My definition of Truth under Scientific Realism, is that any notion of Truth can only exist if we say it is a) Performative, consisting of b) Correspondence and c) Coherence (internal consistency). And that all other statements are analogies to some subset of these properties. And that d) formal theories of truth (the ‘logics’) are each subsets of Coherence, which test certain properties of any “True” and therefore Performative, Correspondent and Coherent statement. And that e) property and involuntary transfer constitute a missing logic of cooperation, that renders all transfers open to analysis and criticism. And that f) praxeology constitutes a missing logic of the rationality of decisions and incentives, that renders all actions open to subjective testing. But because humans are marginally indifferent in their rationality and incentives, such subjective, SYMPATHETIC testing functions as an objective test of the rationality of incentives. And that: g) Constructive (meaning socially constructive, including Consensus theories) and Pragmatic theories of truth are failed attempts at obscurant coercion (theft) by adherents to enlightenment democratic equalitarianism, socialists, postmodernists, and totalitarian humanists. Just as the Rawlsian veil is yet another attempt at obscuring involuntary transfers, while relying on the impossibility of human judgement to make such decisions as would be required to achieve the abstract concept of ‘justice’. As such I view truth as Performative (attestation) constrained by and consisting of { i) Correspondent (with reality); ii) Cohesive (internally consistent and formal); iii) Identitarian (categories, properties and names) iv) Propertarian (cooperative moral action); v) Praxeological (rational action) } properties – each subset set of properties requiring separate logics for the isolation and analysis of each subset. Conversely, no ‘complete attest-able truth’ can be constructed in any subset without consideration of all. It may be (as in the case of any of the formal logics) that no external dependency is present (although I cannot think of one). But I am unaware of any formal logic without external dependency. This is a non contradictory, fully explanatory theory of the criteria for truth. And so far I am unable to formalize a criticism of CR, because for all intents and purposes that I can imagine, the CR definition of truth is platonic and non existent, and impossible. Since the only truth that can exist is attestation: the constant reduction in our own errors as we try to describe the properties of the universe. We can know what is false. That is our only certainty. But we can never know a platonic truth other than a tautology, because only tautological statements are complete. A complete statement is not open to attestation. If any statement is not tautological, and therefore incomplete, it is open to attestation. But how can we say an attestation is meaningful if it’s tautological? We are, with the concept of truth, improving our attestations about the universe. This is what we improve. That is the purpose and function of truth. Since only by improving our attestations and constantly testing them can we improve our actions, and by our actions, continue to increasingly outwit the deterministic processes in the universe by constructing minor alterations to that universe such that we can make use of the universe as we will. If I am to defend the claim that obscurantism must be prohibited from political speech (argument), then I cannot make this claim on irrefutable terms, without at least addressing the relationship between the logical disciplines, and the very nature of philosophy, as a moral endeavor. No man is an island. No argument in any sub discipline is either.
Theme: Truth
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Truth: No Man Is An Island. No Logical Argument Is Either.
