Starboy

seebs, it also appears that you confuse logic with "truth". The logic you show as an example is a way to compute the true/false values of statements constructed from true/false statements. It is essentially binary arithmetic. There are other kinds of logic. Do not get me wrong, logic can be useful in constructing theories of nature, but it isn't required. The only requirement in science is that any theory to be accepted as scientific knowledge be consistent with the results of experiment on nature. The only requirements of the experiments is that they be objective and reproducable. Another thing to remember, a theories agreement with experiment on nature implies nothing about your notion of "truth" (ie, reality or honesty). All it implies is that it worked.

Starboy

seebs

You seem to think that anything I think of as a potential subject of true or false statements is being "confuse" with it.

If you say "it worked", there are two possibilities:

1. "it worked" is an assertion which has a truth value.
2. You have said nothing at all.

The claim that "it worked", if false, destroys your whole chain of inference. Thus, we need to be able to say that it's true.

I think I'm going to give up. I am reliably informed that most people are able to understand and use the word "truth", and do not need to run in circles trying to point the finger at anything, anything at all, to avoid using the idea.

The idea is so fundamental to logic and science that it is laughable to pretend we don't need it; it's like arguing with a YEC, who will make up ever more elaborate excuses for things just to avoid admitting that there is an awful lot of evidence out there.

If you wish to believe there is no truth, go ahead. People who do believe there is truth will continue studying the world, trying to find that truth, and making your life possible.

Starboy

seebs, again you put words in my mouth. I said that "truth" is an ambiguous term, too ambiguous to be used in a discussion where precision and clarity are required. That the ambiguity of the term makes is useless. That it was unnecessary to use the term in relation to science. Our conversation makes all this painfully clear. So what that you can use an ambiguous and abused term to describe the results of experiment on nature, that doesn't make it useful in the context of science. My claim is that it is unnecessary. You have yet to demonstrate a use where the meaning of the communication would not be better served with another more precise word. It is sloppy thinking to use it, and it makes it easy for people to swallow bogus claims because they are declared to be "true". Swallowing bogus claims because they are declaired to be "true" is how religion is done not science. For everything else that can actually deminstrate the claim, such declarations or pronouncements are unnecessary.

Starboy

seebs

The word is not ambiguous. You're trying to associate it with lots of other things, but all of them are different from it.

Your concept may be ambiguous. The word isn't.

You may not need to use the word, but you need the same basic concept.

Frankly, I don't think it does so at all; everything I've seen suggests that you are going out of your way to *try* to misinterpret usages to support your theory that "truth" is ambiguous, but all you do is quote small pieces of a post, and ignore the next paragraph which clarified the "confusion".

And yet, science still depends on the concept of truth.

I've done that just fine. Then you've misinterpreted what I said until you could find a meaning that would fit another word better... but all you've done is show that, time and time again, you *MUST* misunderstand a claim about truth to use another word in its place. This suggests that the other words are *not* "more precise", but rather, that in each case, you are changing the meaning of my statements into something else, then using a word which matches the change.

The words you use are not "more precise". They are "the wrong words for what I'm talking about".

You say "it makes it easy". That's a claim. Is the claim true? Obviously not, because you reject the idea of calling something "true". So, your claim is false. Okay, fine; it's not true that the idea of truth makes it easy for people to swallow bogus claims.



You say "bogus". I say "false". My usage is more precise than yours, and makes use, once again, of a very useful and necessary concept.

And you still don't get it. What "demonstration" are you talking about? What's your evidence? Your evidence is a *series of claims*. If those claims cannot be said to be "true claims", then the evidence is worthless, and nothing has been demonstrated.

Pee Pee Poodle

Starboy

seebs, that is my point. Here is this entire body of very useful knowledge called science none of which is known to be "true".

Starboy

seebs

And yet, you say there "is" a body of knowledge. You don't say "there may be a body of knowledge". You say there "is".

We make statements; the mere fact that we qualify our statements only shows that truth is a necessary concept, without reference to which, we have no reason to qualify any statement. Qualifications are useful only because we know that the unqualified statements are likely not to be true.

Starboy

Okay seebs, you say "truth" is a qualitification. What does it qualify?

seebs

I didn't say truth was a qualification. I said we qualify statements to make them true.

Examples:

"All atheists are idiots." False.

"Some atheists are idiots." True. The *qualification* makes the statement from a false one into a true one.

See?

Starboy

Fine seebs, how do you qualify them?