On falsity, conjecture and truth

[CommieBastard]

This is sort of a follow on from the thread 'On Language'.

In that thread i concluded that language is a tool used to point us to the concepts within our minds which hold the real meaning, and that it is superimposed over these concepts and their functioning.

But to what extent can we put these ideas to a use?

I would say that one important element of language is the extent to which it is thought to portray truth or falsity.

If we look at language, which is a complex system if man-made, it can be said at times to obviously hold falsity. For example, if we were to say "That is a cat and not a cat" we can know that the sentence is false, it is self-contradictory and therefore doesn't refer to any concept in any way.
Furthermore, a sentence can be said to be false if though coherent, it doesn't apply to anything which exists, yet asserts that it does. For example "There exists a God". There is no concept which exists to which the word 'God' points. A more appropriate sentence might be "There might exist a God". Though the speaker may not like being that uncertain, if they cannot point to anything which actually IS God, then this is the most truthful way in which they can speak.
There is also falsity where someone constructs a concept using language, out of other concepts or parts of other concepts which do exist. Take the unicorn for example, it is something which is false which has been created out of the concepts of a horse and a horn. I would argue that some connotations of the word Freedom are also 'unicorns'.
What of those sentences which we cannot falsify, but also cannot prove? These are conjectures. They are as likely as anything else that might be said to be true, but cannot be shown to be true or false either way. I would argue that conjectures are a reasonable guide when we do not know the truth, but are generally a bunch of grade A asscrap.
What of the truth then? I would say for something to qualify as the truth it would have to refer to a concept which is indubitably in existence, and do so coherently and without contradiction.

Some would argue that there is no such thing. Absurdists and Nihilists, for example.

[Trissy]

Well you can object to your system without being an Absurdist or a Nihilist. The problem with the epistemological system you have just described (which closely resembles Logical Positivism if I'm not mistaken) is that it is self-refuting. What you have just described is not a priori true or false (and so not an analytic proposition), and nor is it a synthetic proposition that is true or false a posteriori. This reduces it to the status of a conjecture, or what the Logical Positivists called a meaningless proposition.

[CommieBastard]

It is very much a synthetic proposition that is true or false a posteriori.
Every element of our thought is synthetic, whereas it is reality that is not synthetic.
We cannot interact directly with reality, and so the human mind is geared towards creating a synthetic reality within which we consider ourselves to operate, so that we can functionally operate with the source reality.
How well we functionally operate depends directly on the correlation of the synthetic reality with the actual one, or to put it another way, how 'truthful' our synthetic reality is.
That is to say, we correlate our a posteriori conclusions with the reality that contains the a priori fact.

I also conclude that we can only know of that element of the actual reality that contains our synthetic reality (as synthesis must exist within actuality)

[Trissy]

It is very much a synthetic proposition that is true or false a posteriori.
Whereas it could be a synthetic proposition in Kantian terminology it is still very debatable whether it is true of false a posteriori. How can you verify it empirically? I presume of course that it is not verifiable rationally....

It appears that I cannot prove Logical Positivism either through my sense or through my mind. If you feel confident at doing so then I welcome any attempt by you to do so but considering the empirical problems of induction (both enumerative induction and inference to the best explanation), deduction, and falsification I feel that it is very doubtful that you could do so. Not meaning to sound any more of an ass than I normally do, I would also say that since both A.J. Ayer and Wittgenstein both acknowledged the problems with Logical Positivism (despite earlier embracing it) I would be surprised if you managed to construct a successful defense of it.


Every element of our thought is synthetic, whereas it is reality that is not synthetic
Except perhaps those which are analytic or innate...


Every element of our thought is synthetic, whereas it is reality that is not synthetic
Yes but presuming you mean the noumenal world then this is impossible to attack or defend. If the noumenal world is essentially unknowable like Kant and Nietzsche maintained then we cannot make any meaningful and verifiable statements about the world as it really is.


We cannot interact directly with reality, and so the human mind is geared towards creating a synthetic reality within which we consider ourselves to operate, so that we can functionally operate with the source reality.

Which is basically a statement of the problem of the veil of perception (or veil of appearance)...


How well we functionally operate depends directly on the correlation of the synthetic reality with the actual one, or to put it another way, how 'truthful' our synthetic reality is.

...but since you have stated the problem of the veil of perception then we have no way of telling whether the noumenal world correlates with the phenomenal world. You cannot bridge the gap between subjective/phenomenal experiences and the objective/noumenal world. Berkeley's Immaterialism takes this to the extreme by even denying the existence of a noumenal reality outside of the mind.


That is to say, we correlate our a posteriori conclusions with the reality that contains the a priori fact.
Whereas it might follow that a posteriori conclusions differ from a priori facts, you have still provided no mechanism by which we can differentiate the noumenal world and phenomenal one.


I also conclude that we can only know of that element of the actual reality that contains our synthetic reality
Yes but you still haven't said what you are confidently basing this on. We can accept that we can only ever know the world we experience through our senses, but it is impossible to say whether there is a world underlying our senses and that creates these experiences. This is even before we can consider whether the two worlds are similar in any way.


as synthesis must exist within actuality
I don't even know how to respond to this since it strikes me as somewhat abstract Kantian and Hegelian jargon :blink: