I'm not refusing to talk about truth. I am only talking about truth. Truth is a property of sentences. Sentences do not exist as mind-independent Platonic entities. If nothing is said then there are no sentences, and if there are no sentences then there are no true sentences. — Michael
What I say is true, and is being said in universe A. — Michael
Yeah. Can there be truth without a truthbearer? Seems to me a different question to whether there can be rocks on earth without humans. — fdrake
I haven’t said either of those things. — Michael
1 ) Take the world without humans.
2 ) Imagine that nevertheless one human existed. — fdrake
...ask, "What's good?" — Moliere
What this is meant to highlight is that just because you have some is-statements -- a "What is it for this kind of creature to be good?" -- that doesn't remove the conflict found in modern philosophy — Moliere
"What does it mean to be good/virtuous" is not a question that begins (exists?) with the moderns. This is a wholly different issue than Hume's characteristically modern preoccupation with inscrutable oughtness. — Leontiskos
Here are three sentences:
1. "Gold exists" is true
2. It is true that gold exists
3. Gold exists
(1) and (3) do not mean the same thing; (1) describes a sentence as being true but (3) doesn't. — Michael
3. "there is gold in those hills" is true is semantically equivalent to there is gold in those hills — Michael
But perhaps you want to say that... — Michael
My claim is that in a world without language gold exists but there are no accurate accounts of the world. — Michael
But now you should go on to ask yourself how it is that you are claiming, "(It is true that) gold still exists but nothing has the property of being true or false." You've highlighted sentence-Platonism, but you still haven't reckoned with your own truth-Platonism. — Leontiskos
In fact, I think "is true" can be replaced with the phrase "is an accurate account of the world" without issue. So, we have:
1. "Gold exists" is an accurate account of the world
2. It is an accurate account of the world that gold exists
3. Gold exists
My claim is that in a world without language gold exists but there are no accurate accounts of the world. — Michael
This view of a continuity between ancient and modern ethics is similar to what I’ve been saying to Count T — J
There's no such thing as the truth; there's only the truth of a sentence, so this remark doesn't make much sense. — Michael
Second, it possible that the demand that everything be reduced to univocal predication part of the problem? Univocal predication is proper to logic. — Count Timothy von Icarus
But I didn't say "it is true that gold still exists". I said "gold still exists". — Michael
If nobody says anything then gold still exists but nothing has the property of being true or false. — Michael
"true" and "false" are just adjectives used to categorize speech and writing and thoughts and beliefs. — Michael
I am unsure what wasn't 'precise' in this? — AmadeusD
You can statistically predict anything, even if it's arbitrary. — AmadeusD
I think what you're trying to get into the discussion is that, given certain aims we can predict what people will say is good. For Muslims... — AmadeusD
P1. "there is gold in those hills" is true if and only if there is gold in those hills
C1. Therefore, there is gold in those hills if and only if "there is gold in those hills" is true
P2. If "there is gold in those hills" is true then "there is gold in those hills" exists.
C2. Therefore, if there is gold in those hills then "there is gold in those hills" exists.
C3. Therefore, if "there is gold in those hills" does not exist then there is no gold in those hills. — Michael
For the proximate argument, supposing that the only minds that exist are human, and all (human) minds cease to exist, it does not follow that the existence of other objects is necessarily altered. But the question of whether they truly exist at least becomes moot. — Leontiskos
What this is meant to highlight is that just because you have some is-statements -- a "What is it for this kind of creature to be good?" -- that doesn't remove the conflict found in modern philosophy — Moliere
Moral good is not its own sort of good here, distinct from the good of a "good car" or "good food." All related to flourishing. — Count Timothy von Icarus
The Dark Knight was Batman right to hide (to lie about) the fact that Harvey Dent degenerated into the monstrous Two Face? That seems to be what the film would lead us to believe. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Are the theorems of geometry vacuous because they are already contained in Euclid's postulates? Are syllogisms vacuous because all conclusions are contained in the premises? Is deterministic computation vacuous because its results always follow from the inputs with a probability of 100%?
