James Devine wrote:
... I didn't say that "truth" doesn't exist without minds. I said that "understandings of truth" (i.e., propositions) don't exist without minds, while of course propositions are often false....
This doesn't make any sense to me. In their usual sense,
"truth"
and "falsity" are characteristics of *propositions*,
and of nothing else.
Nor do propositions require minds to exist (though they do
require minds to come into existence). That this
proposition is true
can be easily understood by imagining that the universe,
without
changing in any other way, became completely mindless.
The
propositions given material form in this e-mail would by
definition
continue to exist, even though there would be no minds left
to
appreciate their truth.
Shane Mage
"When we read on a printed page the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems mystical, mystifying, even downright silly.
"When we read on a printed page the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems mystical, mystifying, even downright silly.
When we read on a computer screen the doctrine of Pythagoras that
all things are made of numbers, it seems self-evidently true."
(N. Weiner)
