Ron Baker, Pluralitas! wrote:

<keithj43@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1114869722.662026.19620@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...

Ron Baker, Pluralitas! wrote:

<keithj43@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1114838843.943638.129430@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

Ron Baker, Pluralitas! wrote:

(snip)

It is when you try to connect a unique event and a property of

nature

by use of the word 'timeless'.

I don't agree.

Well good for you.

What the hell is the point of saying that?

That is to say your disagreement with my objection
does not advance your position.

I don't agree of course but that would have been a nicer way to put it.

(snip0

I didn't make up "tenseless"; it's a notion philosophers thought

up.

Well then cite references.

Bertrand Russell wrote about tenseless language (you've heard of

him,

right). Philosopher John Perry of Stanford University, jeremey
Butterfield are others. It is a topic with the philosophy of

language.

That's a start. Do you have any links to their statements or

examples

or summaries of their statements on the subject?

Not really, but I'll bet you can look them up.

I found the info from a
bopok by Christian philosopher William Lane Craig called "Time and
Eternity" published by Crossways books. I also know that Christian
philosopher Thomas Talbott has written about the philosophy of
tenseless statements.

(snip0

How is relating timelessness to tenselessness ad hoc?

You made it up. It exists nowhere but in your unsupported
assertions.

If I *had* made it up that would have been a sign of philosophical
genius. Discovering a new way to look at something is not something

to

be ashamed of or dismissed with a phony "ad hoc" charge. But I am

not

that original.

You presented the idea without supporting references.
It appeared to me to be something you made up.

Supporting references? I didn't know that footnotes were a requirement
for causal conversations on the usenet:-).

But I've been thinking about
your "made up" objection. Since *someone* made it up--what with it
being language and all--let's consider that objection. I claim that the
sentence and impliocit grammer of the (alleged) tenseless sentence is
acceptable even though it was contrived by some philosopher because it
communicates clearly something. The sentence "Kennedy [is murdered]
11-22-67" tells you the time of the occurance *and* it describes the
occurance. It doesn't tell you the tense of the statement, it
explicitly tells you whether the alleged event is past, present or
future.]

(snip0

You are making up your own words, meanings, grammar, etc.
If you insist on that there is no communicating with you.

Making up my own words? Where do you think words come from if not

from

people who made them up.

That misrepresents reality. Certainly language is a human invention
but every person does not make up their language.

Philosophers often make up their own words when they are trying to come
up with a way to describe an otherwise difficult concept. They explain
what they mean by those words so that the reader can follow them. I--as
rank and amateur a philosopher as has ever walked the earth--aslo tried
to explain how I was using the words I used--I dind't try to pawn the
words and syntaz off as ordinary language. I am very sorry if I wasn't
clear enough; I wasn't trying to cheat.

I didn't make this up, but when I brought up a
new word I I explained how it was defined.

Let's see supporting references.

The phrase was [is murdered]--bracket included. I explained that the
phrase describes the event but by definition contains no inforamtion
about when the event occurred. That's why you have to add the
date-part.

There's nothing wrong with
that. As for making up my own *grammer*, how do you get that?

'tenseless'.
English has three present tenses, e.g. "I run", "I do run", "I am

running".

Without additional clauses they are somewhat ambiguous and
somewhat like what you call 'tenseless' but they are defined as
the present tense.

Yes. The context of the sentence determines whether they communicate
time information. But the phrase I coined by definition doesn't contain
any time information.

Your 'tenseless' is non-standard and unless you cite
independent supporting references it is something you
made up as far as I can tell.

I wish I had made it up, because that would mean I was extra-creative.
But I acknowledged from the beginning that I was using a non-standard
syntax.

You can make things up if you like but if you want me
to view it as valuable you have to convince me.

Convince you of what? That the non-standard syntax I used communicated
an idea?

Saying that something that is unknown has a 'true' or 'false'
truth value does not have value in my view.

I'm not sure what you mean by "not having a value".

I am a
philosophical realist,

which means I think that truth means
correspondence to reality and that very often there are things that are
true but unknown. I claim that the main element in the sun was hydrogen
even before we knew what hydrogen was, for example. IMO there is
nothing at all strange about something beibng "true but unknown".

Quite the contrary in fact. It misrepresents or obfuscates
the reality. 'Unknown' is 'unknown'. 'Unknown' might be
true. 'Might be true' is not 'true'.

"In the context of knowledge, "might be true" is *synonomous* with
"unknown" and it entails "might be false" as well. All those are
statements about our state of knowledge. But IMO the statement "the sun
is mostly hydrogen" was true even before the science began, even though
we didn't back then know the comnposition of the sun.

What is the truth value of "Saddam snores 1/1/06"?
What value or worth is any answer other than 'unknown'?

IN formal logic, the possible truth-values of a statement are "true" or
"false". IMO "unknown" just means we don't *know* which truth value
applies to the statement. It doesn't implythere *isn't* one.