility of falsity, is to produce a definition which renders "true" useless.

What's the difference between believing that "X is true" and "X" being true? — creativesoul

We have yet to determine in this thread, whether or not such a difference exists. It doesn't seem likely to me. Since truth is a property of the subject, true being a property of what the subject believes, I don't see how you could separate X being true from someone believes X to be true. They both appear to say the same thing.

You might be inclined to create a difference, by defining "true" in a way such as "excluding the possibility of falsity". But that would be just an artificial difference, created by that definition which is really a useless definition except for the purpose of creating that difference. What is the point to creating that difference? If the definition is used simply to create such a difference, when no such difference really exists, then creating that definition is just a form of deception.

Meta, what on your view is the difference between belief and truth?

Earlier you concluded that since thought/belief can be false, so too can truth.

That would be the case if, and only if, thought/belief were equivalent to truth.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

In contrast, I and most folks are satisfied that we get information from perception, and that perception is the ground of the truth of the thing. In no sense whatsoever am I talking about significance: that would be a matter of interpretation. Maybe this way: you cannot interpret anything unless you something to interpret, and at some point it cannot be another interpretation.

So the question: how do you bridge the gap between object and perception, or alternatively, how do you get from interpretation to reality?

Meta, what on your view is the difference between belief and truth? — creativesoul

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.

Earlier you concluded that since thought/belief can be false, so too can truth. — creativesoul

"Truth" refers to how we conceive of "being true", and this concept of truth which one holds may not be truly representative of what one believes that "true"means. In that case, what this individual claims that "truth" is, is not what is really believed as the meaning of being true.

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

The move I am making is to assert that when we refer to a thing such as a belief as "true", we are often fully aware that the thing may actually be false. And, it is acceptable to use "true" in this way, because "true" refers to the sincerity and conviction of one's belief, not the lack of falsity in one's belief. So it is the acceptable use of the word to refer to something which may be false as true.. If "truth" refers to "that which is true", for you, then yes, truth can be false.

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.

Nope. Sincerity is not equal to being true. One can sincerely express false belief.

There is no true for me and true for you, unless one conflates truth and belief, which is precisely what you're doing.

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

That's candor, not truth.

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

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.

There's still time to change the road you're on, and I see at least two paths you can go by:

(1) Stop talking about knowledge and truth at all, and instead talk about rational belief. If you do that, everything you want to say about conviction and degrees of certainty finds a home. You could even be a Bayesian if you're so inclined.

(2) Just assert the argument from error: we have been mistaken before, and there is no criterion we can find that enables us to know that our current beliefs will not turn out to be false ... (some intervening proofy steps) ... Therefore knowledge is impossible. The defense usually plays with the definition of "knowledge" to defeat this attack. It is a serious challenge, but leads to the dark heart of scepticism.

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.

if knowledge consisted of absolute certainty, which it does not — Metaphysician Undercover

... because certainty is a different issue entirely from knowledge ...

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

... and from truth.

The Lucky Schoolboy is our two-for-one special today: Your teacher asks you when the Battle of Hastings was fought. You haven't done the reading, know nothing about the Battle of Hastings, and for all you know this is a trick question and there is no such "Battle of Hastings." You take a wild guess and answer, "The Battle of Hastings was fought in 1066."

What you say is true, even though you don't know it. What you say is true, despite your complete lack of certainty or confidence that it is true.

The Lazy Schoolboy gets us the rest: In this case, you've skimmed the book, and when asked, a bunch of dates swim through your head, you nearly give half a dozen different answers, but something just seems right about "1066?"

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.

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

No, I don't see the difficulty. The endless chain of interpretation is avoided by the assumption. For me, it's the assumption that there is actually something there which is being interpreted. For others it is the assumption that the interpretation is somehow, in itself, correct. We all have slightly different assumptions concerning this, and that's why we have differing ontologies, metaphysics. The naïve assumption of naïve realism is that the world is exactly as sensed. So it's really not a "grasp of reality not interpreted", it's just an assumption, and assumption doesn't really qualify as a grasp of reality. The interesting thing is that the further we delve into the nature of this reality, what you call "that" with science, the more we come to realize that none of these basic assumptions are actually correct. So we may be left with the realization that the closer to absolutely nothing we can come with our assumptions, leaving it all to interpretation, the closer to understanding reality we get. But even this is just an assumption, it doesn't really qualify as a grasp of reality.

