Yes, exactly, you get it. I’m not sure what confusion remains or you think remains. The only point seems here:
But of course it wouldn’t. What? This seems completely unrelated to compellingness (universal or otherwise). I have but to build a mind that does not implement the procedure in question, or doesn’t implement it for some specific argument(s), or does implement it but then someone reverses it (cf. Eliezer’s “little grey man”), etc.
The counterfactual I’m proposing with C is exactly one that would allow not just any mind, but literally anything at all to comprehend A. The existence of C would create a universe wholly unlike our own, which is why I think we’re all in agreement that the existence of such a thing is extremely unlikely even though we can’t formally prove that it doesn’t exist.
It seems that you don’t get it. Said just demonstrated that even if C exists it wouldn’t imply a universally compelling argument.
In other words, this:
Suppose we know the criterion of truth, C; that is, there exists (not counterfactually but actually as in anyone can observe this thing) a procedure/algorithm to assess if any given statement is true. Let P be a statement. Then there exists some argument, A, contingent on C such that A implies P or ~P. Thus for all P we can know if P or ~P.
This would make A universally compelling, i.e. A is a mind-independent argument for the truth value of all statements that would convince even rocks.
appears to be a total non sequitur. How does the existence of an algorithm enable you to convince a rock of anything? At a minimum, an algorithm needs to be implemented on a computer… Your statement, and therefore your conclusion that C doesn’t exist, doesn’t follow at all.
(Note: In this comment, I am not claiming that C (as you’ve defined it) exists, or agreeing that it needs to exist for any of my criticisms to hold.)
It seems that you don’t get it. Said just demonstrated that even if C exists it wouldn’t imply a universally compelling argument.
So what? Neither the existence or non existence of a Criterion of Truth that is persuasive to our minds is implied by the (non) existence of universally compelling arguments. The issue of universally compelling arguments is a red herring.
See my other comment, but assuming to know something about how to compute C would just already be part of C by definition. It’s very hard to talk about the criterion of truth without accidentally saying something that implies it’s not true because it’s an unknowable thing we can’t grasp onto. C is basically a statement that, if included in a valid argument about the truth of P, causes the argument to tell us either P or ~P. That’s definitionally what it means to be able to know the criterion of truth.
That you want to deny C is great, because I think (as I’m finding with Said), that we already agree, and any disagreement is the consequence of misunderstanding, probably because it comes too close to sounding to you like a position that I would also reject, and the rest of the fundamental disagreement is one of sentiment, perspective, having worked out the details, and emphasis.
C is basically a statement that, if included in a valid argument about the truth of P, causes the argument to tell us either P or ~P. That’s definitionally what it means to be able to know the criterion of truth.
That’s not how algorithms work and seems… incoherent.
That you want to deny C is great,
I did not say that either.
because I think (as I’m finding with Said), that we already agree, and any disagreement is the consequence of misunderstanding, probably because it comes too close to sounding to you like a position that I would also reject, and the rest of the fundamental disagreement is one of sentiment, perspective, having worked out the details, and emphasis.
No, I don’t think we do agree. It seems to me you’re deeply confused about all of this stuff.
Here’s an exercise: Say that we replace “C” by a specific concrete algorithm. For instance the elementary long multiplication algorithm used by primary school children to multiply numbers.
Does anything whatsoever about your argument change with this substitution? Have we proved that we can explain multiplication to a rock? Or perhaps we’ve proved that this algorithm doesn’t exist, and neither do schools?
Another exercise: suppose, as a counterfactual, that Laplace’s demon exists, and furthermore likes answering questions. Now we can take a specific algorithm C: “ask the demon your question, and await the answer, which will be received within the minute”. By construction this algorithm always returns the correct answer. Now, your task is to give the algorithm, given only these premises, that I can follow to convince a rock that Euclid’s theorem is true.
Given that I still think after all this trying that you are confused and that I never wanted to put this much work into the comments on this post, I give up trying to explain further as we are making no progress. I unfortunately just don’t have the energy to devote to this right now to see it through. Sorry.
The counterfactual I’m proposing with C is exactly one that would allow not just any mind, but literally anything at all to comprehend A. The existence of C would create a universe wholly unlike our own, which is why I think we’re all in agreement that the existence of such a thing is extremely unlikely even though we can’t formally prove that it doesn’t exist.
