I think that's the same problem. It would seem that to say, "Tomorrow X will exist," involves saying, "Tomorrow it will be true that X exists." — Leontiskos

What is the "it" that will be true tomorrow? If truth is a property of sentences then what you are saying is "tomorrow, the sentence 'X exists' will be true". Which is true – but only if the sentence "X exists" exists tomorrow.

This is commendably clear, but it comes up against the same problem. "Language will die out," implies that there will come a day when it is true that language has died out. — Leontiskos

Again, what is the "it" that will be true one day? If truth is a property of sentences then what you are saying is "one day, the sentence 'language has died out' will be true", but this is impossible.

So I assume you disagree with the claim that truth is a property of sentences?

So I assume you disagree with the claim that truth is a property of sentences? — Michael

It depends what you mean by a sentence or a proposition. If I say, "It is true that it is raining," I am not talking about a sentence, I am talking about the truth of the presence of rain. Or else I am using a sentence to predicate a truth.

If truth is a property of sentences in a simplistic sense, then it is uncontroversial that where there are no sentences there is no truth. But we are talking primarily about minds, not sentences.

See also:

But what is at stake here is not reified and accidental propositions as you conceive them. We are asking about the relation between truths and minds. Either you think that there can be truths without minds or you don't. Either you think that there can be truths-about-what-exists without minds or you don't. — Leontiskos

So we have three different ways of talking:

1. “It is raining” will be true tomorrow
2. It will be true tomorrow that it is raining
3. It will be raining tomorrow

(1) is true only if the proposition “it is raining” exists tomorrow.

The question, then, is whether (2) means the exact same thing as (1), the exact same thing as (3), or something different to both (1) and (3).

Janus and Banno seems to believe that (2) means the exact same thing as (1), and so that (2) is true only if the proposition “it is raining” exists tomorrow.

I don’t believe any of us are disputing (3) (although I think the case can be made that if eternalism is incorrect then propositions about the future are neither true nor false).

Janus and Banno seem to believe that (2) means the exact same thing as (1), and so that (2) is true only if the proposition “it is raining” exists tomorrow. — Michael

No, I don't think so:

If all life disappeared from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed, then it would still be true that there is gold in Boorara. — Banno

This is a clear affirmation of truth where there is no proposition, and it is the basis of the discussion.

Right, just Janus then if I’m reading him correctly.

@Janus has tried a few different tacks, but one of them is that a claim about the future can be true now even if it is not true in the future. I don't see him trying to parse out sentences/propositions in the way that you and Banno are prone to.

But note that Janus has agreed with Banno and tried to defend his claims, even if not his exact wording.

Much of this can be dissolved if you acknowledge that time itself is not entirely objective, that it entails the subjective awareness of duration. Indeed there was a time before there were human minds, and there may be a time in the far future when h.sapiens is extinct. But 'before' and 'after' are also mental constructions in some basic sense.

To measure something – such as volume, length, pressure, weight, speed or temperature – we need to stipulate the unit of measurement in terms of a standard. For example, the standard metre was once stipulated to be the length of a particular 100-centimetre-long platinum bar kept in Paris. It is now defined by an atomic clock measuring the length of a path of light travelling in a vacuum over an extremely short time interval. In both cases, the standard metre is a measurement of length that itself has a length. The standard unit exemplifies the property it measures.

In Time and Free Will, Bergson argued that this procedure would not work for duration. For duration to be measured by a clock, the clock itself must have duration. It must exemplify the property it is supposed to measure. To examine the measurements involved in clock time, Bergson considers an oscillating pendulum, moving back and forth. At each moment, the pendulum occupies a different position in space, like the points on a line or the moving hands on a clockface. In the case of a clock, the current state – the current time – is what we call ‘now’.Each successive ‘now’ of the clock contains nothing of the past because each moment, each unit, is separate and distinct. But this is not how we experience time. Instead, we hold these separate moments together in our memory. We unify them. A physical clock measures a succession of moments, but only experiencing duration allows us to recognise these seemingly separate moments as a succession. Clocks don’t measure time; we do. This is why Bergson believed that clock time presupposes lived time. — Bergson-Einstein Debate, Evan Thompson

My bolds. This is why time has a subjective element. So arguing about what will be true in the absence of any mind, is a fatuous exercise. Nobody knows anything about what will be true in the absence of any mind. Sure, we can model it, and we can objectively examine the universe as if it existed absent any mind. But there is always an implicit perspective in that model, provided by the mind of the scientists and the community of minds who understand it. But that is 'transcendent' in Kant and Husserl's sense, i.e. constituting experience whilst not given in it (and as a rule bracketed out by realist dogma to boot.)

