First, as I understand, in the beginning you state the problem P: rationality isn’t attractive enough to become everybody’s substitute for religion. Then you propose the solution S: replace “truth” by “veripoop”. I fail to see how S solves P. According to your following arguments, S avoids some conflicts between theists and rationalists, but that’s a different problem from P. We already have tools to avoid the conflicts which work similarly to your proposal (although people are generally too snobbish to say “veripoop” and rather prefer the phrase “separate magisteria”), but many rationalists oppose such policies because they are detrimental to solving S. The goal isn’t to be free to pursue science without much harassment by religious fanatics—this we already have, at least in the developed countries. The goal is to spread true beliefs, and by forgoing the use of “truth”, you strip science of the powerful persuasive connotations of this word.
Second, beginning your argument by “I cannot imagine” doesn’t seem to be a good idea. Most targeted readers probably can imagine a more rational world, and an argument is worth having only if both parties share the premises. You should have gone deeper and provide a justification for your stated certainty, such that the whole structure doesn’t stand on lack of imagination. (The point was already made by other commenters.)
Third point is that you assume that some people need religious beliefs and then act as if that implied no space for further improvement (“how can mere logical, rational, rhetoric be looked to in order to bring about [disempowering organised religion]?”) . But rationality was historically succesful in disempowerig organised religion and you have not shown that today all people who could be deconverted by logic already have been.
Fourth, although we can never be absolutely certain, I suspect that talking about imperfections of human knowledge the way you do it hardly clarifies anything. It is even not clear what you mean by “truth” and what is your point here. “Truth” is only a word and we use it in certain situations. Do you object to that? For example, do you think that the utterance “I think this proposition is true” is somehow inherently wrong and should have “true” substituted by “human-level true” or “veripoop” or whatever, in everyday language? If so, what uses would there remain for “true”?
Fifth, your example with greenness of grass is a fairly typical instance of a definition dispute (in this case the equivocation is in “green”) and has little to do with limits of human knowledge, which you seem to be discussing there.
And of course there are formatting issues. You have probably copied the text from some more advanced editor, which is responsible for the non-standard font and paragraph separation. It makes the text more difficult to read. I would also prefer emphasis realised by italics to ALL CAPS. I suggest you should change the formatting (perhaps by copying the text to some plain text editor, like Windows’s Notepad or Linux’s gedit, and then back). Non-standard formatting can slightly bias people against the article even if its content were perfect.
I give up, because if I have to keep on explaining, then that is proof that I have failed in communication. I never claimed that S solves P. You have to read more carefully and derive a better understanding of the spirit of the thing. I said “I have a possible solution.” I said “what if we successfully substituted. . .” I never proposed to rid our selves of the “truth” word. It should be clear, but obviously it’s not, which is the writer’s fault, that when I said that science is one step down from truth, then the truth word, and the concept it stands for, would remain, but a new word, (and more importantly the concept for wehich it stands) would be placed between falsity and truth. Did you really think that this brief piece was meant to be a serious, all embracing analysis?
Edit:It seems that thre3e is sort of trolling, given the four new user accounts that first commented under this article (tamara, mind, jozsef, gyorgy—come on, two new Hungarian names in one day) and whose writing style resembles that of thre3e. I leave what I have written so far, but refrain from further discussion. Thanks NMJablonski for pointing out.
Did you really think that this brief piece was meant to be a serious, all embracing analysis?
I didn’t know how much serious you were and I suspected that not too much, either because the word you have chosen or because you have sort of denied that. But sometimes I dislike even writings which are not entirely serious. (In particular I don’t like things which are difficult to tell whether they are serious or not.)
I never claimed that S solves P. … I said “I have a possible solution.”
When I hear (paraphrased) “there is a problem P; I have a possible solution S”, it seems natural to interpret that as “S (possibly) solves P”. If I hear “what if we successfully substituted”, it seems natural to see it as a polite way to say “we should substitute”. (I don’t want to argue over it, only am trying to pinpoint from where the misunderstanding may stem.)
science is one step down from truth, then the truth word, and the concept it stands for, would remain, but a new word, (and more importantly the concept for wehich it stands) would be placed between falsity and truth
But science is as close to the truth as one can get, and there are plenty of words which admit the possibility of error if there is a need (hypothesis, claim, conjecture, guess, model, theory). It is not clear what concept you want to introduce which is not already covered by those words.
I give up, because if I have to keep on explaining, then that is proof that I have failed in communication.
If I fail in communication, then that is reason to keep on explaining. You are free to give up if you want of course, and I can well understand it given the overall negative reaction which you haven’t expected, but there is nothing dishonourable with continued explanation.
It’s still me, thre3e, but the thing wouldn’t let me sign in with it. Thank you for the good will that shows up in your reply. I am an old retired academic. I’ve sat through many heated arguments in the faculty club and lounge, but what I found at this website is absolutely new to me. I think that maybe the best way I can convey why I’m soooo amazed is by rendering a few responses as I expected them to come in. Do you actually think that coining a word would slow down terrorists? Dream on fella! OR Every high school kid knows that we have truth with a capital “t,” and we have truth with little “t.” Aren’t we sufficiently supplied already? OR Who knows what may come from little acorns. OR A cogent argument that would deflate all assertions of absolute truth would be very nice to have. You see? These would speak to the subject, and they would give me a chance to promote the idea, if I were so inclined, which I’m not. But when I get responses that point out to me the difference between a scholarly paper and my quick sharing of a momentary whim with folks I had deemed to be fellow academicians, then I am just taken aback. Thanks again for responding as you did. I understand and agree with your points, especially with respect to academic papers.
