FBI searched Trump’s home for classified material about nuclear weapons: report

FBI agents searched for classified material about nuclear weapons, among other items, when they served a warrant at former President Donald Trump’s home in Florida earlier this week, the Washington Post reported Thursday night.

Citing sources familiar with the investigation, the Post reported that government officials were deeply concerned that the nuclear documents believed to be stored at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence could fall into the wrong hands.

Separately, the New York Times reported the documents were related to some of the most highly classified U.S. programs, and that officials feared they were vulnerable to be stolen from Trump’s home by foreign adversaries.

The Post said their sources did not give details about the nuclear documents, such as whether it involved U.S. weapons or those of foreign countries.

Sensitive information about U.S. nuclear weapons is usually restricted to a small number of government officials, the Post reported, noting that material about U.S. weapons could be an intelligence coup for adversaries, and that other nations could see classified U.S. information about their nuclear programs as a threat.

Jesus. Imagine they don't find them. What if Trump sold them to Saudi Arabia.

"But I declassified them before I left" would hardly justify it.

And yet you said:

You, in that world, might not know, in that world, that all that exists is your mind — Isaac

And as I mentioned above, there's more to knowledge than just knowledge of what exists. In such a world I don't know the square root of two, I don't know what I would have seen had I chosen a different course of action, I don't know what I will feel tomorrow, etc.

You are conflating "if Y exists then X knows that Y exists" and "X knows everything". These are not the same thing. The former would be true, the latter not.

Under 1, do I know everything? — Isaac

Yes, because it explicitly says so.

I don't see what difference it makes. In The Semantic Conception of Truth, Tarski offers this example:

The sentence "snow is white" is true if, and only if, snow is white.

If the sentence "snow is white" is true then the sentence "snow is white" exists. Therefore, given the biconditional, if snow is white then the sentence "snow is white" exists.

I suppose you could amend it to:

If the sentence "snow is white" exists then it is true iff snow is white.

∀q: T(q) ↔ p

Then the conclusion to the argument I gave at the start of this discussion is the tautology:

∀q: ∃x(x=q)

You, in that world, might not know, in that world, that all that exists is your mind — Isaac

Then I don't know everything.

And as I said to Pie, there's more to knowledge than just knowledge of what exists. In such a world I might not know the square root of two, I might not know what I would have seen had I chosen a different course of action, I might not know what I will feel tomorrow, etc.

You are conflating "X knows of everything that exists" and "X knows everything". These are not the same thing. The former would be true, the latter not.

But this really just comes down to some straightforward logic:

p ≔ only my mind exists
Bp ≔ I believe that p

1. Bp (premise)
2. ¬□p (premise)
3. Bp ∧ ◇¬p (from 1 and 2)

3 is just what it means to possibly be wrong.

The quotes make it clear that what is true is an utterance, in a specific circumstance - a quote. — Banno

I think the quotes make it clear that what is true is a proposition. Whether or not a proposition is an utterance is open to debate which the rest of my post explains.

You are going to get into all sorts of trouble by treating truth as a first-order predicate. — Banno

T(q) ↔ p is the same as “p” is true iff p which is the T-schema which you have previously said is the correct account of truth.

I’d ban for the spelling.

I think maybe warranted beliefs are what's important. I'm not sure truth plays much of a role. But I'm willing to be corrected. — Pie

I will die if I am warranted in believing that I will be decapitated.
I will die if it is true that I will be decapitated.

I think there's a clear difference here. And I think it's truth, not warranted belief, that is important in this case.

To me, his not knowing about his own mind...gives him something external to that mind. If a man has a Freudian unconscious, he has an unexplored basement, an other to him as ego.

I prefer to join 'world' with 'something I can be wrong about.' — Pie

As I've said before, there's a difference between saying that I can be wrong about something and saying that something other than my mind exists. From here:

If my mind is the only thing that exists then "God exists" is false. If my mind and God are the only things that exist then "God exists" is true. The solipsist doesn't know which of these two scenarios is the case.

Even if only my mind exists I can be wrong about whether or not God exists.

So forget the word "external". Your claim is "we can be wrong about things" and the solipsist's claim is "only my mind can be known to exist". These claims are not incompatible as I have been trying to show.

Mathematical facts might be like facts about norms. The irrationality of root 2 seems about equivalent to the fact that mathematician ought to endorse the claim. — Pie

Norms can apply to a single person, too. Even if I'm the only man alive I ought to endorse the irrationality of root 2.

But leaving maths aside, even if the solipsist knows that only his mental phenomena exists he doesn't know what his mental phenomena will be tomorrow, and so he doesn't know everything.

So for you it preexisted us...and you are not a platonist ? — Pie

I think that the truth of "God does not exist" is mind-independent. And I think that "God does not exist" is true. But I don't think that God's non-existence "exists" as some Platonic fact.

And the same with maths.

But if no one else had ever existed, it's hard to find a meaning for 'pi.' — Pie

Someone coined the term "pi". He was quite capable of coining it without assistance.

But I speculate that it doesn't make much sense to get math wrong if you are the only being. — Pie

I would say that pi is irrational even if I'm the last man alive and even if I believe otherwise.