Theistic philosophy doesn't face this problem for pretty much the same reason that Berkeley is able to call on God to witness 'the tree in the quad'. But as analytic philosophy is generally non- or a-theistic in orientation it has no such proviso and will always end up facing the same conundrum.

I take it to be self-evidently possible. It seems manifest to reason that if something exists, then it is true that it exists. That seems like a necessary truth.

One can use other examples, of course. For instance, it seems true that 2 + 2 = 4 even if there are no minds.

This may in fact be false, but that our reason represents such things to be possible is apparent evidence of the thesis's falsity unless, that is, there's good reason to think such representations are false.

I have predicated all my arguments on the condition "iff truth and falsity are properties of propositions". I haven't said that I accept that condition or that I reject it.

Janus has tried a few different tacks, but one of them is that a claim about the future can be true now even if it is not true in the future. I don't see him trying to parse out sentences/propositions in the way that you and Banno are prone to.

But note that Janus has agreed with Banno and tried to defend his claims, even if not his exact wording. — Leontiskos

I agreed with @Banno on the basis that his arguments seemed correct given the condition stated above. Perhaps I have misunderstood Banno's position. I hadn't noticed this:

If all life disappeared from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed, then it would still be true that there is gold in Boorara. — Banno

I would say instead:If all life disappeared from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed, then there would still be gold in Boorara. As I see it if the above-stated condition, that truth and falsity are only properties of propositions is correct then what you have quoted Banno as saying and what I have said in changing it do not mean the same. I suspect that Banno unwittingly misspoke, but let's see what he has to say about it.

it seems true that 2 + 2 = 4 even if there are no minds. — Clearbury

It is, regardless, something only knowable to a mind.

Banno is simply advocating naive realism and argumentum ad lapidem.

We can certainly conceive of many propositions that seem troublesome, such as that 'no minds exist'. That seems capable of being true, yet it would not be capable of being true given the thesis that truths require minds.

But isn't the fundamental problem or challenge that all of this speaks to the fact that it appears possible for propositions to be true in the absence of any minds, which is inconsistent with the idea that truth requires minds?

I think truth does require minds, because propositions seem to be best understood as thoughts or something like that, and thoughts require minds. But i would admit that this generates a problem, for it seems a necessary truth that if something exists, then it is true that it exists, yet that would not be a necessary truth given the thesis under consideration.

Take a careful look at what is being implied in the discussion here.

Do you think that, that there is gold in the ground at Boorara is dependent on there being someone around who knows or sees or believes that there is gold at Boorara? Or do you think that there will be gold in the ground at Boorara despite anyone knowing or seeing or believing it?

Are there things that are true, yet not believed, known, understood or standing in any relation to people or minds?

I think there are.

Others here are offering you ways to understand truth that make it only another version of belief or knowledge or understanding. But truth seems to me to be different to these, in that some things can be true or false regardless of our knowledge or understanding of them.

That's kinda why we sometimes have to check if our knowledge or understanding or beliefs are right.

Are there things that are true, yet not believed, known, understood or standing in any relation to people or minds?

I think there are. — Banno

You think.

Metaphysical idealism doesn't disagree that we sometimes have to check if our knowledge or beliefs are right. It doesn’t deny the existence of errors or things we don’t yet know. It only reframes how we think about truth and reality and about the context within which these are understood.

