RE: The Nature of Truth
From: Joe Dees (joedees@addall.com)
Date: Sat May 12 2001 - 13:15:13 MDT
('binary' encoding is not supported, stored as-is)
>Date: Sat, 12 May 2001 11:09:00 -0700
>To: extropians@extropy.org
>From: Lee Corbin <lcorbin@ricochet.net>
>SUBJECTReply-To: extropians@extropy.org
>
>Mitch wrote
>
>>Ben wrote:
>
><< Real truth seems to be an interesting mix of absolutism
>and relativism either extreme attitude is an unproductive one.
>I think that a mix of absolutism and relativism is best.
>Funnily enough, this is what most humans have evolved to profess.>>
>
>>That seems to best describe the universe, doesn't it?
>
>This still sounds like an attitude of surrender to me. Tarski
>nailed down what we should mean by "truth". I agree with those
>who advocate the "correspondence theory", which is essentially
>that minds map features of the universe, and do so with varying
>precision. Highly accurate maps we call true, and inaccurate
>maps we call false. We shouldn't give up trying to get our
>maps as accurate as possible.
>
>We only need keep in mind, as the great Count Alfred Korzybski
>said, "the map is not the territory", (Science and Sanity, 1933).
>
There are three criteria for ascribing validity to truth-claims; they are:
1) correspondence with the referent observed world
2) external coherence with contiguous and/or related truths, and
3) internal consistency (the truth-claim cannot be self-contradictory)
All three of these criteria must be met for a truth-claim to be considered valid, and where 1) or 2) occurs, the others seem to occur also. #3 may occur in untrue statements, but it is never absent from true ones.
>
>Lee Korbynsky
------------------------------------------------------------
Looking for a book? Want a deal? No problem AddALL!
http://www.addall.com compares book price at 41 online stores.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5
: Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:07:37 MST