The Nature of Truth

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@ricochet.net)
Date: Sat May 12 2001 - 12:09:00 MDT


Mitch wrote

>Ben wrote:

<< Real truth seems to be an interesting mix of absolutism
and relativism either extreme attitude is an unproductive one.
I think that a mix of absolutism and relativism is best.
Funnily enough, this is what most humans have evolved to profess.>>

>That seems to best describe the universe, doesn't it?

This still sounds like an attitude of surrender to me. Tarski
nailed down what we should mean by "truth". I agree with those
who advocate the "correspondence theory", which is essentially
that minds map features of the universe, and do so with varying
precision. Highly accurate maps we call true, and inaccurate
maps we call false. We shouldn't give up trying to get our
maps as accurate as possible.

We only need keep in mind, as the great Count Alfred Korzybski
said, "the map is not the territory", (Science and Sanity, 1933).

Lee Korbynsky



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 10:00:04 MDT