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

Clearly my uses of "interpretation" are different, but they can be classed together as similar, just different context. Likewise, "meaning" has different uses dependent on whether one refers to the meaning which language has, or the meaning which things have in general. They are similar uses but different context. Reading and listening to speech is a type of sensing, As I argued, it's a very focused type of sensing, with an educated, or trained form of interpretation. This goes far beyond the skills of interpretation which are natural to the human body, developed through evolutionary process.

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

I'm satisfied to say that we can know it, and also say that it's true that it's a "tree", but I'm not satisfied to say that this will always be true. We might develop a better way of understanding what is going on there, and describe it in completely different words. "The sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening" cannot be truthfully said to be true anymore, because what the words say is an inappropriate representation of what we believe about that phenomenon.

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

There is no gap to bridge, as you describe. Reality is within us, the objects are created within us, in interpretation. This all is what Plato described in the cave analogy. The gap which needs to be bridged is the separation between each one of us and the reality which is within us. This we bridge with language, and by creating concepts such as "the world", giving each person a place in "the world". But this unified "world" having us positioned within it is something created by us, and as such it is just a reflection of the reality which is within each one of us. Within each one of us is a different, but real perspective. There is also real separation between us, and this justifies the claim that there is difference between us. The assumption is dualist because there are real thinking minds, and a real separation between them, two distinct aspects of reality. There is no gap between interpretation and reality because these are just two different aspects of reality, interpreter, and what is being interpreted. Getting to know the nature of the separation between us is what bridges the gap between us, creating unity and a unified "world".

Sincerity is not equal to being true. — creativesoul

I didn't say it's equal, I said it's closely related.

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

As I've insisted, it is not me who is changing the meanings of these words. I am simply attempting to maintain consistency with how the words are commonly used. It is those who insist that "truth" and "knowledge" must exclude falsity who are attempting to change the meanings. But this attempt is destined to failure, because as I explained, it renders these words unusable. And that's not going to prevent people from using them, they're going to continue to use them in the way I describe.

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

So (1) requests that I quit using these terms. That's not going to prevent others from using them the way I describe. (2) says knowledge is impossible. So I assume that we should never call anything "knowledge"? I see no good reason to start calling everything which we presently call "knowledge" by the name of "rational belief" instead. The proper approach is to get the epistemologists to describe knowledge as it actually is, rather then according to some idealistic notion with no practical application. Epistemology is supposed to be the study of knowledge, so they need to be kept on the right track as to what knowledge really is, or else they're off in some pie in the sky fantasy land. What good is such philosophy?

What you say is true, even though you don't know it. — Srap Tasmaner

You've neglected the first point we covered in this thread. "True" is subjective, of the subject. The teacher judges the boy's response as "true", so it is true for the teacher. Before speaking, when the boy is preparing his response, the answer is not a true answer, because the boy does not know, and the answer has not been judged by anyone as true. "True" requires that judgement.

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

Again, "1066" is not judged by the speaker as "the true" answer, so there is no truth here until it is judged by the teacher as true. Your attempts to separate truth from certainty are unfounded because you do not respect the fact that "true" requires a judgement. That something is true, is a judgement. In you example, you yourself, are judging the answer as "true", and attempting to project your judgement into your example. But I decline your projection as deception, so there really is no truth where you claim there is.

Here's what I've been working on...

Imagine students taking a standardized test. 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. On the test-giver's side, they have to believe they have made the test properly and that the answers they will mark as correct are the ones well-prepared students will select.

Now suppose you want to cheat. You don't know the others, so you don't know who's worth copying off of. If you could compare their answers to the key, you'd know who to copy off of, but if you could do that you wouldn't need to. No joy there.

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.

But it would change a lot for the students. Now you have an obvious way of deciding who to copy off of.

Now suppose the test is actually not being graded against a key, that instead the answers selected by the students are being tallied as votes and the biggest vote-getter is treated as the right answer. Without the confidence mechanic, and assuming the students are relatively well-prepared, this makes surprisingly little difference. (I've been running some little "simulations" in Excel. If students mostly choose the right answer and wrong answers are randomly distributed, the right answer still usually wins.)

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.)

What's the point of all this?

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.

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.

So I'm a little stuck. I hadn't foreseen the cheating issue, and I'm not sure where to go with this next.

