Re: Reification

From: "pat hayes" <phayes@ai.uwf.edu>

>From Seth:
> > > >Maybe that's because open world Truth is impossible too.  Rather
Truth is
> > > >relative to [an] active processes. Perhaps the best we can hope for
is a kind
> > > >of propositional attitude that each agent calculates for it's self.

> >If someone creates a formal system in which all axioms, syntax, and
> >operations are specified;  then the statements of such a system can be
> >considered True\False and we can operate on that state with negation.  I
> >would call such a system "closed".  The opposite situation is where the
> >axioms and operations are not all known - perhaps the only thing that is
> >known is the syntax of the statements.  I would call such a system
"open".

>From Pat:
> OK. This is the normal case that formal logic deals with and to which
> the terms 'true' and 'false' usually apply. If I say that P is true,
> I havn't thereby said anything about anything else, or claimed that
> the world is closed or limited in any way other than that P has to be
> true in it, or pre-empted anything that anyone else might want to say
> about the world (unless they diasagree with me on this one
> proposition, of course) . For example, if I say that Foodles exist, I
> am not saying that nothing but Foodles exist. (I am also not saying
> that the opposite, by the way: I'm just not saying anything about the
> rest of the world at all, so it can be anything it wants to be
> without my claim being false; just so long as it has some Foodles in
> it.)

Well yes, but if literally all you say is {P is True}, you haven't said
anything much at all.   Don't you also need to specifiy all of your axioms,
operations, and syntactic structures before your single statement means
anything ?   So I am considering all of that which entails your {P is True}
closes and restrains your world accordingly.    I had though that was
necessary for a "formal logic" system to be functional.

Why are you not mentioning that now?

> > In other words Truth in the real world and on the web is
> >relative.
>
> Relative to what?

Relative to an active process (see first message above).

Seth

Received on Monday, 9 April 2001 17:40:18 UTC