(April 9, 2019 at 8:10 am)Acrobat Wrote:(April 9, 2019 at 8:02 am)robvalue Wrote: The person using an abstract mathematical system. It’s true because we say it’s true. That doesn’t mean it necessarily correlates to reality in any meaningful way; it doesn’t have to. Be careful not to conflate mathematics with the applications of mathematics.
No one. They can say it’s wrong in their opinion, or according to some set of moral rules they draw up. Again, "wrong" is a highly subjective term.
Yes, torturing babies for fun is wrong, in my opinion. Make of that what you will.
No one gets to say anything about reality is true, only that they find certain evidence convincing of a hypothesis, and that they would expect people to agree. Anyone can say that statements are true about abstract systems they are in control of, such as 1+1=2. It’s true because I say it’s true, with respect to this particular abstract system. If it wasn’t true, it wouldn’t be my system.
Okay, so in your view there's no such thing as objective truth, not just when it comes to morality, or values, or meaning, but in regards to any truth.
1+1 = 2 is internally true. We know what the numbers mean and what they correlate to. Is 1+1 = 2 Objectively true? Hard for me to say, because all of mathematics is a priori and abstract, as I understand it. And to say something to be objectively true, then it has to be true without subjective "interference".
I think most people agree that there exists an external world to ourselves, otherwise we'll simply regress to solipsism, which I find to be useless because it has no real explanatory power.
Are axioms objectively true? If so, which ones?
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool." - Richard P. Feynman
