Truth and Language

Val, good. Somebody understands my position. Even shares it. Very Happy

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Verrrry interesting!

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Frank, I have faith that someday you'll come around. But please remember: I accept no followers. Twisted Evil

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JLNobody wrote:

Frank, I have faith that someday you'll come around. But please remember: I accept no followers.

Hold your breath. I love the color blue. :wink:

MY GUESS: At some point you will realize that everything I've ever said to you makes perfect sense....and that you should be an acknowledged agnostic.

As I said before...I just hope it doesn't happen when you are defusing a bomb...or working on your roof.

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I hope you like purple.

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JLNobody wrote:

Baffman, one can construct a meaningless sentence that is both grammatical and logical. For example, "Multicorns are preferrable to unicorns.
Both "God exists" and God does not exist" are not worth my time, just as "Multicorns are more numerous than unicorns" and Multicorns are not preferrable to unicorns."
I am not saying there is no God or that there is a God. And this is not because I am agnostic on the matter. I'm just saying that TO ME it's a non-issue. But for me, the meaninglessness of the God thesis is that, as I said, it contradicts ALL of my experience.
Atheism is not more tenable to me than is theism.

Okay. So, if you don't mind my asking, what experiences count against belief in God? I know, you said ALL of your experience. But, even as your experience is (in your opinion?) the test for truth, many people believe in God based on their experience. Are both they and you right? I don't think both can, in a million years, be right. One has judged correctly, and the other has erred by judgement, passion, or a combination of the two I guess. And, yes, Christ taught that man's problem is not his intellect, but his heart. Human beings (you and I) want nothing to do with God espeically if he exists. My question, then, is: What kinds of experience count for belief and what counts for unbelief? Because I must have had more of the former and you more of the latter, right?

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If I may so bold as to come in here before JLN answers...

All "concepts" from "dog" to "god" are shorthand triggers for sets of experiences/interactions either undergone or expected. If I use the term "dog" I have in my minds eye a picture of my experiences either particular or general with respect to that label. So If I read a sign "beware of the dog" I get another picture in my minds eye irrespective of whether I "believe" such a picture will become "reality" so I modify by behaviour accordingly.

The difference however between the concept "dog" and the concept "god" is that there is no general agreement as to what the latter involves. Instead there are numerous parochial sketches bound up with specific group dynamics and group histories all claiming "truth". It is of course possible to evoke such expectencies (perceptual set) without having a clear picture...e.g. "God will help me/us through this current problem"....and of course when the problem is solved, this reinforces the original "expectation".

The issue for atheists like me is that they "see through" these perceptual sets and the catch-all phrase "God moves in mysterious ways". There is no general indicator for behaviour modification , except "to think about others" or to obey sets of disparate trivial "rules".We are also aware that despite "Gods" attraction as a palliative (or a "life changing diversion" from problems with the current "self"*), it is now known that "ultimate cause" is no longer required in "science" and that the only justification for evoking a concept like "God" is either to explain our feelings of "morality" or as an ad hoc explanation for "the miraculous" ...i.e. "the as yet unexplained".

* ..even viewed as the parent/child relationship "a selfless surrender to the loving bosom of God and as His agent directing His love to others"...can be seen as infantile problem solving by selective attention.

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baffman wrote:

My question, then, is: What kinds of experience count for belief and what counts for unbelief? Because I must have had more of the former and you more of the latter, right?

We use this word "belief" like a rag.

It means different things to different people.

Anyone who uses it in a sentence that is being examined for debate or discussion...should really be asked to rephrase the "belief" comment using other words.

What is "unbelief?"

Does it mean belief in a different direction?

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Frank,

How about "unbelief" = "uselessness of a concept for a particular person" even though its utility for others is recognized.

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fresco wrote:

Frank,

How about "unbelief" = "uselessness of a concept for a particular person" even though its utility for others is recognized.

Well...that certainly is one possible way to define...or use...it.

But like "belief"...which often is used to disguise "guess" for theists...I suspect "unbelief" is often used to disguise "guess in another direction" for atheists.

I am not saying you are using it that way...or that Baff is. But I am saying it often is used that way.

Like "belief"...if someone uses "disbelief" or (the rather weird) "unbelief"...I like to question the user to ascertain exactly what is being said.

