Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Mikko <mikko.levanto@iki.fi>
Newsgroups: comp.theory
Subject: Re: The Foundation of Linguistic truth is stipulated relations between finite strings
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2024 10:54:27 +0300
Organization: -
Lines: 100
Message-ID: <vc8o7j$2nsv4$1@dont-email.me>
References: <vb8ku7$3m85g$2@dont-email.me> <vc1910$rkci$1@dont-email.me> <vc1ioa$tcfb$3@dont-email.me> <vc3hb8$1cgbd$1@dont-email.me> <vc44vt$1ge14$1@dont-email.me> <vc662i$22r9n$1@dont-email.me> <vc74cf$2948m$1@dont-email.me>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Injection-Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2024 09:54:27 +0200 (CEST)
Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="78d4dd46df227334361897bc1d60d56f";
	logging-data="2880484"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org";	posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+iVcMKYg3pUy4QIoz1fknn"
User-Agent: Unison/2.2
Cancel-Lock: sha1:zJzSRXjC1ITZgZSjVP5T7r4pD/8=
Bytes: 5151

On 2024-09-15 17:09:34 +0000, olcott said:

> On 9/15/2024 3:32 AM, Mikko wrote:
>> On 2024-09-14 14:01:31 +0000, olcott said:
>> 
>>> On 9/14/2024 3:26 AM, Mikko wrote:
>>>> On 2024-09-13 14:38:02 +0000, olcott said:
>>>> 
>>>>> On 9/13/2024 6:52 AM, Mikko wrote:
>>>>>> On 2024-09-04 03:41:58 +0000, olcott said:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> The Foundation of Linguistic truth is stipulated relations
>>>>>>> between finite strings.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> The only way that we know that "cats" <are> "animals"
>>>>>>> (in English) is the this is stipulated to be true.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> *This is related to*
>>>>>>> Truth-conditional semantics is an approach to semantics of
>>>>>>> natural language that sees meaning (or at least the meaning
>>>>>>> of assertions) as being the same as, or reducible to, their
>>>>>>> truth conditions. This approach to semantics is principally
>>>>>>> associated with Donald Davidson, and attempts to carry out
>>>>>>> for the semantics of natural language what Tarski's semantic
>>>>>>> theory of truth achieves for the semantics of logic.
>>>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth-conditional_semantics
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> *Yet equally applies to formal languages*
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> No, it does not. Formal languages are designed for many different
>>>>>> purposes. Whether they have any semantics and the nature of the
>>>>>> semantics of those that have is determined by the purpose of the
>>>>>> language.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Formal languages are essentially nothing more than
>>>>> relations between finite strings.
>>>> 
>>>> Basically a formal language is just a set of strings, usually defined
>>>> so that it is easy to determine about each string whether it belongs
>>>> to that subset. Relations of strings to other strings or anything else
>>>> are defined when useful for the purpose of the language.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Yes.
>>> 
>>>>> Thus, given T, an elementary theorem is an elementary
>>>>> statement which is true.
>>>> 
>>>> That requires more than just a language. Being an elementary theorem means
>>>> that a subset of the language is defined as a set of the elementary theorems
>>> 
>>> a subset of the finite strings are stipulated to be elementary theorems.
>>> 
>>>> or postulates, usually so that it easy to determine whether a string is a
>>>> member of that set, often simply as a list of all elementary theorems.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Yes.
>>> 
>>>>> https://www.liarparadox.org/Haskell_Curry_45.pdf
>>>>> 
>>>>> Some of these relations between finite strings are
>>>>> elementary theorems thus are stipulated to be true.
>>>> 
>>>> No, that conficts with the meanings of those words. Certain realtions
>>>> between strings are designated as inference rules, usually defined so
>>>> that it is easy to determine whether a given string can be inferred
>>>> from given (usually one or two) other strings. Elementary theorems
>>>> are strings, not relations between strings.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> One elementary theorem of English is the {Cats} <are> {Animals}.
>> 
>> There are no elementary theorems of English
> 
> There are billions of elementary theorems in English of
> this form: finite_string_X <is a> finite_string_Y
> I am stopping here at your first huge mistake.

They are not elementary theorems of English. They are English expressions
of claims that that are not language specific.

> It is hard to step back and see that "cats" and "animals"
> never had any inherent meaning.

Those meanings are older that the words "cat" and "animal" and the
word "animal" existed before there was any English language.

> When one realizes that
> every other human language does this differently then
> this is easier to see. {cats are animals} == 貓是動物

Words are often different in other languages (though e.g. Swedish "cat"
or Maltese "qattus" are not very different). Variations of meanings at
least for this word tend to be smaller than variations within a single
language.

-- 
Mikko