Ok, this is… far weirder than anything I thought you had in mind when you talked about the “knowability of the criterion of truth”. As far as I can tell, this scenario is… incoherent. Certainly it’s extremely bizarre. I guess you agree with that part, at least.
But… what is it that you think the non-reality of this scenario implies? How do you get from “our universe is not, in fact, at all like this bizarre possibly-incoherent hypothetical scenario” to… anything about rationality, in our universe?
Well if you don’t have C, then you have to build up the truth some other way because you don’t have the ability to ground yourself directly in it because truth exists in the map rather than the territory. So then you are left to ground yourself in what you do find in the territory, and I’d describe the thing you find there as telos or will rather than truth because it doesn’t really look like truth. Truth is a thing we have to create for ourselves rather than extract. The rest follows from that.
Yes, exactly, you get it. I’m not sure what confusion remains or you think remains. The only point seems here:
The counterfactual I’m proposing with C is exactly one that would allow not just any mind, but literally anything at all to comprehend A. The existence of C would create a universe wholly unlike our own, which is why I think we’re all in agreement that the existence of such a thing is extremely unlikely even though we can’t formally prove that it doesn’t exist.
It seems that you don’t get it. Said just demonstrated that even if C exists it wouldn’t imply a universally compelling argument.
In other words, this:
appears to be a total non sequitur. How does the existence of an algorithm enable you to convince a rock of anything? At a minimum, an algorithm needs to be implemented on a computer… Your statement, and therefore your conclusion that C doesn’t exist, doesn’t follow at all.
(Note: In this comment, I am not claiming that C (as you’ve defined it) exists, or agreeing that it needs to exist for any of my criticisms to hold.)
So what? Neither the existence or non existence of a Criterion of Truth that is persuasive to our minds is implied by the (non) existence of universally compelling arguments. The issue of universally compelling arguments is a red herring.
See my other comment, but assuming to know something about how to compute C would just already be part of C by definition. It’s very hard to talk about the criterion of truth without accidentally saying something that implies it’s not true because it’s an unknowable thing we can’t grasp onto. C is basically a statement that, if included in a valid argument about the truth of P, causes the argument to tell us either P or ~P. That’s definitionally what it means to be able to know the criterion of truth.
That you want to deny C is great, because I think (as I’m finding with Said), that we already agree, and any disagreement is the consequence of misunderstanding, probably because it comes too close to sounding to you like a position that I would also reject, and the rest of the fundamental disagreement is one of sentiment, perspective, having worked out the details, and emphasis.
That’s not how algorithms work and seems… incoherent.
I did not say that either.
No, I don’t think we do agree. It seems to me you’re deeply confused about all of this stuff.
Here’s an exercise: Say that we replace “C” by a specific concrete algorithm. For instance the elementary long multiplication algorithm used by primary school children to multiply numbers.
Does anything whatsoever about your argument change with this substitution? Have we proved that we can explain multiplication to a rock? Or perhaps we’ve proved that this algorithm doesn’t exist, and neither do schools?
Another exercise: suppose, as a counterfactual, that Laplace’s demon exists, and furthermore likes answering questions. Now we can take a specific algorithm C: “ask the demon your question, and await the answer, which will be received within the minute”. By construction this algorithm always returns the correct answer. Now, your task is to give the algorithm, given only these premises, that I can follow to convince a rock that Euclid’s theorem is true.
Given that I still think after all this trying that you are confused and that I never wanted to put this much work into the comments on this post, I give up trying to explain further as we are making no progress. I unfortunately just don’t have the energy to devote to this right now to see it through. Sorry.
Ok, this is… far weirder than anything I thought you had in mind when you talked about the “knowability of the criterion of truth”. As far as I can tell, this scenario is… incoherent. Certainly it’s extremely bizarre. I guess you agree with that part, at least.
But… what is it that you think the non-reality of this scenario implies? How do you get from “our universe is not, in fact, at all like this bizarre possibly-incoherent hypothetical scenario” to… anything about rationality, in our universe?
Well if you don’t have C, then you have to build up the truth some other way because you don’t have the ability to ground yourself directly in it because truth exists in the map rather than the territory. So then you are left to ground yourself in what you do find in the territory, and I’d describe the thing you find there as telos or will rather than truth because it doesn’t really look like truth. Truth is a thing we have to create for ourselves rather than extract. The rest follows from that.