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Frank, I like the unbelief-disbelief contrast. I would characterize my attitude toward theism as one of unbelief, in the sense of theism's uselessness/meaninglessness to me (thanks, Fresco).

I appreciate Baffman's question about the experiential basis for my "unbelief" in a personal, anthropomorphic god. It IS called for on the basis of my previous statement that the theistic thesis contradicts all of my experience.
It depends on the range of one's experience. If I referred only to my immediate sensual experience, I would probably hold that the earth is flat. But if I include my intellectual experiences--my formal schooling and readings in popular sciences , I would easily conclude that the earth is roughly spherical. What I am referring to, then, is my World View. It is post-enlightnment, secular, humanist, Western scientific, but with a strong smattering of so-called Eastern mystical philosophy, which, by the way, does not contradict my other orientations, as would the Abrahamic religions.

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Re: Truth and Language

-I-1-2-No-U- wrote:

Ibn_kumuna wrote:

TRUTH IS WHATEVER THE VICTOR DECIDES AND RECORDS IT TO BE FOR THE BENEFIT OF FUTURE PROGENY

EACH NEW GENERATION MAY OF COURSE ERASE SUCH KNOWLEDGE AND RESTATE WHAT IT DETERMINES TO BE TRUTH

Language is constantly evolving and understanding of knowledge is fluid also - by analogy truth is a property of language because the two are always changing due to new revelations

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Re: Truth and Language
1-2,

I haven't corresponded with you yet, but I thought this idea was a little wacky:

"Language is constantly evolving and understanding of knowledge is fluid also - by analogy truth is a property of language because the two are always changing due to new revelations."

If truth is constantly evolving, how do you know that your post will communicate anything to other people on this website before, first, evolving into something you did not mean to communicate? I wouldn't be too skeptical about the possibility of communicating if I were you. Thank you for comments.

Baffman

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Re: Truth and Language
I am repeating myself, but I insist that we must consider the difference between the concept of Truth and the consideration of a true proposition.
I'ill give an example: to Aristotle, the sun moved around the earth. Today we believe that is the earth that moves around the sun.
In both cases, the concept of truth is similar. Truth, to Aristotle and to Newton was the adequation between a statement and verifiable facts. They both wanted to give a plausible explanation of the universe. Aristotle was wrong not because of his conception of truth but because his explanation was not adequate to verifiable facts. So his geocentric theory was not true. But that had nothing to do with his notion of truth.

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Re: JLNobody

val wrote:

Baffman
The problem with the proposition "God exists" - or "God does not exist" - is the fact that we are talking about an entity without predicates. If I say "Dragons exist", you understand what "dragons" means. There are books that describe dragons, paintings or pictures that give a visual image of dragons. So you can say about dragons that they fly, they spit fire, they are huge, they are reptiles.
So, if you say "dragons exist" your proposition is meaningful. Wrong - because dragons do not exist - but meaningful.

But when you say "God exists", what predicates has that entity you claim be existing? Is god a man? Is he large, tall, old? White, black, green? Does he speak? Since christian god is not an immanent god, like greeks gods, you can't characterize it.
And any proposition with a subject that has no predicates, has no meaning. What is that entity you call god? What are his characteristics? Do you see the problem? To claim the existence of God, or deny it, makes no sense because all we have is a word, three letters. You could ask, does "xtd" exist? Well, the word, the letters, exist. But they dont correspond to a substance.

JLNobody,

Thank you again for comments. Above you asked me if God has any predicates and noted that, "Since the christian god is not an immanent god, like greek gods, you can't charaterize it." But by making this statement, you just characterized God if I understand you correctly. Do you see what's going on? By saying, "no one can provide a proper definition of God" you are defining God. What I think this amounts to, though I'm not very well read in philosophy, is that certain ideas are inescapable, sort of self-evident. And as far as I can tell from reading about such matters, philosophers call these "First Principles." Those kinds of truths which are inescapable. Do you subscribe to any sort of first principles? I would expect you do; in fact, I believe just about everyone does whether or not they are consciously aware of the fact. And as an amateur philosopher/thinker I confess I haven't found a more agreeable way to proceed.
Okay that was a bit of a sidetrack of mine. But I still say your skeptical position above is tenative. As you said,

"And any proposition with a subject that has no predicates, has no meaning."