The goal is to model a speech community without using the concept of truth.

What are the words "the concept of" doing here?

Is the concept of truth equivalent to correspondence with/to fact/reality?

The hope was that something we'd be willing to call "truth" would show up.

I think the hinge of the analysis I have so far is this: if your degree of certainty or confidence in asserting something is like a wager, then you can deliberately manipulate the betting market by expressing certainty; on the other hand, your degree of certainty or confidence is the only thing we have to to differentiate your views from another's, so socially it becomes your reputation. Given a choice, it makes sense to cheat off the more confident student. And that will continue to work if the people you are imitating are colluding to manipulate the consensus.

We're avoiding using any sort of "objective" standard of correctness for now.

EDIT: 'cause phone.

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

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? So the goal of the student is to answer consistently with what the teacher will be marking, not with what the student actually believes is "correct". I say this because we learned in school, from experience, that there are tricks to taking multiple choice tests, starting with the process of elimination, which allow you to improve your grade without actually knowing the right answer.

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

This appears like a theoretical which is actually nonsense. If the student is getting marked on one's own claim to confidence, then wouldn't every student claim complete confidence on each answer? How would you enforce an honest rating of one's own confidence level? Perhaps you could penalize a student for claiming high confidence and getting the question wrong, but that would be very complicated. The confidence scale seems to require honesty, and if the goal of the student is to get a high mark, why would there be honesty here?

Furthermore, you have stipulated that the student is attempting to give an answer consistent with what the teacher would mark as correct, not with what the student believes is correct. So without the assumption that there is a "correct" answer which is independent from what the student or teacher believes, which will form the basis for the marking, confidence can never be high. So in this scenario you have presented, "confidence" is nothing better than a random proclamation by the student.

In reality, confidence is produced by the assumption that there is a real "correct" answer, independent of the student's and teacher's belief, and that the chosen answer, as well as the teacher's marking, are consistent with that real correct answer. But in your scenario, there can be no such real confidence, because the student is attempting to establish consistency with how the teacher will mark, and unless there is assumed some standard which the teacher will follow, there will be no confidence.

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

Now, in this scenario, when the student colludes with another, or others, "confidence" has some real basis in the relationship of trust which the student has with the others, because giving the same answer as another, is what is being marked rather than giving the answer the teacher wants, or any assumed correct answer.

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

The problem I see is that you haven't properly modeled confidence. You don't seem to see that confidence is based in the assumption that there is a real correct answer, which is the one given, rather than in the assumption that the answer is consistent with what the teacher wants. This allows you to make the switch, such that the answer which the teacher wants is the one which the other students give, not any assumed correct answer. Then confidence may be produced through collusion, rather than conviction that one has the correct answer, because "correct answer" now becomes whatever answer the students have agreement on.

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

This is why "true" is so closely related to trust, honesty, and sincerity. It is based in what one truly believes is the correct answer. And this comes from the assumption that there is a correct answer, independent from whatever anyone else believes. 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. Once you allow, as you do, that the correct answer is to be consistent with someone else's answer, you forfeit the true nature of truth, which is to be true to oneself. And this allows for cheating (selecting an answer to be consistent with others rather than one's true belief). So it is imperative to truth, to allow that there is a correct answer, which I alone might have, independent of whatever anyone else believes. Truth is dependent on the idea that the correct answer is proper to what I believe, myself. And this is not a case of me forcing myself to believe in what others believe, it is me believing in what is true.

.

Perhaps you could penalize a student for claiming high confidence and getting the question wrong, but that would be very complicated. — Metaphysician Undercover

That was part of the model but I left it out by mistake. It's no more complicated than the rest of this. And it naturally equates your level of certainty with the risk you accept and the potential reward you can receive.

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

Right. We start with the usual "objectively correct," then shift to "what test-giver wants," and then shift to "consensus." I'm not conflating these; I'm seeing what we can get out of the model by subsituting one for another and avoiding talking about being "objectively right."

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

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.

You want to use the word "correct" for whatever a student sincerely believes. What about the test-givers? Do they just give everyone a "100"?

On my view, thought/belief always uses correspondence with/to fact/reality, including situations when that presupposition goes unnoticed and/or unmentioned.

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.

