Definitional contradictions are impossible. For example, I can say that I will encounter a married bachelor, or a non-female vixen, with P=0. This doesn’t actually say anything about the world; I could figure out that there are no married bachelors without leaving in my room, simply by knowing that bachelor is defined as “man who is not married.” Mathematical truths (like 2+2=4) and non-contradiction (as mentioned deeper in this thread with the buttering of pancakes) are specific instances of definitional contradiction.
You’re generally right, though. Truths that actually involve looking at the world, i.e. ones that are not inherently about language, cannot have P=0 or P=1.
Actually, certain truths about the self and “subjective” experience may also hit P=0 and P=1. It seems I can be certain of my existence, even if I can’t be certain of what I am or what causes my existence. I can also be certain that there exists some X such that X exists. I also think I can be certain that it looks like there’s a computer screen in front of me, that my knee feels slightly uncomfortable, and that I am literate. All of this seems to have P=1; the implied causes may be false—I may not actually have knees, for example—but I certainly do seem to be having the sense-experience. I don’t think this contradicts your point in any practical sense, though.
I don’t know if what I’m about to say is a nitpick, but I think it’s relevant to the issue, so I’ll say it anyway:
Definitional contradictions are impossible. For example, I can say that I will encounter a married bachelor, … with P=0. This doesn’t actually say anything about the world; I could figure out that there are no married bachelors without leaving in my room, simply by knowing that bachelor is defined as “man who is not married.”
But words have histories behind them, and there is a reason why the term “bachelor” exists. The term “bachelor” carries connotations that go beyond simply “union(male,~married)”. To borrow from an example from Hubert Dreyfus (and do forgive me for reading him), if I told you I was having a party and I wanted you to bring bachelors, would you consider bringing priests or gay men?
What’s actually happening is that we believe “bachelor” has one meaning, while expecting people to imagine a different clump of conceptspace (“connotation”) when we actually use it.
Only when you confine the issue into being a purely logcal one, with “bachelor”, “man”, etc. as suggestively-named LISP tokens can you identify purely logical (P = 0 or 1) truths. But at that point, you’ve destroyed the mutual information between those words and the outside world, including the usage of those terms in the outside world. And in that case, your statement is no longer about bachelors, but rather, about abstract logical relationships in Platonic space.
Definitional contradictions are impossible. For example, I can say that I will encounter a married bachelor, or a non-female vixen, with P=0. This doesn’t actually say anything about the world; I could figure out that there are no married bachelors without leaving in my room, simply by knowing that bachelor is defined as “man who is not married.” Mathematical truths (like 2+2=4) and non-contradiction (as mentioned deeper in this thread with the buttering of pancakes) are specific instances of definitional contradiction.
You’re generally right, though. Truths that actually involve looking at the world, i.e. ones that are not inherently about language, cannot have P=0 or P=1.
Actually, certain truths about the self and “subjective” experience may also hit P=0 and P=1. It seems I can be certain of my existence, even if I can’t be certain of what I am or what causes my existence. I can also be certain that there exists some X such that X exists. I also think I can be certain that it looks like there’s a computer screen in front of me, that my knee feels slightly uncomfortable, and that I am literate. All of this seems to have P=1; the implied causes may be false—I may not actually have knees, for example—but I certainly do seem to be having the sense-experience. I don’t think this contradicts your point in any practical sense, though.
I don’t know if what I’m about to say is a nitpick, but I think it’s relevant to the issue, so I’ll say it anyway:
But words have histories behind them, and there is a reason why the term “bachelor” exists. The term “bachelor” carries connotations that go beyond simply “union(male,~married)”. To borrow from an example from Hubert Dreyfus (and do forgive me for reading him), if I told you I was having a party and I wanted you to bring bachelors, would you consider bringing priests or gay men?
What’s actually happening is that we believe “bachelor” has one meaning, while expecting people to imagine a different clump of conceptspace (“connotation”) when we actually use it.
Only when you confine the issue into being a purely logcal one, with “bachelor”, “man”, etc. as suggestively-named LISP tokens can you identify purely logical (P = 0 or 1) truths. But at that point, you’ve destroyed the mutual information between those words and the outside world, including the usage of those terms in the outside world. And in that case, your statement is no longer about bachelors, but rather, about abstract logical relationships in Platonic space.
Another failure mode of arguing from a definition is that you could be wrong about the definition.