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So you are essentially saying that you can keep your own ideas of “objective semantics” because you can dismiss people who disagree with you Which means you ha

by nico 3y ago

So you are essentially saying that you can keep your own ideas of “objective semantics” because you can dismiss people who disagree with you Which means you have a subjective definition of the meaning of “objective semantics” Objective doesn’t exist Everyone can assign their own meaning and not agree on what something means We are doing it right now on this thread You might say that there is an objective reality or truth regardless of whatever anyone else says, but you can’t prove that Your whole life experience is subjective, and you can never detach from it, you (nor anyone) can ever have an objective experience of anything You believing that there is some sort of objective anything is just your own subjective belief

vacuity 3y ago
There are objective truths in the world. Or, to be more precise, there are objective truth's in each person's "world", their sense of reality. "1 + 1 = 2" is objectively true given a certain system of axioms and theorems that are generally understood. Yes, you need to include that context to be objective, but that doesn't make it invalid. Another objective fact that I can confidently say is that I can think. Does that mean I know I'm not living in a simulation? Of course not, but some way or another, my perception of the world includes my thoughts. I can't prove to you that I think, because Hacker News might just be glitching and sending this reply to you (or maybe it's the simulation overseers, ha!), but I know that I think. How? Because I think. Why? I don't know and I don't care that much. > You might say that there is an objective reality or truth regardless of whatever anyone else says, but you can’t prove that I get what you mean here, and I agree, but it's untrue that "1 + 1 = 2" can't be objectively true. It can, as long as certain semantics are applied. A sufficiently smart alien that understands what we mean by "1", "+", "=", "2", the set of integers, what a field is, and so on can only reasonably conclude the same. It also isn't objectively true that there are no objective truths in the sense of "racism bad". We can't know if it's objectively true, but given the context of, well, the world, maybe it is an objective truth. Not that it matters, since we can't know, but still. Although you could argue that those statements shouldn't be considered statements anymore.

by nico 3y ago

vacuity 3y ago

There are objective truths in the world. Or, to be more precise, there are objective truth's in each person's "world", their sense of reality. "1 + 1 = 2" is objectively true given a certain system of axioms and theorems that are generally understood. Yes, you need to include that context to be objective, but that doesn't make it invalid. Another objective fact that I can confidently say is that I can think. Does that mean I know I'm not living in a simulation? Of course not, but some way or another, my perception of the world includes my thoughts. I can't prove to you that I think, because Hacker News might just be glitching and sending this reply to you (or maybe it's the simulation overseers, ha!), but I know that I think. How? Because I think. Why? I don't know and I don't care that much. > You might say that there is an objective reality or truth regardless of whatever anyone else says, but you can’t prove that I get what you mean here, and I agree, but it's untrue that "1 + 1 = 2" can't be objectively true. It can, as long as certain semantics are applied. A sufficiently smart alien that understands what we mean by "1", "+", "=", "2", the set of integers, what a field is, and so on can only reasonably conclude the same. It also isn't objectively true that there are no objective truths in the sense of "racism bad". We can't know if it's objectively true, but given the context of, well, the world, maybe it is an objective truth. Not that it matters, since we can't know, but still. Although you could argue that those statements shouldn't be considered statements anymore.