Whetever it is a weaker statement or not isn’t the point. I only brought it up because it made me change the way I think about mathematics and the world.
While I don’t know what you mean by “any story is as good as any other”, I do not believe that it is possible to give truth a honest definition which would leave no open questions about the very nature of truth, while still being entirely objective.
While I don’t know what you mean by “any story is as good as any other”
Well, let’s say I believe that I can fly by will alone. You, on the other hand, believe that I cannot fly by will alone. Which one of us is right ? If truth is entirely subjective, then we’re both “right”, in the sense that we both have some sort of a story in our heads regarding flight, and in our respective worldviews this story makes perfect sense, and since there’s no objective standard for truth (at least, none that we can access in any way), the stories are all that matters. Thus, all stories are equally true, just by the virtue of being stories.
According to a weaker interpretation of your statements, however, one of us is probably closer to the truth than the other. More specifically, it is very likely that my belief about my ability to fly by will alone is false. It’s still not 100% likely, of course—there’s always that chance that we live in the Matrix, or that I’m a superhero, or that by “flight” I really mean “pretending to fly without physically moving”, etc. -- but such chances quite small. Thus, for all practical purposes, we can say, “Bugmaster’s belief about flight is false”, with the understanding that we can never be 100% sure.
There could be other interpretations of your claims, of course; these are just the two I could come up with. I could support the second interpretation, though whether it applies to math or not is highly debatable. However, if you support the first interpretation, or if you don’t place any significant value on reason, then any further discussion on the topic is pointless—because, by definition, there’s nothing I can say that will make any difference to you.
Whetever it is a weaker statement or not isn’t the point. I only brought it up because it made me change the way I think about mathematics and the world. While I don’t know what you mean by “any story is as good as any other”, I do not believe that it is possible to give truth a honest definition which would leave no open questions about the very nature of truth, while still being entirely objective.
Well, let’s say I believe that I can fly by will alone. You, on the other hand, believe that I cannot fly by will alone. Which one of us is right ? If truth is entirely subjective, then we’re both “right”, in the sense that we both have some sort of a story in our heads regarding flight, and in our respective worldviews this story makes perfect sense, and since there’s no objective standard for truth (at least, none that we can access in any way), the stories are all that matters. Thus, all stories are equally true, just by the virtue of being stories.
According to a weaker interpretation of your statements, however, one of us is probably closer to the truth than the other. More specifically, it is very likely that my belief about my ability to fly by will alone is false. It’s still not 100% likely, of course—there’s always that chance that we live in the Matrix, or that I’m a superhero, or that by “flight” I really mean “pretending to fly without physically moving”, etc. -- but such chances quite small. Thus, for all practical purposes, we can say, “Bugmaster’s belief about flight is false”, with the understanding that we can never be 100% sure.
There could be other interpretations of your claims, of course; these are just the two I could come up with. I could support the second interpretation, though whether it applies to math or not is highly debatable. However, if you support the first interpretation, or if you don’t place any significant value on reason, then any further discussion on the topic is pointless—because, by definition, there’s nothing I can say that will make any difference to you.