How do you feel about Hamlet ? Or Charlie Brown ? — Pie

They don't exist, but books about them do.

But could that-which-exists be understood as including tendencies and relationships ? What of the conception of an entity as essentially relational ? An electron 'is' what it might do with what other entities might do and so on. — Pie

I have no idea what it means to say that a counterfactual scenario exists. I suppose that I could understand what it means for the future to exist (i.e. eternalism), but I don't think eternalism is required for me to be wrong about the future. And I don't think mathematical realism (or a bunch of other mathematicians) is required for me to get maths wrong.

OK. John doesn't know that he knows of everything that exists. I'll add that to my computations. — Pie

And I'll add, knowledge isn't just knowledge of what does or doesn't exist, so even if it could be shown that the solipsist knows everything about what does or doesn't exist it doesn't then follow that the solipsist knows everything.

Whether or not Hitler would have been executed had he not killed himself has nothing to do with what does or doesn't exist. Whether or not I will be sad tomorrow has nothing to do with what does or doesn't exist. Whether or not the Reimann hypothesis is correct has nothing to do with what does or doesn't exist.

So even if the solipsist cannot be wrong about what does or doesn't exist, he can still be wrong about counterfactuals, predictions, and maths. The truth and falsity of these things does not depend on the existence of something other than one's mind. This is where some are conflating two different senses of "mind-independence".

I think the coins are a different scenario. — Pie

The logic is the same, regardless of what X is.

1. John knows that his mental phenomena exist
2. Only John's mental phenomena exist
3. Therefore, John knows of everything that exists

However, John doesn't know that only his mental phenomena exist. 3 doesn't entail that John knows 2, just as it didn't with the coins.

See the example with the coins.

1. John knows that 10 coins exist
2. Only 10 coins exist
3. Therefore, John knows of every coin that exists

However, John doesn't know that only 10 coins exist. This is where Isaac gets it wrong.

p ≔ only my mind exists
Bp ≔ I believe that p

1. Bp (premise)
2. ¬□p (premise)
3. Bp ∧ ◇¬p (from 1 and 2)

3 is just what it means to possibly be wrong.

If only your mind exists then you must know everything — Isaac

No. If only your mind exists then you know of everything that exists. But it doesn't follow that you know that no other stuff exists.

Remember the examples of the coins. If only 10 coins exist and if I know that 10 coins exist then I know of all the coins that exist. But it doesn't follow that I know that there aren't more coins.

You're ignoring what p implies. Why? — Isaac

It doesn't imply what you're saying. You can't get from "only my mind exists" to "I cannot be wrong".

It does. — Isaac

It doesn't, and I explained why. I'll simplify the logic for you:

Bp ≔ I believe p
W ≔ I am wrong about p

1. Bp
2. ¬p ↔ W
3. ¬p ∨ ¬◇W

The conclusion doesn't follow. The actual conclusion is:

¬p ∨ ¬W

It doesn't matter what you substitute for p. It could be "it is raining" or it could be "God is a man" or it could be "only my mind exists". The rules of inference don't change.

But what do we ever see of N but transformed English assertions — Pie

We see N. I'm in my room, I see lots of things about it but I don't describe them.

If all that exists is in one's mind one cannot be wrong about anything. — Isaac

I believe that something other than my mind does not exist
I am wrong if something other than my mind exists
Therefore either something other than my mind exists or I cannot be wrong

The conclusion doesn't follow.

Are we forced into talk about something 'behind' our expressions ? — Pie

A realist would want to. There's the written sentence "the cat is on the mat" and then there is the cat on the mat, which is an animal sitting on some fabric.

OK, but what is it to be the case ?

To me, it all boils down to P. — Pie

Yes, but it doesn't boil down to "P". That's the point.

But one could not point. — Pie

I don't need to be able to point to it for it to be the case, just as I don't need to say "the cat is on the mat" for the cat to be on the mat. Whether or not we can demonstrate correspondence has no bearing on whether or not correspondence obtains.

My issue with this is ....to what does it correspond...if not the reiteration of that which it is supposed to make true ?

"The cat on the mat" is true if the cat is on the mat.

I guess I want to avoid some weird stuff that is and is not language at the same time, some kind of quasi-physical cat-on-the-mat-ness. It's as if we are tempted to say too much, to merely muddy the water.... — Pie

I could just point to the cat on the mat and say that your statement is true because it corresponds to the thing I'm pointing at.

Obviously I have to use the phrase "the cat on the mat" when I'm writing here, but in real life I can perform the action without writing (or saying) "the cat is on the mat".

"What you say is true because it corresponds to that [the thing I point to]".

See here but add in:

I believe that something other than my mind does not exist
I am wrong if something other than my mind exists
Therefore either something other than my mind exists or I cannot be wrong

The conclusion doesn't follow for exactly the reason I explained in that post. "I cannot be wrong" doesn't follow from "I am not wrong".

I think I am using 'fact' in a biased way (accidentally taking for granted a point of view which is not yet established.) I would 'like' to understand facts as true claims. — Pie

I think it's just a matter of preference whether to call the true proposition "the cat is on the mat" the fact or the cat being on the mat the fact.

