WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY “TRUE”?

A commensurable common language consists of constant relations. In response to any substantive innovation, we falsify some relations, redefine others, and create others. Which in turn requires falsification of some existing terms, redefinition of others, and the creation of yet still others.

Yet, what is the minimum reformation of categories, relations and values, and reformation of accompanying language, and illustrative narratives that demonstrate those relations, before that new organization of categories, relations and values is shared?

It’s non trivial. It’s less work when that reformation is desirable, and it’s more work when it is undesirable.

DECIDABLE: In the REVERSE: In logic we state that a question (statement) is DECIDABLE if an algorithm (set of operations) exists within the limits of the system (rules, axioms, theories) that can produce a decision (choice). In other words, if the sufficient information for the decision is present within the system (ie: is decidable). In the OBVERSE: Instead, we should determine if there is a means of choosing without the need for additional information supplied from outside the system (ie: not discretionary). Or in simple terms, if DISCRETION is unnecessary, a proposition is decidable. This separates reason (or calculation in the wider sense) from computation (algorithm).

|| TAUTOLOGY < ANALYTIC TRUTH < (IDEAL) TRUTH < TRUTHFULNESS < HONESTY < IMPULSE

TAUTOLOGY: Marginally indifferent means of expressing constant relations.

ANALYTIC TRUTH: Internally consistent, independent of external correspondence. In the construction of proofs, open to substitution and independent of context, we produce tests of internal consistency (generally speaking, the preservation of ratios). Or more simply, the preservation of constant relations.

TRUTH: That testimony (description) you would give, if your knowledge (information) was complete, your language was sufficient, stated without error, cleansed of bias, and absent deceit, within the scope of precision limited to the context of the question you wish to answer; and the promise that another possessed of the same knowledge (information), performing the same due diligence, having the same experiences, would provide the same testimony.

TRUTHFULNESS: that testimony (description) you give if your knowledge (information) is incomplete, your language is insufficient, you have performed due diligence in the elimination of error, imaginary content, wishful thinking, bias, and deceit; within the scope of precision limited to the question you wish to answer; and which you warranty to be so; and the promise that another possessed of the knowledge, performing the same due diligence, having the same experiences, would provide the same testimony.

HONESTY: that testimony (description) you give with full knowledge that knowledge is incomplete, your language is insufficient, but you have not performed due diligence in the elimination of error and bias, but which you warranty is free of deceit; within the scope of precision limited to the question you wish to answer; and the promise that another possess of the same knowledge (information), performing the same due diligence, having the same experiences, would provide the same testimony.

Demand for Truth (Decidability):

True enough to imagine a conceptual relationship

True enough for me to feel good about myself.

True enough for me to take actions that produce positive results.

True enough for me to not cause others to react negatively to me.

True enough to resolve a conflict without subjective opinion among my fellow people with similar values.

True enough to resolve a conflict without subjective opinion across different peoples with different values.

True regardless of all opinions or perspectives.

Tautologically true: in that the two things are equal.

Due Diligence necessary for Warranty that our Testimony is Truthful.

  1. Have we achieved identity? Is it categorically consistent?

  2. Is it internally consistent? Is it logical? Can we construct a proof(test) of internal consistency?

  3. Is it externally correspondent, and sufficiently parsimonious? Can we construct a proof (test) of external correspondence.

  4. Is it existentially possible? Is it operationally articulated? Can we construct a proof (test) of existential possibility? And is it free of imaginary content when we articulate it as such?

  5. Is it a rational choice (praxeological)?

  6. Is it morally constrained? Does it violate the incentive to cooperate? (Meaning, are all operations productive, fully informed, warrantied, voluntary transfers, free of negative externality of the same criterion?)

  7. Is it limited? Do you know it’s boundaries (falsification)

  8. Is it fully accounted? Do we account for all costs to all capital in all temporal and inter-temporal dimensions? (Have we avoided selection bias?) Can we construct a proof (test) of full accounting? (Is information lost or artificially gained?)

Falsehood Techniques.

  1. Ignorance

  2. Error

  3. Bias, and Wishful thinking

  4. Loading, Framing, Suggestion Obscurantism,

  5. Fiction, Inflation, Conflation

  6. Fictionalism (idealism, pseudoscience, supernaturalism, (primary means of overloading)

  7. Deceit. (full fiction)

  8. (Conspiracy – Scale 2)

  9. (Propagandism – Scale 3)

  10. (Institutionalization – Scale 4)

If you cannot answer these questions or do not understand them you cannot know if you speak the truth, or if you are polluting the commons with fantasy, bias, error, or deception.

EVIL < IMMORAL < UNETHICAL < |AMORAL| > ETHICAL > MORAL > GOOD.

MORAL (USAGE)

The term “Moral” can be used in a specific sense or a general sense. Either as behavior that imposes costs anonymously and indirectly, or as a general term to refer to all moral, ethical, and criminal behavior.

Specific:

  1. In the series criminal, ethical, and moral, criminal refers to overt crimes, ethical to crimes of interpersonal informational asymmetry (crimes against a person you deal with), and moral to indirect crimes of informational asymmetry (crimes against the social order).

General:

  1. Objective (decidable) morality: non imposition / reciprocity (Productive, fully informed, warrantied, voluntary transfer, free of imposition of costs against demonstrated investments by externality.)

  2. Normative morality: that portfolio of norms that in the aggregate produce a group evolutionary strategy, and therefore immoral and moral actions may be judged objectively or normatively.

  3. Subjective moral intuitions: that moral intuition we possess because of the combination of genetics, environment and training, and our attempt to survive genetic , social, and economic competition. These may be judged normatively and objectively.

  4. Fictional Morality: those wishful arguments we make.. etc. These may be judged subjectively, normatively, and objectively.

CLOSING

The question is, how can we speak in a manner that limits the semantics, grammar, and syntax to constant relations that are invulnerable to, resistant to, or which expose, the various falsehoods that skew, eliminate, or replace, existing constant relations?