And I think you are saying that "God exists," is just such a proposition, no? What would be some other examples of this kind of false/meaningless proposition. How about, "Widgets are a better energy resource than gobbledegook." Or even, "Widgets exist." Are these statements ontological/rational equivalents to "God exists"? Do I understand you correctly?

Baffman

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Baffman, you ask: "By saying, 'no one can provide a proper definition of God' you are defining God. What I think this amounts to, though I'm not very well read in philosophy, is that certain ideas are inescapable, sort of self-evident. And as far as I can tell from reading about such matters, philosophers call these "First Principles." Those kinds of truths which are inescapable. Do you subscribe to any sort of first principles?

Yes, I do believe in, and operate in terms of some "first principles"--the metaphysical presuppositions without which we, or I, cannot think. But I consider these presuppositions to be no more than reflections of the structure of our (my) unconditioned (neurologoy) and conditioned (culture) minds. They pertain to "truths" (propositions about the world that may or may not be "true"). The concept of God, as you use it, is more analogous to my use of the term, Reality. Realty is one of the few concepts I cannot do without. It is a kind of irreducible GROUND which I cannot define, but which I cannot do without. It's what all the ideas and intuitions I hold stand upon. For you, I guess, it's God. Whavever works.

By the way, there are no particular predicates that I can attach to Reality. Reality is the subject of ALL predicates. I guess this would apply to the notion of God for a pantheist.

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While we are playing with words, let me say that truth, as I see it, is relative (some propositions are "true" by some criteria and from the perspective of some thinkers and/or false by some criteria and from other perspectives), but Reality is inherently absolute (everything is real, even illusions: they are real illusions). Wow! have I just said that reality is real? Tautologies are all "true" but trivially so.

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Re: JLNobody
baffman
Great reply.
I think we must distinguish two problems:
A) "God cannot be characterized". In your reply you are quite right. That is some sort of notion of God. But, attention, that notion is the one that great mystics have used, like S. Juan de la Cruz in his poems "La noche oscura". God becomes an entity that cannot be described and the mystic experience cannot be rationally revealed. I think Wittgenstein was thinking about this problem when he said, in his Tratactus, "what we cannot express, we must silence".

B) The evidence of the first principle. Here, I disagree. It's true that some philosophers used that concept, like Descartes or Leibniz. But I dont see any principle that is self evident, and surelly not God. If God was self evident, we all would be theists. Only analytical propositions are self evident (a triangle has three angles).

C) Widgets exist. Here, the problem is that existence is not an attribute. An attribute would be: "Widgets are ...", like when we say "water is composed by one molecule of oxigen and two molecules of hydrogen".

baffman wrote:

val wrote:
Baffman

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Re: Truth and Language

baffman wrote:

1-2,

I haven't corresponded with you yet, but I thought this idea was a little wacky:

"Language is constantly evolving and understanding of knowledge is fluid also - by analogy truth is a property of language because the two are always changing due to new revelations."

If truth is constantly evolving, how do you know that your post will communicate anything to other people on this website before, first, evolving into something you did not mean to communicate? I wouldn't be too skeptical about the possibility of communicating if I were you. Thank you for comments.

Baffman

The statement is self-evident.
Language is always changing - and it is by use of language that we communicate what we understand to be present truth.
If our means to communicate, by language, is ever changing, then is it not possible that truth can change as language changes?

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Re: Truth and Language

-I-1-2-No-U- wrote:

baffman wrote:
1-2,

I haven't corresponded with you yet, but I thought this idea was a little wacky:

"Language is constantly evolving and understanding of knowledge is fluid also - by analogy truth is a property of language because the two are always changing due to new revelations."

If truth is constantly evolving, how do you know that your post will communicate anything to other people on this website before, first, evolving into something you did not mean to communicate? I wouldn't be too skeptical about the possibility of communicating if I were you. Thank you for comments.

Baffman

The statement is self-evident.
Language is always changing - and it is by use of language that we communicate what we understand to be present truth.
If our means to communicate, by language, is ever changing, then is it not possible that truth can change as language changes?

"What we understand to be the truth"...and "the truth"...are two different things.

Language certainly communicates "what we understand to be the truth"...but language can change all it wants...or all we allow it to change...yet that does not perforce mean that the truth changes.

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Truth and Language

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