You could always re-read the correspondence theory as saying that a proposition is true iff it corresponds to some object/event that exists/happens in the world. It's just a little wordy that way which is why I suspect they opted to use the term "fact" as a shorthand.

Correspondence, a popular and maybe even default choice, also seems problematic. "The theory says that a proposition is true provided there exists a fact corresponding to it. In other words, for any proposition p, p is true if and only if p corresponds to a fact." But is it not cleaner to just understand p as a fact, iff it is true ? — Pie

p is a proposition. So what this says is that the proposition "the cat is on the mat" is true if it corresponds to some fact about the word, namely the cat being on the mat. I don't think it correct to say that the proposition is the fact. Me writing "the cat is on the mat" isn't the cat being on the mat. The writing isn't the thing being written about.

one of my concerns, truth-makers, which seem like unnecessary entities. — Pie

In this case, the cat being on the mat is the truth-maker and the proposition "the cat is on the mat" (which can be spoken or written or signed, etc.) is the truth-bearer.

I think a distinction needs to be made between these two claims:

1. "p" is true iff p
2. "'p' is true" means "p"

The issue with the first is that it entails that all propositions exist:

q ≔ the proposition that p
T(q) ≔ q is true

1. T(q) ↔ p
2. T(q) → ∃x(x=q)
3. p → ∃x(x=q)
4. ¬T(q) ↔ ¬p
5. ¬T(q) → ∃x(x=q)
6. ¬p → ∃x(x=q)
7. ∃x(x=q)

This is problematic because it suggests that propositions exist as abstract entities (à la Platonism) which may be unacceptable to some.

Alternatively propositions are expressions, in which case the T-schema only applies when something is expressed, and so it doesn't make sense to talk about "unspoken truths" (unless this is understood as being comparable to "unbuilt houses", i.e. a reference to potential/possibility).

Another example of the poor reasoning:

1. it is raining
2. it is not raining

If I entertain 1 I will find that if I were to believe it true I would not be wrong about it raining. Therefore, if I can be wrong about it raining 1 must be false and so 2 must be true.

But then the exact same reasoning will lead to the conclusion that 2 must be false and 1 true.

Obviously this is wrong.

This is your reasoning:

I believe that God does not exist
I am wrong if God exists
Therefore either God exists or I cannot be wrong

The conclusion doesn’t follow. And the same for:

I believe that an external world does not exist
I am wrong if an external world exists
Therefore either an external world exists or I cannot be wrong

The conclusion in both cases should be:

Either X exists or I am not wrong

Your mistake is in going from "I am not wrong" to "I cannot be wrong" because in modal logical p → □p is invalid, and so p ∧ ¬□p → ◇¬p is valid.

If X's non-existence is not necessarily true then it is possible that X exists even if X doesn't exist, and it is possible to be wrong about X not existing even if I am not wrong about X not existing.

This latter point should be obvious because when I say “I believe X but I could be wrong” I’m not saying “I believe X but I am wrong”. My claim that I could be wrong is true even if I'm not wrong.

Nobody who is assuming 1 is true can, yes.

Assuming 1 is true, is the same thing as assuming god doesn't exist (the use of 'only').

One cannot coherently assume god doesn't exist and believe god does exist. — Isaac

The epistemological solipsist isn't assuming 1. It's the ontological solipsist that assumes 1.

An epistemological solipsist can believe 2, and he's wrong if 1, or he can believe 1, and he's wrong if 2.

Because if 1 is true, then nothing else exists other than their mind. It follows from that, that if a thing is not in their mind it doesn't exist. Therefore they already know (under the assumption of 1), that no other things exist.

They might be wrong about 1, but they obviously cannot be wrong about 1, assuming 1 is true. — Isaac

Your logic makes no sense. Consider, either one of these two scenarios is the case:

1. Only my mind and seven billion other minds and a material universe exist
2. Only my mind and seven billion other minds and a material universe and God exist

Your reasoning is that if 1 is true then nobody can believe that God exists. Obviously that's wrong.

If 1 is true, they cannot believe 2 is true. — Isaac

Of course they can. Why wouldn't they?

1 specifically states that nothing exists other than my mind. So how can I be wrong about the existence of other things under that assumption? I've already declared (by assuming 1), that no other things exist. I can't simultaneously hold a belief that some do (so as to be wrong about that).

I can be wrong about assuming 1, but even without any further data about the rightness or wrongness of 1, I can say that if I assume 1, I can't be wrong about anything else, following from that assumption.

Since I want to retain the possibility of being wrong about things I must reject that assumption. — Isaac

The solipsist doesn't know which of 1 and 2 is true. Your claim that if 1 is true then the solipsist knows that 1 is true is false.

This is just saying that the solipsist could be wrong about solipsism. That's not my argument. My argument is that the solipsist cannot be wrong about anything else, if they are right about solipsism. — Isaac

And that doesn't follow. If the solipsist is right in saying that they cannot know which of 1 and 2 is true then even if 1 is true they are wrong if they believe that 2 is true.