olcott <
polcott333@gmail.com> wrote:
On 4/26/2025 3:38 PM, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
olcott <polcott333@gmail.com> wrote:
On 4/26/2025 12:31 PM, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
In comp.theory olcott <polcott333@gmail.com> wrote:
On 4/26/2025 11:04 AM, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
[ .... ]
I suspect Quine's statements were much more nuanced than your
understanding (or misunderstanding) of them would suggest. Since you
can't cite Quine's original text to back up your assertions, it seems
more likely that these assertions are falsehoods.
Two Dogmas of Empiricism --- Willard Van Orman Quine (1951)
https://www.ditext.com/quine/quine.html
I am not going to wade through his double talk and weasel
words any more deeply that his issue with how the term Bachelor(x)
gets its meaning. He totally screwed that up proving that
he is clueless about how words get their meaning.
Or, far more likely, you are clueless about what he actually wrote, and
what it means.
You can just keyword search the term 98 instances of the
term [synonym] and see all of his mistakes.
I could, but I'm not going to. I put it to you, again, you have not read
and understood that paper of Quine's. It says things you don't like,
that you can't counter logically, so you just end up cursing.
You haven't provided any evidence for you actually having read the
original. You're likely just quoting somebody else's opinion of that
original.
If anyone in the universe says that the analytic/synthetic
does not exist we can ignore everything that they say and
provide the details of how analytic truth works:
*Semantic logical entailment from a finite list of basic facts*
In other words, if anybody disagrees with you, you bad mouth them.
Not on this. This material is difficult.
I don't doubt it. So why don't you conclude that you might not have
understood it fully?
No answer?
Everyone knows that Quine rejected the analytic/synthetic
distinction.
False. There are people who don't know it, and are likely happier and
more fulfilled for lack of that knowledge.
I haven't read Quine's paper either, so I can't definitively pronounce
on it any more than you can. But there is a discussion of it on
Wikipedia. There it describes how Quine demonstrated that there is no
hard and fast line between analytic and synthetic knowledge. That's not
the same as what you asserted.
If you don't know this or don't believe this I DON'T CARE.
It would appear that you care a great deal.
Everyone knows that analytic truth is expressions of language
that are true entirely on the basis of their meaning.
If you don't know this or don't believe this I DON'T CARE.
When we link a the set of basic facts ....
And that typo epitomises one of the difficulties in your viewpoint.
There is no single definitive set of basic facts. There are only lots
of sets of basic facts, all of them incomplete.
An essential feature of a set is membership; either an element is a
member of a set or it's not. Since there's no workable criterion for
membership of your purported set of all basic facts, that set does not
exist.
.... to the set of expressions derived from these basic facts by
semantic logical entailment then we get the set of expressions that
are proven true on entirely on the basis of their meaning, hence
proving that the analytic side of the analytic/synthetic distinction
exists.
This "derivation" is a mysterious unspecified process. One can derive
theorems from mathematical axioms and logic, one can derive scientific
truth from observations. But outside of these fields, this idea of
"derivation from basic facts" would appear to be questionable at best.
For example, you proposed "cats are animals" as a basic fact. Can you
show, by means of example, some derivation from some basic facts which
include that one. I suspect all you'll be able to come up with are more
basic facts, synonyms, and the like.
The above is proven true entirely on the basis of the
meaning of its words.
That's false. No proof has been forthcoming.
[ .... ]
The entire body of human knowledge that can be expressed in language
is an axiomatic system beginning with a finite list of basic facts.
You've never proven that, and it is almost certainly false.
A valid counter-example is categorically impossible.
OK, take the true statement "Nuremberg is a good place to live.", a
statement expressed in language. Please state the axioms from which this
can be derived, and show that derivation.
I don't think that value judgments can be derived
from basic facts thus do not count as knowledge that
can be expressed using language.
OK, so you remove from "the entire body of human knowledge that can be
expressed in language" everything that _can't_ be derived from your
axioms. That's circular and tautological.
Not at all We remove uncertain opinions from knowledge.
Amongst all the other knowledge that can't be derived in your way.
There's going to be very little of value left. Certainly no art or
music, no religion, little, if any, science. All you'll be left with is
pure mathematics. Your formulation of knowledge is not a useful one.
Even if you did this, what you would end up with would be an impoverished
lifeless mechanical subset of knowledge. You would have no music or
arts, no reason to get out of bed, even, no experience, and no human
relationships. Amongst other things.
Not all. Knowledge about opinions is knowledge.
Knowledge only includes provable certainties.
That's effectively saying that knowledge is pure mathematics and nothing
else.
All these things can be expressed in language. They cannot be derived
from some set of axioms.
Statements of opinions are anchored in the meaning
of their words. The full meaning of every word is
an aspect of basic facts. When I say the full meaning
I mean that the word: "human" may have a quadrillion
related axioms comprised of basic facts.
A quadrillion "basic facts" is ludicrous. One cannot construct anything
worthwhile from such a large set.
Keep trying to come up with counter-examples so that
I can generalize to prove that counter-examples are
categorically impossible.
If you keep changing the rules every time I give you such a counter
example, then clearly I can't.
I keep elaborating my words when you find aspects that
are not clear.
It is not aspects which are unclear, it is that your whole attempted
construction is ridiculous. It is as ridiculous as the builders at
Babel trying to construct a tower to reach Heaven.
As I said, it's up to you to prove your assertion that the entire body of
human knowledge can be derived from "basic facts". You haven't yet given
even a single example of such a basic fact, never mind some derivation of
useful human knowledge from it.
I have done this many hundreds of times:
{cats} <are> {animals}
OK.
objects of thought are divided into types, namely:
individuals, properties of individuals, relations
between individuals, properties of such relations, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_type_theory#G%C3%B6del_1944
A simplified overview of a
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_(information_science)
You're talking about abstracting some properties of things and thus
categorising them. This process of abstraction will lose the essence of
those things just like pulling the wings off a butterfly to see how it
flies loses the butterfly.
I doubt very much you can do this.
From this list the rest of general knowledge that can be expressed
in language is derived through semantic logical entailment.
Apart from the bits which can't be.
Such bits are categorically impossible for the entire
body of knowledge that can be expressed in language.
Wrong. I just gave an example above. I think it likely that most bits
of knowledge expressible as language will not be derivable from your
axioms, of which you have yet to give a single example.
Try again. Value judgements do not count as knowledge
because they are not semantically entailed from basic facts.
You're simply wrong, there. Knowledge is very much build up from value
judgments.
Anything less that certainty is not knowledge.
Don't be ridiculous! You're implying that scientific knowledge, being
less than certain, is an oxymoron.
There are no such "basic facts", apart from in specialised
fields such as mathematics. The universe is simply too rich, too
colourful, too multifacetted to be reducible to some sterile system of
"basic facts".
Basic Facts are the atoms of semantic meaning.
Think of these as the complete meaning of every word.
There are few, if any, words which have complete meanings. Their
meanings are highly dependent on the context they're used in, and new
contexts come into existence continually.
The burden of proof is on you.
As yet, you have not met that burden.
I cannot further elaborate to clarify my view
except by additional feedback.
--
Copyright 2025 Olcott "Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius
hits a target no one else can see." Arthur Schopenhauer
-- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
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