@Benny. Okay I'm up to date on the thread and I agree with Rhythm and think that you're equivocating. You seem to be doing exactly what I'm hoping studying philosophy will stop me from doing. Ie if you want to have a meaningful discussion, especially in philosophy and logic where words really matter, you have to be clear on the meaning/definitions of those words, and not using a different meaning than everyone else is... otherwise you'll just talk past each other as you've been doing. This applies both to you using a different definition of truth than Rhythm... his being philosophical/logical truth... and what in the context of this discussion should probably be considered the default definition of truth... it is the philosophy forum after all 
So arguably the burden should be on you, rather than him to define a different usage of the word if one is being used... and to what you say about truth-in-context; sure there can be different truth values in different contexts but the way around that is simply to define which one you mean when you're talking about it or using it as part of a logical argument... otherwise it is equivocation as I understand the term and can only lead to confusion.
I had exactly the same problem at the beginning of this thread by talking about neural truth rather than philosophical truth... though granted I did say at the very beginning that my first post may or may not be relevant and it was just a thought dump... but later on, when I actually got into discussion with Mud, it became more and more clear that there was conflation/equivocation going on and that we weren't going to get anywhere... and that was my fault. Now I've resumed I don't want to make the same mistakes, hence saying to you that I make no claims (as yet) about how my neural theories relate to truth [in this philosophical context]... so as I see it there's no equivocation as long as I do not make any positive claims about philosophical truth based on it without first defining my use of the term and how it relates to the matter at hand.
I'm not ready to do that because I have yet to confirm to my own satisfaction the link between what we call philosophical truth... ie the truths arrived at by deductive or inductive logic... and neural 'truth' ie activation. I'm sure there is a correspondence but until I can translate this process of 'willful' logic into NN dynamics, such that I understand what's going on neurally at every stage of the reasoning process... only then can I personally consider them equivalent and be able to say to myself (rightly or wrongly... it is a theory after all) this phenomenal reasoning process translates into these neural processes, representations, and/or states.
I think I've made a pretty good start on that with my ABCD post, but whether my theory is good or bad doesn't make any difference whatsoever to you, anyone else, or the logical argument because all we're talking about is philosophical truth; so if I want to engage in that discussion I have to talk in those terms and so the only way neural truth - as I understand it from my theories - can enter the discussion is through equivalence, and if so then just as with phenomena I should be able to use the terms interchangeably, and therefore stick to the philosophical usage. All it would mean was that for me it would have neural 'backup' as it were that could in theory provide insight but whatever insight it did provide would still have to be put into logical/philosophical form before it could be used in an argument, so again, it makes no difference to you whether I'm right or wrong in my theory of mind.
Anyway, onto your other points. I don't really know what to say; we can't know about what exists outside our 'mundane' environment/context (ie the known universe), if anything. At best all it can be is theories but with no way to prove them. We can't know if there are any uber-patterns that explain things in this universe, or even outright contradict what we think we know about things. But I don't think that's cause to give up as it were on the environment we do have access to... it's all we've got regardless of what underlies it, if anything extra. There are still plenty of environment/context dependent truths and patterns to be found. They may not be the uber-truth, but if they're good enough to withstand logical/scientific scrutiny then they're stable enough to be useful. Like your photons... even if there is a larger pattern behind them that we can never know, and even if our scientific theories about them would be contradicted by that, the theories in place still make solid predictions about them and thus in all practical terms it doesn't matter.
So arguably the burden should be on you, rather than him to define a different usage of the word if one is being used... and to what you say about truth-in-context; sure there can be different truth values in different contexts but the way around that is simply to define which one you mean when you're talking about it or using it as part of a logical argument... otherwise it is equivocation as I understand the term and can only lead to confusion. I had exactly the same problem at the beginning of this thread by talking about neural truth rather than philosophical truth... though granted I did say at the very beginning that my first post may or may not be relevant and it was just a thought dump... but later on, when I actually got into discussion with Mud, it became more and more clear that there was conflation/equivocation going on and that we weren't going to get anywhere... and that was my fault. Now I've resumed I don't want to make the same mistakes, hence saying to you that I make no claims (as yet) about how my neural theories relate to truth [in this philosophical context]... so as I see it there's no equivocation as long as I do not make any positive claims about philosophical truth based on it without first defining my use of the term and how it relates to the matter at hand.
I'm not ready to do that because I have yet to confirm to my own satisfaction the link between what we call philosophical truth... ie the truths arrived at by deductive or inductive logic... and neural 'truth' ie activation. I'm sure there is a correspondence but until I can translate this process of 'willful' logic into NN dynamics, such that I understand what's going on neurally at every stage of the reasoning process... only then can I personally consider them equivalent and be able to say to myself (rightly or wrongly... it is a theory after all) this phenomenal reasoning process translates into these neural processes, representations, and/or states.
I think I've made a pretty good start on that with my ABCD post, but whether my theory is good or bad doesn't make any difference whatsoever to you, anyone else, or the logical argument because all we're talking about is philosophical truth; so if I want to engage in that discussion I have to talk in those terms and so the only way neural truth - as I understand it from my theories - can enter the discussion is through equivalence, and if so then just as with phenomena I should be able to use the terms interchangeably, and therefore stick to the philosophical usage. All it would mean was that for me it would have neural 'backup' as it were that could in theory provide insight but whatever insight it did provide would still have to be put into logical/philosophical form before it could be used in an argument, so again, it makes no difference to you whether I'm right or wrong in my theory of mind.
Anyway, onto your other points. I don't really know what to say; we can't know about what exists outside our 'mundane' environment/context (ie the known universe), if anything. At best all it can be is theories but with no way to prove them. We can't know if there are any uber-patterns that explain things in this universe, or even outright contradict what we think we know about things. But I don't think that's cause to give up as it were on the environment we do have access to... it's all we've got regardless of what underlies it, if anything extra. There are still plenty of environment/context dependent truths and patterns to be found. They may not be the uber-truth, but if they're good enough to withstand logical/scientific scrutiny then they're stable enough to be useful. Like your photons... even if there is a larger pattern behind them that we can never know, and even if our scientific theories about them would be contradicted by that, the theories in place still make solid predictions about them and thus in all practical terms it doesn't matter.