Whereas in the metaphysical realist view, truth is a matter of ever-better approximations of already-existing facts in a mind-independent reality. Idealism (or constructivism), on the other hand, recognizes that truth is always mediated by mind. It isn’t about discovering a pre-formed reality out there, but about achieving coherence and intelligibility within the shared framework of understanding. It doesn’t deny objective truth but re-locates it within the dynamic interplay of subjective, intersubjective and objective.

,

Compare those two posts and we see how you give with one and take back with the other. The first hints that there are not things that are different to how we believe them to be, the second quickly takes that back.

True sentences are mind dependent. Some truths, no so much.

You want to say that all truth is constructed, but that we can't make claims about what it is constructed from. If you kick the rock, then by that very fact there are feet and rocks.

Yes, only minds can know things. However, it doesn't seem to be a necessary truth that there can be knowledge without minds. The opposite - that there can't be any knoweldge without any minds - seems to be a necessary truth. By contrast, it does seem to be a necessary truth that if something exists, then it is true that it exists. It's that apparent self-evident truth of reason that seems inconsistent with the conclusion that truth depends on minds. And so it is that apparent self-evident truth of reason that ideally needs to be debunked, for otherwise the thesis that truth depends on minds at least appears to be false

What one could do, perhaps, is reduce existence to truth. That is to say, perhaps what it is for something to exist, is simply for the proposition 'this thing exists' to be true. In that way one could explain why it is a necessary truth that if something exists, it is true that it exists. The proposition 'this thing exists" is not true in virtue of the fact the thing exists, but instead, the thing exists because the proposition is true.

But that wouldn't fully overcome the problem that it appears possible for there to be no minds and for something to exist - and thus for it to be possible for it to be true that something exists, absent any minds.

There's also the problem that such a reductive analysis also seems false. The proposition "X exists" seems to be true 'in virtue' of X existing, rather than X's existence being in virtue of the proposition's truth.

That "2+2=4" is true becasue we make it so - we constructed that sentence so that it is true.

But "There's gold in them there hills" is not true only in virtue of the words used. It is instead true if and only if there is gold in those hills. And that's not something that is decided by language alone.

For "There's gold in them there hills" to be true, we need the language in which it is expressed, and which we speakers of English construct. But in addition, there needs to be gold in those hills. And that is not dependent on English. Or on what we know or believe.

sometimes speaks as if all we need is the language. But then he takes it back.

That "2+2=4" is true becasue we make it so - we constructed that sentence so that it is true. — Banno

This is an interesting narrative, but no one remembers constructing that sentence, so it's along the lines of a myth: the origin of arithmetic myth.

If all life disappeared from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed, then there would still be gold in Boorara. — Janus

"There is gold in Boorara" is true iff there is gold in Boorara.

So it would still be true that there is gold in Boorara if and only if there were still gold in Boorara. Same truth value.

Are things that occur in the future already true? To some extent you can take your pick as to how you choose to treat future events. Much will depend on the cosmology chosen - loaf of bread or otherwise. The discussion tends quickly to idealist sophistry.

Meh. We constructed the sentence, just now. It is set up so that if it is understood, it can't be wrong.

But "There is gold in those hills" is not set up so that if it is understood, it can't be wrong. For it to be wrong, something else is needed... Something more than just word play.

Meh. We constructed the sentence, just now. It is set up so that if it is understood, it can't be wrong.

But "There is gold in those hills" is not set up so that if it is understood, it can't be wrong. For it to be wrong, something else is needed... Something more than just word play. — Banno

If arithmetic is wordplay, why doesn't it evolve as languages evolve?

Are things that occur in the future already true? — Banno

What we say of the future will presumably be true or false depending on whether the state of affairs we now propose turns out to obtain. With your statement about the gold in Boorara you have with our condition "if everything else is undisturbed" guaranteed that it is true that there will be gold. The contention of your opponents seems to be that if truth is a property of propositions and there can be no propositions absent us, then there will then be nothing to be either true or false. Apparently the relationship between truth and actuality is a weird and tricky business.

If arithmetic is wordplay, why doesn't it evolve as languages evolve? — frank

I din't say arithmetic was just wordplay. And it does evolve.

I din't say arithmetic was just wordplay — Banno

But "There is gold in those hills" is not set up so that if it is understood, it can't be wrong. For it to be wrong, something else is needed... Something more than just word play. — Banno

So arithmetic also involves more than just word play.