My definition of Truth under Scientific Realism, is that any notion of Truth can only exist if we say it is a) Performative, consisting of b) Correspondence and c) Coherence (internal consistency). And that all other statements are analogies to some subset of these properties. And that d) formal theories of truth (the ‘logics’) are each subsets of Coherence, which test certain properties of any “True” and therefore Performative, Correspondent and Coherent statement. And that e) property and involuntary transfer constitute a missing logic of cooperation, that renders all transfers open to analysis and criticism. And that f) praxeology constitutes a missing logic of the rationality of decisions and incentives, that renders all actions open to subjective testing. But because humans are marginally indifferent in their rationality and incentives, such subjective, SYMPATHETIC testing functions as an objective test of the rationality of incentives. And that: g) Constructive (meaning socially constructive, including Consensus theories) and Pragmatic theories of truth are failed attempts at obscurant coercion (theft) by adherents to enlightenment democratic equalitarianism, socialists, postmodernists, and totalitarian humanists. Just as the Rawlsian veil is yet another attempt at obscuring involuntary transfers, while relying on the impossibility of human judgement to make such decisions as would be required to achieve the abstract concept of ‘justice’. As such I view truth as Performative (attestation) constrained by and consisting of { i) Correspondent (with reality); ii) Cohesive (internally consistent and formal); iii) Identitarian (categories, properties and names) iv) Propertarian (cooperative moral action); v) Praxeological (rational action) } properties – each subset set of properties requiring separate logics for the isolation and analysis of each subset. Conversely, no ‘complete attest-able truth’ can be constructed in any subset without consideration of all. It may be (as in the case of any of the formal logics) that no external dependency is present (although I cannot think of one). But I am unaware of any formal logic without external dependency. This is a non contradictory, fully explanatory theory of the criteria for truth. And so far I am unable to formalize a criticism of CR, because for all intents and purposes that I can imagine, the CR definition of truth is platonic and non existent, and impossible. Since the only truth that can exist is attestation: the constant reduction in our own errors as we try to describe the properties of the universe. We can know what is false. That is our only certainty. But we can never know a platonic truth other than a tautology, because only tautological statements are complete. A complete statement is not open to attestation. If any statement is not tautological, and therefore incomplete, it is open to attestation. But how can we say an attestation is meaningful if it’s tautological? We are, with the concept of truth, improving our attestations about the universe. This is what we improve. That is the purpose and function of truth. Since only by improving our attestations and constantly testing them can we improve our actions, and by our actions, continue to increasingly outwit the deterministic processes in the universe by constructing minor alterations to that universe such that we can make use of the universe as we will. If I am to defend the claim that obscurantism must be prohibited from political speech (argument), then I cannot make this claim on irrefutable terms, without at least addressing the relationship between the logical disciplines, and the very nature of philosophy, as a moral endeavor. No man is an island. No argument in any sub discipline is either.
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THE WEAKNESS OF POPPERIAN TRUTH : PRESERVING PLATONISM My understanding of CR’s
THE WEAKNESS OF POPPERIAN TRUTH : PRESERVING PLATONISM
My understanding of CR’s concept of Truth is Popperian via Tarsky: which in crudest form suggests that Statements are true if they are internally consistent. And furthermore, the truth content of any proposition (verisimilitude) consists of the explanatory power minus the falsificationary power. (I tend to follow Kripke on internal consistency for technical reasons.)
This position narrows the value of explanatory power, improving truth claims, but is still a much looser definition of truth, and one that accommodates the platonic (Metaphysical realism). This is evident by the failure to unite the various definitions of truth into some coherent system.
Whereas, in an effort correct Metaphysical Realism and to expunge platonism and obscurantism – and therefore obtain Scientific and Ethical Naturalism – I’ve tried to argue that the narrower criteria (the above comment) is the test of BOTH realism AND ethical action.
I’ve stated before that I thought popper denied socialists the field, by making it impossible to argue that political preferences (scientific socialism) was in fact scientific enough that central planners could make claims necessitating that we be compelled to comply with their ideas. However, his definition of truth was insufficient to deny obscurantism and platonism. This is not a criticism it’s just a statement of insufficiency for prevention of abuse by way of popular government.
This is a lot to grasp. But I thought I’d throw it out there.
I didn’t think I would be able to get to it but it’s troubled me enough that I’m getting close.
Thanks.
Source date (UTC): 2014-01-22 09:15:00 UTC
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TRUTH: NO MAN IS AN ISLAND. AND NO LOGICAL ARGUMENT IS EITHER. (reposted from el
TRUTH: NO MAN IS AN ISLAND. AND NO LOGICAL ARGUMENT IS EITHER.
(reposted from elsewhere)
My definition of Truth under Scientific Realism, is that any notion of Truth whatsoever can only exist if we say it is a) Performative, consisting of b) Correspondence (external correspondence) and c) Coherence (internal consistency). And that all other truth claims are analogies to some subset of these properties.
