Iff one equates truth to a verified/true statement.



Not if paradoxes and truth are understood.

Exactly.



I've been saying that all along.

All you need to do is understand the currently accepted definitions and there are no problems.

Like I say, scientists and mathematicians have been using these definitions for centuries without a problem.

It's just a matter of understanding them.

You missed the point. Saying that truth can be false is the absurd logical consequence/conclusion following from how it's been set out.

Truth cannot be false.

That's why it's far better to say that truths can be falsified.

Try to avoid speaking of truth as though it has some sort of independent mysterious ontological existence in its own right.

If you avoid thinking of truth in that way it will no longer be a problem for you.

It's simply wrong to say 'truth cannot be false'.

You'd be far better off simply stating that it makes no sense to give a single correspondence both truth values simultaneously.

Of course, as I have already mentioned, paradoxical states of affairs correspond to multiple descriptions that can indeed be in conflict with each other in terms of their truth values, but that's a whole other story.

Paradoxes are a special cases.

Doesn't fix the problem Abra. Truth cannot be false. Verified claims can. Therefore, verified claims are not truth. That is the problem. It is how truth is being set out.



That is as sound as a refutation gets.

It doesn't fix your problem. Because your problem is unrealistic.

You are attempting to treat 'truth' as though it is an independent absolute ontological object. That's your problem, not mine.

~~~~~

We already have a WORKING DEFINITION for truth.

~~~~~

Even the professionals have recognized this.



However, language and words are essentially "tools" by which humans convey information to one another. As such, "truth" must have a beneficial use in order to be retained within language.

It's utterly useless for you to complain about the way that we define truth unless you can come up with a better way of doing it that is actually useful and meaningful.

You have been unable to produce a coherent practical working definition.

Thus your complaints are utterly meaningless.

And your so-called 'refutations' are just as empty and meaningless.

Until you can offer an alternative meaningful definition for truth, that is actually USABLE, then you have nothing but empty complaints.

Truth cannot be false. Verified claims can. Therefore, verified claims are not truth. That is the problem. It is how truth is being set out.

Argue all you want. Truth cannot be false. It is pure nonsense to argue otherwise.

It made sense of the nonsense being put forth... without exception.

Go look for yourself.

page 4 sixth post of mine from the top...

Works perfectly.

I would not call that "working".

Nor that!

Well, you haven't convinced me.

And besides, why are you even trying to convince me?

If you think you have a better working definition for truth than humanity has been using since the dawn of philosophy, science, and mathematics, then write up your new definition and submit it to these communities and see what they have to say about it.

My guess is that they will write back to you and tell you that they either don't understand your definition, or that it isn't a practical useful definition, or they will point out logical flaws in it that you were unable to recognize yourself.

Or if you're really lucky they might embrace it with open arms and agree with you on every point and you will go down in modern history as the person who changed the way humanity thinks about truth.



In the meantime, I'm not personally impressed with what you have presented thus far. I don't know what else to tell you.

Correcting yet another falsehood, this one regarding how I've been setting truth out with language...



This reflects an inadequate understanding of a few subtle but very important and very clear points that I've briefly made throughout the thread. I'll elaborate here for clarity's sake.

1. Truth/reality correspondence is an irrevocable element of thought, a necessary 'ingredient', as it were. Void the presupposition of truth/reality correspondence, thought/belief could not exist. Thus, truth presupposition cannot be engaged unless being engaged by a thinking subject, for it is what connects the subject and the world via thought/belief. Thought/belief formation instantiates truth being put to use. Therefore, it is very misleading - downright wrong - to say that I'm treating truth as though it is an independently existing object.

That does not make truth subject to thought/belief for anything other than it's instantiation, than it's being put to use. Truth is engaged in the same way by every thinking subject, regardless of specie. If the specie is capable of presupposing that what it is experiencing is real, if it is capable of recognizing, if it is capable of deliberate action, if it is capable of identifying other things, then it has presupposed truth/reality correspondence and thereby formed rudimentary thought/belief about the way things are.