Since no one else addressed this, according to their own position upon truth, I'll attempt to situate truth(as correspondence) within the series of events reported upon above, as my own position demands. It seems that most would have to situate truth in the report itself as compared/contrasted to within the events themselves. That is, if one holds that truth is a property of true statements, and true statements are contingent upon language, then so too is truth. That seems to be the basis of many, if not most, current positions regarding truth.

I hold that truth is correspondence, and that it(correspondence with/to fact/reality) is necessarily presupposed within thought/belief formation itself. That claim comes as a necessary consequence of all thought/belief and statements thereof consisting entirely of mental correlations drawn between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or the thinking/believing agent's own 'mental state', and all mental correlation necessarily presupposing the existence of it's own content. That is to say that the correlations themselves constitute being thought/belief, and that the act of drawing correlation constitutes thought/belief formation.

That last bit goes a long way in shedding some much needed light upon several long standing philosophical 'problems' and/or contentious matters. The sheer scope of application is daunting. It would be perfectly understandable, as a result of the novelty alone, if this seems difficult to understand. Obviously, as is the case with any and all unfamiliar frameworks, the reader must grant the terms and see it through in order to understand it.

I would think that the sheer amount of historical contention regarding truth, particularly regarding what it is, where it comes from, and/or how it works warrants a novel approach. As far as I'm aware, my position is unique in how it accounts for meaning, truth, thought, and belief. That said...

So the chickens most certainly cannot be said to think/believe that something or other is true. That would be to say that they're capable of thinking in statements, which they clearly aren't. It also wouldn't make much sense to try to account for the chickens' thought/belief in the same terms we account for our own.

Does it make sense to say that the chickens formed and/or held rudimentary thought/belief?

On my view, it does. Do the chickens know this? Nope. Need they? Nope.

Would it make sense to say that the chickens thought/believed that they were going to get fed?

That's a tough one.

I want to say that the chickens' behaviour was driven by getting fed, but that's not right either.

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

Here, I can make this easier. Assume the great majority of students believe the test is being graded with a key, but a small number find out it isn't, and some of those collude to manipulate the results.

(I don't care whether the key is "objectively correct" because the key is the stand-in for "objective reality" here. Comparing it to something else isn't necessary for the scenario to work.)

On my view, thought/belief always uses correspondence with/to fact/reality, including situations when that presupposition goes unnoticed and/or unmentioned. — creativesoul

Sure, that's a point of view. I want to see what I can do without appealing to that at all, since people are always saying this view is fundamentally "mistaken." Okay, let's not use it -- or any other idea of truth --
and see if we can still get something that looks like truth.

What would count as looking like truth, if not looking like some pre-conceived notion of "truth"?

I think that our awareness of truth and the role that it plays in our thought/belief comes only as a result of mistakenly presupposing it.

So, if you want to get something that looks like truth without using the term, look towards children who have yet to have become aware of their own fallibility. Take proper account of that.

What would count as looking like truth, if not looking like some pre-conceived notion of "truth"? — creativesoul

In this case, it's having the answers you give on the test marked as correct.

In our world, what's on the test is also submitted to scrutiny; there's such a thing as complaining that the answer in the back of the textbook is wrong and getting it changed.

So the question will be whether the way test grades are handed out in my made-up world is similar to the way grades are handed out in this one, whether what "counts as true" for them is similar to what "counts as true" for us. I'm not sure yet.

It's also not a bad idea when trying to explain X to avoid using X in the explanation, so I'm trying to avoid even covert uses of standard ideas of "truth," so no comparing the answers to reality.

I see. In our world, having an answer marked as correct requires only what you've already noted. However, as you've also noted, a correct answer can be wrong.

That obviously requires more than one standard.

Here's another wrinkle.

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.

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.

The result of understanding truth and the role that it plays in all thought/belief is the lack of being surprised. That may or may not be considered a reward. 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.

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 think we can use concepts of correctness or success without being forced to treat their appearance as an instance of truth, if that's what you were suggesting.

Obviously we can make it that, but I don't think we have to. If we absolutely have to then there's just no way to do this sort of analysis at all. Which might be true. It might be true that truth can't be analysed or explained at all. But I'm trying.

I would agree that we can and do use the notions of correctness without being forced to treat their appearance as an instance of correspondence.

I'm not so sure that truth cannot be analyzed.

I appreciate your contributions here, Srap...

8-)

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.