Further:
That d) formal theories of truth (the ‘logics’) are each subsets of Coherence, which test certain properties of any “True” and therefore Performative, Correspondent and Coherent statement.
And that e) property and involuntary transfer constitute a missing logic of cooperation, that renders all transfers open to analysis and criticism.
And that f) praxeology constitutes a missing logic of the rationality of decisions and incentives, that renders all actions open to subjective testing. But because humans are marginally indifferent in their rationality and incentives, such subjective, SYMPATHETIC testing functions as an objective test of the rationality of incentives.
And that: g) Constructive (meaning socially constructive, including Consensus theories) and Pragmatic theories of truth are failed attempts at obscurant coercion (theft) by adherents to enlightenment democratic equalitarianism, socialists, postmodernists, and totalitarian humanists. Just as the Rawlsian veil is yet another attempt at obscuring involuntary transfers, while relying on the impossibility of human judgement to make such decisions as would be required to achieve the abstract concept of ‘justice’.
As such I view truth as Performative (attestation) constrained by and consisting of {
i) Correspondent (with reality);
ii) Cohesive (internally consistent and formal);
iii) Identitarian (categories, properties and names)
iv) Propertarian (cooperative moral action);
v) Praxeological (rational action)
} properties – each subset set of properties requiring separate logics for the isolation and analysis of each subset.
Conversely, no ‘complete attest-able truth’ can be constructed in any subset without consideration of all. It may be (as in the case of any of the formal logics) that no external dependency is present (although I cannot think of one). But I am unaware of any formal logic without external dependency.
This is a non contradictory, fully explanatory theory of the criteria for truth. And so far I am unable to formalize a criticism of CR, because for all intents and purposes that I can imagine, the CR definition of truth is platonic and non existent, and impossible. Since the only truth that can exist is attestation: the constant reduction in our own errors as we try to describe the properties of the universe.
We can know what is false. That is our only certainty. But we can never know a platonic truth other than a tautology, because only tautological statements are complete. A complete statement is not open to attestation. If any statement is not tautological, and therefore incomplete, it is open to attestation. But how can we say an attestation is meaningful if it’s tautological?
We are, with the concept of truth, improving our attestations about the universe. This is what we improve. That is the purpose and function of truth. Since only by improving our attestations and constantly testing them can we improve our actions, and by our actions, continue to increasingly outwit the deterministic processes in the universe by constructing minor alterations to that universe such that we can make use of the universe as we will.
If I am to defend the claim that obscurantism must be prohibited from political speech (argument), then I cannot make this claim on irrefutable terms, without at least addressing the relationship between the logical disciplines, and the very nature of philosophy, as a moral endeavor.
No man is an island.
No argument in any sub discipline is either.
Source date (UTC): 2014-01-22 07:11:00 UTC
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OBSCURANT DEFINITIONS OF TRUTH AS PETTY THEFT Sigh. The battle over the definiti
OBSCURANT DEFINITIONS OF TRUTH AS PETTY THEFT
Sigh. The battle over the definition of truth is like the battle over the definition of justice: each discipline trying to legitimize it’s claims at the expense of other disciplines.
How did philosophers get away with this nonsense?
I mean, seriously.
Source date (UTC): 2014-01-22 07:08:00 UTC
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Justificationary arguments simply serve to direct your opponent to your greatest
Justificationary arguments simply serve to direct your opponent to your greatest point of weakness.
Source date (UTC): 2014-01-19 12:25:00 UTC
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THE LIES OF THE IRRATIONALS Conflating fact, value and preference : Marx and Mar
THE LIES OF THE IRRATIONALS
Conflating fact, value and preference : Marx and Marxists
Conflating action and perception : Heidegger and Postmoderns
Lies, lies, lies. All lies.
If someone cannot state something to you in operational language they are either lying to you, or they don’t know what they’re talking about.