We might think "2+2" is just another way to say "4," and "1 ÷ 3" just another way to say "1/3," but "179 ÷ 3 " is "59 and 2/3rds" seems genuinely informative unless you're an arithmetic prodigy.
Plus, not all circles are viscous circles. I would say "it's good (truly better) for you to be good—to be a good person and live a good life," is circular in a sense, but the way an ascending spiral is circular. It loops back around on itself at higher levels, with greater depths beneath it, in a sort of fractal recurrence. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I know of no similar move in the Eastern tradition or among the Islamic scholars, — Count Timothy von Icarus
I think that, like so much of Hume's thought, the Guillotine relies on question begging. Hume is a diagnostician, seeing what follows from the assumptions and prejudices of his era. But ask most people "why is it bad for you if I burn out your eyes, or if I burn out your sons eyes," and the responses will be something like:
"If you burn out my eyes it would be incredibly painful and then I would be blind, so of course it wouldn't be good." — Count Timothy von Icarus
You only get to a position where it possible for it to be "choiceworthy" to prefer "what is truly worse," is if you have already assumed that what is "truly worse" is in some way arbitrary or inscrutable in the first place. — Count Timothy von Icarus
And though a Pyrrhonian may throw himself or others into a momentary amazement and confusion by his profound reasonings; the first and most trivial event in life will put to flight all his doubts and scruples, and leave him the same, in every point of action and speculation, with the philosophers of every other sect, or with those who never concerned themselves in any philosophical researches. When he awakes from his dream, he will be the first to join in the laugh against himself, and to confess, that all his objections are mere amusement, and can have no other tendency than to show the whimsical condition of mankind... — David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, § xii, 128
I don't quite grant your premise, anyway. [...] This is not particularly predictable as between groups, or across time. — AmadeusD
because they desire the bread — Moliere
Again, fabricating stuff. Try reading. — Banno
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 gold does exist in the absence of language. It's very straightforward. — Michael
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
Because it's the herd that I'm most concerned with. — Moliere
Basically Hume's guillotine still chops. — Moliere
Lets grant the proposition.
How would that connect with any extrinsic facts? — AmadeusD
But you can't split them. You're trying to divide or separate knowledge from what is real. I say it's because you're taking a view above or outside both the subject (you) and the object (world) - or trying to (cf Nagel's 'view from nowhere'). — Wayfarer
But I am saying that. — Wayfarer
That I take as the point at issue. — Wayfarer
You guys seem not to understand the difference between affirming that something is true and it's being true. — Banno
None of which is to deny the empirical fact that boulders will roll over cracks and into canyons — Wayfarer
The second point, regarding shape, is that if a boulder rolls over a small crack it will continue rolling, but if it rolls into a "large crack" (a canyon) then it will fall, decreasing in altitude. This will occur whether or not a mind witnesses it, and this is because shape is a "primary quality." A boulder and a crack need not be perceived by a mind to possess shape. — Leontiskos
This is the same point we debated in the mind-created world thread, about the objective properties of boulders. — Wayfarer
We can't really know whether an unseen object exists or not... — Wayfarer
The key issue is not whether unseen objects exist but whether their existence can be meaningfully affirmed or denied without the involvement of mind. That is where metaphysical realism and idealism differ. The former assumes that unseen objects exist in a way that is entirely independent of any observer or consciousness - although that is a presumption. Idealism emphasizes that to consider or speak of existence, we must already bring mind to bear on it. — Wayfarer
There may be gold in the hills, even if no one knows. — Banno
But in any case, our usual way of speaking about it suffices. So, pedantic concerns aside, does it really matter whether it is said that when humans disappear it will still be true that there is gold or that when humans disappear there will still be gold? Surely the salient point is that there will still be gold. — Janus
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? — Clearbury
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? — 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. — Janus
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
Apparently the relationship between truth and actuality is a weird and tricky business. — Janus
These are meant to be devil's-advocate questions, but they do demand answers. — J
If something is Good, it's because you have personally understood/decided it is good. You couldn't support that with any extrinsic facts.
The 'right' action is to do with achieving something. That something must be arbitrary, at base. — AmadeusD
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
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