2. The thinking subject need not be able to understand nor become aware of the fact that they are thinking, that they presupposing truth/reality in their own thought/belief about the way things are. That is clear because we humans instantiate truth long before we have the ability to discuss it in a meaningful way, long before language acquisition. Long before we are aware of the fact that we think/believe. We are instantiating truth/reality correspondence in thought/belief while we our familiarizing ourselves with our own sensory apparatus. During the process of learning to use our physiological senses we have no choice but to think/believe that we are touching, that we are smelling, that we are seeing, that we are hearing, that we are tasting. This is how we become familar with ourselves and the world around us.

3. We cannot possibly doubt if we are doing these things, because doubt requires pre-existing belief for it's ground. That is because skepticism comes as a result of our becoming aware of having been wrong. As such, it requires a fairly substantial belief-system for it's basis, which can only come with life experience. To doubt X, is to doubt that X is true, is the case, is the way things are. Thus, given all this, truth need not be independently identified(conceptualized as a thing) in the mind of the user in order to be put to use.

4. It is in our examination of having been wrong that we can come to understand how truth is not determined, and why it is not subject to our thought/belief about the way things are. We presuppose that our beliefs are true. If that presupposition of truth were sufficient for it, we could never be wrong our thought/belief would always correspond to fact/reality(the way things are) - but we can be and have been wrong, and we know this. Therefore, we know that belief is insufficient for truth. By virtue of being wrong, we also know that truth is not determined by humans.

Why would you say that this is 'off-topic'.

If all you were doing was socially sharing views on how different people view the concept of truth, then you'd just acknowledge the views of others.

But you don't do that.

Instead you flatly renounce all other views of truth as being WRONG and demand that only your opinions of what truth should be have merit.

Obviously you are out to CONVINCE someone that you are right and the whole rest of the world is WRONG.

You have made this the topic of the thread by your own actions.

~~~~~

I don't think anyone cares about your opinions on truth to be perfectly honest with you.

You clearly don't care about theirs. Why should they care about yours?

Statements like these are nothing more than your own personal opinion.

In fact, in the statement quoted above you are referring to truth/reality as though they are synonymous.

All you are basically doing is claiming that reality = truth, and then you go about trying to prove that truth = reality.

That's silly, IMHO.

And it amounts to nothing more than an ungrounded opinion.

You reject the concept of truth as used by humanity.

Instead you demand that they have set out truth "all wrong".

Then you claim that in your opinion truth should be defined as correspondence with reality (without anything further than this).

So all you are doing there is demanding that truth = reality.

Then after having rejected humanity's concept of truth and having replaced it with your own meaningless definition, you then go about proclaiming that your new definition of truth shows that truth = reality.

Well, no wonder.

That how YOU have defined it.

You haven't proven anything other than to prove that you don't like the way humanity defines the concept of truth.

If people accepted your definition of truth then they probably would need to accept your conclusions too because all you are doing is demanding that the state of affairs is TRUTH.

That's ridiculous.

You're not "proving" anything.

All you are attempting to do is redefine "truth" to mean "reality".

Moreover, on top of what I've already pointed out in my previous post, you are also assuming a classical view of the world.

You are assuming that "reality" itself is totally objective and independent of the observer that interacts with it.

That's another assumption on your part. You probably feel that this too should simply be 'obvious' to any reasonable person.

But the problem with that kind of thinking is that our discovery of quantum mechanics brings into question the notion of what we consider to be 'reasonable'.

We need to change our intuition. We can no longer push our experience of the macro world onto the very fabric of reality as being a 'reasonable' conclusion.

That is no longer "reasonable".

The discovery of the laws of quantum physics has forced us to face the "reality" that the observe and the observed cannot be separated in a nice clear-cut way that our common sense intuition would prefer.


In short, I still hold that all your ideas are being presented within the extreme restrictions of classical thinking.

Your continual proclamation that these other concepts are "illogical" amounts to nothing more than a personal opinion which cannot be held up in the face of modern scientific knowledge.

The only way you can justify those kinds of views in a logical arena is if you indeed confess to be assuming classical foundational principles.

Otherwise, you have no logical ground to stand upon.

And I have confronted you with this repeatedly, but in every case you have refused to confess that you are taking a classical stance.