If I tell you it will increase your happiness to hit yourself on the head with a hammer, your response is going to have to amount to “no, that’s not true”.
I’ll just decide not to follow the advice, or I’ll try it out and then after experiencing pain I will decide not to follow the advice again. I might tell you that, too, but I don’t need to use the word “true” or any equivalent to do that. I can just say it didn’t work.
People have been known to follow really bad advice, sometimes to their detriment and suffering a lot of pain along the way.
Some people have followed excessively stringent diets to the point of malnutrition or death. (This isn’t intended as a swipe at CR—people have been known to go a lot farther than that.)
People have attempted (for years or decades) to shut down their sexual feelings because they think their God wants it.
I’ll just decide not to follow the advice, or I’ll try it out and then after experiencing pain I will decide not to follow the advice again. I might tell you that, too, but I don’t need to use the word “true” or any equivalent to do that. I can just say it didn’t work.
Any word can be eliminated in favour of a definitions or paraphrase. Not coming out with an equivalent—showing that you have dispensed with the concept—is harder. Why didn’t it work? You’re going to have to paraphrase “Because it wasn’t true” or refuse to answer.
The concept of truth is for utility, not utility for truth. To get them backwards is to merely be confused by the words themselves. It’s impossible to show you’ve dispensed with any concept, except to show that it isn’t useful for what you’re doing. That is what I’ve done. I’m non-cognitive to God, truth, and objective value (except as recently defined). Usually they all sound like religion, though they all are or were at one time useful approximate means of expressing things in English.
The concept of truth is for utility, not utility for truth.
Truth is useful for whatever you want to do with it. If people can collect stamps for the sake of collecting stamps, they can collect truths for the sake of collecting truths.
I’m non-cognitive to God, truth, and objective value (except as recently defined). Usually they all sound like religion
Sounding like religion would not render something incomprehensible...but it could
easilly provoke an “I don’t like it” reaction, which is then dignified with the label “incoherent” or whatever.
I missed this:
I’ll just decide not to follow the advice, or I’ll try it out and then after experiencing pain I will decide not to follow the advice again. I might tell you that, too, but I don’t need to use the word “true” or any equivalent to do that. I can just say it didn’t work.
People have been known to follow really bad advice, sometimes to their detriment and suffering a lot of pain along the way.
Some people have followed excessively stringent diets to the point of malnutrition or death. (This isn’t intended as a swipe at CR—people have been known to go a lot farther than that.)
People have attempted (for years or decades) to shut down their sexual feelings because they think their God wants it.
Any word can be eliminated in favour of a definitions or paraphrase. Not coming out with an equivalent—showing that you have dispensed with the concept—is harder. Why didn’t it work? You’re going to have to paraphrase “Because it wasn’t true” or refuse to answer.
The concept of truth is for utility, not utility for truth. To get them backwards is to merely be confused by the words themselves. It’s impossible to show you’ve dispensed with any concept, except to show that it isn’t useful for what you’re doing. That is what I’ve done. I’m non-cognitive to God, truth, and objective value (except as recently defined). Usually they all sound like religion, though they all are or were at one time useful approximate means of expressing things in English.
Truth is useful for whatever you want to do with it. If people can collect stamps for the sake of collecting stamps, they can collect truths for the sake of collecting truths.
Sounding like religion would not render something incomprehensible...but it could easilly provoke an “I don’t like it” reaction, which is then dignified with the label “incoherent” or whatever.