LIFE CYLCE OF OF THEORIES
0) PROBLEM: I may understand a problem.
1) THEORY: I may have a theory of how to solve the problem.
2) TEST OF INTERNAL CONSISTENCY: I man be able to construct a ‘tool’ for the solution of a problem.
3) TEST OF EXTERNAL CORRESPONDENCE: I may be able to use a tool, and understand how it came to be.
4) PRODUCTION (HABITUATION): I may use a tool but not understand how it came to be to either solve the problem or avoid the problem.
5) DISTRIBUTION (SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION): I may may unknowingly rely on a tool to avoid a problem, AND NOT know how that tool came to be, or the problem.
6) COMMODITIZATION (METAPHYSICAL ASSUMPTION): I may be ignorant of a tool, not how to use it, or how it came to be, but exist in a world where all of us avoid the problem for which the tool was intended and designed.
The problem is that by the time we get to COMMODITIZATION, I’m know sure we can call what we’re doing ‘knowledge’. It’s just a habit. An informational instinct, rather than biological instinct.
Source date (UTC): 2014-01-19 11:12:00 UTC
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THE PHILOSOPHICAL DIFFERENCE OF NECESSITY ON MEANS VS PREFERENCE ON ENDS The dif
THE PHILOSOPHICAL DIFFERENCE OF NECESSITY ON MEANS VS PREFERENCE ON ENDS
The difference between my set of statements and the various replies above, is one that is common in western philosophy.
Because western philosophy was created and developed by its aristocratic classes, and those classes that performed sufficiently to afford the luxury of philosophy, and sought enfranchisement.
Namely: necessity.
Marx, for all his error, does not make this mistake, nor does perhaps our most influential moral philosopher: Adam Smith against whom Marx, like Freud against Nietzsche, is a reactionary.
So, the difference in our approaches to philosophy, is that I start with necessity, and then choose preference from the available options.
From that position I take the mutually moral and scientific requirements that:
(a) it is only moral to compel necessities not preferences.
(b) The only moral preferential political action is one that others voluntarily comply with.
(c) the evidence is that most of our attempts to interfere with social orders, other than increasing participation in them, has proven to be a failure when we attempt to achieve ends, rather than provide means.
There are many preferences that we could seek to pursue, the externalities of which are counter productive to the prosperity that decreases the possibility of choices.
As such, philosophical discourse on luxuries is interesting. However, we should not lose sight of the fact that what we are discussing is the luxuries that our implementation of necessities has made possible.
Discussing luxuries is a nice parlor game. It is like young men fantasizing about which supercar they can buy if they save for the next ten years. But I do not work on philosophy for entertainment. I work on it for the purpose of identifying possible solutions to looming problems: what is necessary for continued expansion of our ability to cooperate in a division of knowledge and labor so vast that we can exist with such wealth?
Source date (UTC): 2014-01-18 04:17:00 UTC
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False theories are different from incomplete theories
http://phys.org/news/2014-01-einstein-wrong.html#jCpAgreed. False theories are different from incomplete theories.
Source date (UTC): 2014-01-16 08:45:00 UTC
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REALITY IS MORE LIMITED THAN IMAGINATION: THE MORAL NATURE OF TRUTH IN THE LOGIC
REALITY IS MORE LIMITED THAN IMAGINATION: THE MORAL NATURE OF TRUTH IN THE LOGICS AND SCIENCES
1) We can mathematically represent more relations than can exist in reality.
And we can state more things than we can demonstrate correspond with reality. And we can suggest more means and ends of cooperation than can be organized in reality.
2) Set theoretic axioms assist us in making internally consistent statements. But they may or may not correspond to reality.
3) Tests of internal consistency reduce error. But since truth means and must mean correspondence, only external consistency (correspondence) is a test of truth.
4) The value of our imagination, followed by our logical systems is in reducing the cost of testing our ideas about reality.