And it does evolve. — Banno

How so?

With your statement about the gold in Boorara you have with our condition "if everything else is undisturbed" guaranteed that it is true that there will be gold. — Janus

Glad you understood this. Seems obvious, making the argument watertight, but there's nought stranger than folk.

The contention of your opponents seems to be that if truth is a property of propositions and there can be no propositions absent us, then there will then be nothing to be either true or false. — Janus

It's something like that. As if ("there is gold in Boorara" is true IFF there is gold in Boorara) were for them exactly the same as ("there is gold in Boorara" is true IFF "there is gold in Boorara" is true). Is the difference "a weird and tricky business"?

Frankly I think they misuse language.

So arithmetic also involves more than just word play. — frank

More that it can be used for more than just wordplay - you can count things, share them, bring them together and such.

Do you think Arithmetic a dead topic? There are advances in topics such as the distribution of primes, thin groups and so on. Arguably the whole of mathematics is a development from arithmetic - perhaps in combination with geometry.

Frankly I think they misuse language. — Banno

I tend to agree but it is a difficult thing to prove unfortunately. The idea that there was truth in the past when there could be no propositions or that there will be truth in a future when there can be no propositions definitely seems weird, but then so does the idea that there wasn't or that there won't be.

Some go further and say that absent us there can be no existence. That seems even weirder. But then they will define 'existence' such that it means something like 'an existent is something which stands out for a percipient and that, additionally, the percipient must be able to conceive of it. That is a very different sense of 'existence' from the common one it seems to me. You can always win an argument if you stipulate the definitions of your terms to suit your argument.

More that it can be used for more than just wordplay - you can count things, share them, bring them together and such — Banno

So there's some sort of connection between math and the world, as Max Tegmark argues.

"Tegmark's MUH is the hypothesis that our external physical reality is a mathematical structure.[3] That is, the physical universe is not merely described by mathematics, but is mathematics — specifically, a mathematical structure.". --Wikipedia on Max Tegmark

Do you think Arithmetic a dead topic? There are advances in topics such as the distribution of primes, thin groups and so on. Arguably the whole of mathematics is a development from arithmetic - perhaps in combination with geometry. — Banno

This is how wordplay evolves:

Once upon a time, the word "fine" just meant thin. If you said Drake is a fine fat boy, you contradicted yourself. Fineness came to be attached to quality by its association with high quality blades, which are fine. Now you can make the above comment about Drake without contradiction.

Nothing like this has ever happened to arithmetic since it first appeared. There are advances, but no change to the core. This just makes it unlikely that it's just wordplay, but then you agreed that it's more than that.

Yeah. We can bring it back to truth not being a propositional attitude. Some folk can't grasp that. But treating it as a propositional attitude leads pretty directly to relativism - "true-for-me", and also serves to break down the common background against which we can make progress. A recent Philosopher's Zone dealt with that in an interesting way...

Authenticity. Vulnerability. Humility. Transparency. These are some of the 21st-century virtues proselytised by mindset gurus, paraded (if not practised) by big corporations, and lauded by professionals on LinkedIn. The quest for authenticity, for example, is central to progressive campaigns for greater diversity and inclusion, while our political and business leaders are highest praised if they appear to be humble. But are Australia’s newest virtues fit for purpose?

In this provocative book, Lucinda Holdforth questions the new orthodoxy. She suggests that these virtues are not only unhelpfully subjective and self-referential but also, in the absence of broader civic values, fail to serve our democracy. This matters when experience around the world, especially in the United States, shows us that no democracy is guaranteed.

Holdforth reminds us that arguments for transparency and authenticity are routinely used by totalitarian regimes to justify ultra-nationalism, artistic censorship and population surveillance. Vulnerability may be a facet of the human condition but that is surely no reason to make it an aspiration. Well-meaning people may talk about the power of ‘my’ truth, but if pushed too far this risks a dissolution of agreed facts and shared reality, breaking down the decision-making processes essential to effective democracy. — Lucinda Holdforth