Re: "The Best Programming Language for the End of the World"

On 11/04/2025 9:10 pm, Hans Bezemer wrote:

On 11-04-2025 04:19, dxf wrote:

On 10/04/2025 8:40 pm, albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl wrote:

In article <f7a591a1dc38e555ac1aecce6c59bd3bf195d09c@i2pn2.org>,
dxf  <dxforth@gmail.com> wrote:

On 9/04/2025 9:28 pm, albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl wrote:

...
I'm with Anton Ertl here. If you have a clear idea what has to be done,
formulate it and send in a proposal. (But I'm as guilty as you
regards other matters ...).

>
Why must it be done?  To please you?  If the committee is satisfied with
the status quo nothing need be done.  And that's what you're seeing.

>
You must do it, because you are not satisfied with the standard.

>
Chuck Moore might beg to differ.
>
'Matters of fact or truth or beauty cannot be voted on.  They speak for
  themselves.'
>
If one sees truth of what's been said, one acts on it.  To wait for
authority to tell one what to do indicates only subservience.
>

<insults deleted>

>
I'm not aware anything was deleted.
>

 
A proposition can be true a priori (conceptual only, like every bachelor is unmarried - even if I've never seen the guy). A fact is a state of actuality - and hence can only be evaluated as true or false a posteriori, since such proposition has to be confronted with the real world to establish its "truth" value (in the words of Wittgenstein - with a touch of Quine).
 
In the eyes of John Locke beauty is a secondary quality - and hence (as the saying goes) "in the eye of the beholder". You may establish it intersubjectively - but never objectively. Consequently, it cannot be "self evident".
 
So in short, no, you cannot vote on truth or fact (in spite of what postmodernism claims), but you can most certainly vote on beauty.

Rarely is a vote on the truth or fact of a matter.  Rather it's a vote on action
to be taken in response to the alleged truth or fact.  Insofar as there is no
compulsion to act, there is no compulsion to make propositions.