5) The comparative value (goodness or less good, or even badness) of our spectrum of different logical systems, from:
i) the functionally descriptive, to
ii) the logically descriptive to
iii) the historically descriptive to;
iv) the mythically allegorical, and finally to;
v) the mystically allegorical;
– is the degree with which those systems reduce the cost of exploration by increasing degrees of correspondence. The error we make is in placing greater value on the network effect of existing logical networks (paradigms), than on the possibility of new correspondence with reality.
6) The comparative MORALITY of different logical systems is in the degree to which they pose restraints upon the externalization of costs to those form whom exploration is involuntary, versus the externalizations of benefits to those for whom exploration is involuntary.
HIERARCHY OF TRUTH
That is, unless we state, that we must create a hierarchy of truth:
AXIS 1:
(i) that which is complete (reality) but the completeness of which is unknowable,
(ii) that which is incomplete but correspondent (action/science)
(iii) that which is incomplete but internally consistent (logics)
(iv) that which is incomplete, for which correspondence is unknown, and for which internal consistency is unknown. (theory)
(v) that which we are unaware of. (ignorance)
(I am not settled on the order of (ii) and (iii) since as far as I can tell, our arguments to internal consistency are verbal justification that merely improve our theory, while our actions are demonstrated preferences in favor of our theory.)
And the praxeological test of our confidence in our statements (our WARRANTY) for making true statements:
AXIS 2:
i) That which we do not know
ii) That which we intuit we can to act upon
iii) That which we we desire we can act upon
iiv) That which we can argue we rationally can act upon.
v) That which it is non rational to argue against.
vi) That which is self evident.
Error in science may be a privilege of rank. Science is largely outside of the market. Error in cooperation is not outside the market, and constitutes the market, and is necessity. My voluntary action requires only that I have confidence, since I warranty my own actions by necessity. But as we move from voluntary exchange, to corporate cooperation, to state monopoly corporation, the standard of truth increases, since others pay for any error. The only solution is that those who desire pay, and those that do not, do not.
Therefore, we also understand, that the prohibition on error in science is immaterial if unspoken and constrained to the self. But if science or any other discipline, makes public claims, we require a higher standard.
This prohibition is a MORAL one, because lower standards of truth in science externalize costs on to other scientists.
The standard of truth is inseparable from the moral impact that any statement will have.
I am not free to make any statement. We are not free to make any statement. We are free only to make true statements without punishment of some kind – even if it is just to be ignored and therefore boycotted. In many civilizations one is even prohibited from making true statements if they cause discomfort. In science we reverse this social intuition, and state that we specifically SEEK criticism, rather than confirmation.
If we take this argument all the way down to the very meaning of ‘debate’, we will grasp that the only reason we yield our opportunity for theft and violence, is on the presumption of honest discourse. (argumentation ethics). It is this sacrifice of violence, and grant of peerage in exchange for the cooperative pursuit of truth, that was the unique development of western civilization. And it is this one axiom that led to all of western science and reason. And why no other civilization developed it.
The only reason to argue against the requirement for moral public statements adhering to increasing standards of truth, is that one wishes to externalize costs onto others, or to not be held accountable for the externalization of costs onto others.
In other words, because one is an immoral individual, the definition of which is to externalize costs to the anonymous.
One can say, that like free speech in politics, we insure each other against ignorance and error. And some might say we insure each other against loading and framing. And some might say we insure each other against fraud by omission. And some might say that we insure each other against fraud by deception.
But insurance then, is limited to the willingness of others to pay for it. And our contract for this insurance in public debate has been dramatically loosened by the courts (by the left wing) such that we tolerate (insure) obscurant, immoral, deceptive and plainly fraudulent discourse, as well as eliminate the prior prohibition on libel and slander.
Insurance in any body cannot pay out more than it takes in. And in this case we are already paying out more than we take in.
So the policy must change so to speak.
Source date (UTC): 2014-01-16 08:16:00 UTC