I have downvoted this.
First, as I understand, in the beginning you state the problem P: rationality isn’t attractive enough to become everybody’s substitute for religion. Then you propose the solution S: replace “truth” by “veripoop”. I fail to see how S solves P. According to your following arguments, S avoids some conflicts between theists and rationalists, but that’s a different problem from P. We already have tools to avoid the conflicts which work similarly to your proposal (although people are generally too snobbish to say “veripoop” and rather prefer the phrase “separate magisteria”), but many rationalists oppose such policies because they are detrimental to solving S. The goal isn’t to be free to pursue science without much harassment by religious fanatics—this we already have, at least in the developed countries. The goal is to spread true beliefs, and by forgoing the use of “truth”, you strip science of the powerful persuasive connotations of this word.
Second, beginning your argument by “I cannot imagine” doesn’t seem to be a good idea. Most targeted readers probably can imagine a more rational world, and an argument is worth having only if both parties share the premises. You should have gone deeper and provide a justification for your stated certainty, such that the whole structure doesn’t stand on lack of imagination. (The point was already made by other commenters.)
Third point is that you assume that some people need religious beliefs and then act as if that implied no space for further improvement (“how can mere logical, rational, rhetoric be looked to in order to bring about [disempowering organised religion]?”) . But rationality was historically succesful in disempowerig organised religion and you have not shown that today all people who could be deconverted by logic already have been.
Fourth, although we can never be absolutely certain, I suspect that talking about imperfections of human knowledge the way you do it hardly clarifies anything. It is even not clear what you mean by “truth” and what is your point here. “Truth” is only a word and we use it in certain situations. Do you object to that? For example, do you think that the utterance “I think this proposition is true” is somehow inherently wrong and should have “true” substituted by “human-level true” or “veripoop” or whatever, in everyday language? If so, what uses would there remain for “true”?
Fifth, your example with greenness of grass is a fairly typical instance of a definition dispute (in this case the equivocation is in “green”) and has little to do with limits of human knowledge, which you seem to be discussing there.
And of course there are formatting issues. You have probably copied the text from some more advanced editor, which is responsible for the non-standard font and paragraph separation. It makes the text more difficult to read. I would also prefer emphasis realised by italics to ALL CAPS. I suggest you should change the formatting (perhaps by copying the text to some plain text editor, like Windows’s Notepad or Linux’s gedit, and then back). Non-standard formatting can slightly bias people against the article even if its content were perfect.
I give up, because if I have to keep on explaining, then that is proof that I have failed in communication. I never claimed that S solves P. You have to read more carefully and derive a better understanding of the spirit of the thing. I said “I have a possible solution.” I said “what if we successfully substituted. . .” I never proposed to rid our selves of the “truth” word. It should be clear, but obviously it’s not, which is the writer’s fault, that when I said that science is one step down from truth, then the truth word, and the concept it stands for, would remain, but a new word, (and more importantly the concept for wehich it stands) would be placed between falsity and truth. Did you really think that this brief piece was meant to be a serious, all embracing analysis?
Edit: It seems that thre3e is sort of trolling, given the four new user accounts that first commented under this article (tamara, mind, jozsef, gyorgy—come on, two new Hungarian names in one day) and whose writing style resembles that of thre3e. I leave what I have written so far, but refrain from further discussion. Thanks NMJablonski for pointing out.
I didn’t know how much serious you were and I suspected that not too much, either because the word you have chosen or because you have sort of denied that. But sometimes I dislike even writings which are not entirely serious. (In particular I don’t like things which are difficult to tell whether they are serious or not.)
When I hear (paraphrased) “there is a problem P; I have a possible solution S”, it seems natural to interpret that as “S (possibly) solves P”. If I hear “what if we successfully substituted”, it seems natural to see it as a polite way to say “we should substitute”. (I don’t want to argue over it, only am trying to pinpoint from where the misunderstanding may stem.)
But science is as close to the truth as one can get, and there are plenty of words which admit the possibility of error if there is a need (hypothesis, claim, conjecture, guess, model, theory). It is not clear what concept you want to introduce which is not already covered by those words.
If I fail in communication, then that is reason to keep on explaining. You are free to give up if you want of course, and I can well understand it given the overall negative reaction which you haven’t expected, but there is nothing dishonourable with continued explanation.
It’s still me, thre3e, but the thing wouldn’t let me sign in with it. Thank you for the good will that shows up in your reply. I am an old retired academic. I’ve sat through many heated arguments in the faculty club and lounge, but what I found at this website is absolutely new to me. I think that maybe the best way I can convey why I’m soooo amazed is by rendering a few responses as I expected them to come in. Do you actually think that coining a word would slow down terrorists? Dream on fella! OR Every high school kid knows that we have truth with a capital “t,” and we have truth with little “t.” Aren’t we sufficiently supplied already? OR Who knows what may come from little acorns. OR A cogent argument that would deflate all assertions of absolute truth would be very nice to have. You see? These would speak to the subject, and they would give me a chance to promote the idea, if I were so inclined, which I’m not. But when I get responses that point out to me the difference between a scholarly paper and my quick sharing of a momentary whim with folks I had deemed to be fellow academicians, then I am just taken aback. Thanks again for responding as you did. I understand and agree with your points, especially with respect to academic papers.