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From: Richard Damon <richard@damon-family.org>
Newsgroups: comp.theory,sci.logic
Subject: Re: Truthmaker Maximalism and undecidable decision problems --- the
 way truth really works
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2024 21:48:14 -0400
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On 6/12/24 9:16 PM, olcott wrote:
> On 6/12/2024 6:55 PM, Richard Damon wrote:
>> On 6/12/24 9:05 AM, olcott wrote:
>>> On 6/12/2024 6:33 AM, Richard Damon wrote:
>>>> On 6/11/24 11:17 PM, olcott wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Which Mendelson would encode as: ⊢𝒞
>>>>> A {cat} <is defined as a type of> {animal}.
>>>>
>>>> So, what is that statements truth-maker?
>>>>
>>>> And the truth-maker of that?
>>>>
>>>> You need a set of "first truth-makers" that do not themselves have 
>>>> something more fundamental at their truth-makers.
>>>
>>> I have always had that and told you about it dozens of times.
>>> Some otherwise meaningless finite strings are stipulated to be
>>> true thus providing these finite strings with meaning.
>>> https://liarparadox.org/Meaning_Postulates_Rudolf_Carnap_1952.pdf
>>> Bachelor(x) <entails> ~Married(x)
>>
>> But that doesn't fit your defintion of a Truth having a truth maker.
>>
> 
> OK then you disagree that cats are animals.
> As I have told you many hundreds of times DEFINITION
> is the foundational basis of every expression that
> is {true on the basis of its meaning.

But what MAKES cats animals?

And the problem with your definition, is every definition needs its 
words defined, so definition by words is not the fundamental basis for 
truth.

The fundamentals of a system must come from outside the system.

> 
>>>
>>> If there really is nothing anywhere that makes expression
>>> of language X true then X is untrue.
>>>
>>> This covers every truth that can possibly exist, true by
>>> definition, true by entailment, true by observation, true
>>> by an infinite sequence of truth preserving operations.
>>> If nothing makes X true then X is untrue.
>>
>> So a "true by definition" or "stipulated truth" needs a truth maker.
>>
> 
> DEFINITION is the foundational TRUTH-MAKER
> for every expression that is
> {true on the basis of its meaning.

And how do you determine the meaning of the definition within the system.

> 
>> What makes that definition or stuplation "true", what is its truth-maker?
>>
> 
> What is it about a cat that makes it not
> a fifteen story officen building?

Nothing I know of, why do you think it is?

> 
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> When we ask the question: What is a truthmaker? The generic 
>>>>>>>>> answer is
>>>>>>>>> whatever makes an expression of language true <is> its truthmaker.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> But logic systems don't necessaily deal with "expressions of 
>>>>>>>> language" in the sense you seem to be thinking of it.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Finite strings are the most generic form of "expressions of 
>>>>>>> language"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> And not all things are finite strings.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Every expression of language that is {true on the basis of its 
>>>>> meaning}
>>>>> is a finite string that is connected to the expressions of language 
>>>>> that
>>>>> express its meaning.
>>>>
>>>> And that just gets you into circles, 
>>>
>>> A tree of knowledge has no cycles. Willard Van Orman Quine
>>> was too stupid to see this.
>>> https://www.ditext.com/quine/quine.html
>>
>> And then what is at is root? Show me a word that can be "defined" 
>> without using any other words.
>>
> 
> The Cyc project has {thing} at its root.

And what can you define from just {thing}?

> 
>>>
>>>> as the expression of language that expresses its meaning needs a 
>>>> truth-maker too, and that need one for it, and so one.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Some expressions of language are stipulated to be true
>>> thus giving them meaning. Rudolf Carnap may have been
>>> the first to formalize this with his meaning Postulates.
>>
>> But what gives the meaning to the stipulation?
>>
> 
> How do you know that a cat is not a fifteen story office building?

How do you know it isn't?

> 
>> A stipulation is just a piece of language, what gives it meaning other 
>> than the words it uses, which need definitions.
>>
> 
> There are a set of relations that exist.

 From where?

> Their encoding in the various human languages is arbitrary.
> That is the stipulated part.

But what makes some relations "right" and some "wrong"?

> 
>>>
>>> https://liarparadox.org/Meaning_Postulates_Rudolf_Carnap_1952.pdf
>>> Bachelor(x) <entails> ~Married(x)
>>>
>>>> You need a primative base that is accepted without proof, as there 
>>>> is nothing to prove it, and that base defines the logic system you 
>>>> are going to work in.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> This entails that if there is nothing in the universe that makes
>>>>>>>>> expression X true then X lacks a truthmaker and is untrue.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Unless it just is true because it is a truthmaker by definition.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> That is more than nothing in the universe.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> but what makes the definition "true"? What is its truth-maker?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Not everything has a truth-maker, because it might be a 
>>>>>> truth-maker itself.
>>>>>
>>>>> Basic facts are stipulated to be true.
>>>>> "A cat is an animal" is the same basic fact expressed
>>>>> in every human language and their mathematically
>>>>> formalized versions.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> So, basic facts do not have a truth-maker in their universe.
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