Lester Zick wrote:

On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 22:21:25 -0500, Tony Orlow <tony@lightlink.com>
wrote:

Lester Zick wrote:

On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 00:06:40 -0500, Tony Orlow <tony@lightlink.com>
wrote:

Lester Zick wrote:

On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 18:04:27 -0500, Tony Orlow <tony@lightlink.com>
wrote:

No one says a set of points IS in fact the constitution of physical
object.
Whether it is rightly the constitution of a mentally formed object
(such as a geometric object), that seems to be an issue of arbitration
and convention, not of truth. Is the concept of "blue" a correct one?

PD

The truth of the "convention" of considering higher geometric objects to
be "sets" of points is ascertained by the conclusions one can draw from
that consideration, which are rather limited.

"blue" is not a statement with a truth value of any sort, without a
context or parameter. blue(sky) may or may not be true.

I disagree here, Tony. "Blue" is a predicate and like any other
predicate or predicate combination it is either true or not true.

No, Lester. I hate to put it this way, but here, you're wrong.

No need for any regret, Tony. I certainly don't mind being called on
errors or even called on non errors when there's something you think
is wrong. But we shall just have to see what we shall see here, Tony.

Very good. :)

"Blue" is
a descriptor for an object, a physical object as perceived by a human,
if "blue" is taken to mean the color. It's an attribute that some
humanly visible object may or may not have. The "truth" of "blue"
depends entirely on what it is attributed to. Blue(moon) is rarely true.
Blue(sky) is often true in Arizona, and not so often around here.

So "blue" is not a predicate, Tony, as in "it is blue"? And this
predicate cannot be true or false?

Right. It(blue) and blue(it) have truth values between 0 and 1
inclusive, but "blue" has no more truth value than "it".

But "it" can be true of things other than "blue" whereas "blue" cannot
be true of things other than "it" whatever the "it" is taken to mean.

So this(blue) precludes that(blue)??? More than one thing can be blue,
and any given thing can have more than one attribute. fluid(sky),
blue(sky), fluid(liquid) and blue(liquid) can all be true.

Truth is a
matter of how much one idea applies to another, or perhaps something
less vague than that.

I still don't understand how you arrive at "truth values" Tony. As far
as I can tell they're just assigned arbitrarily or by assumption of
truth. They're meaningless in this sense. They're nothing more than a
mechanization of truisms defined by Aristotle's syllogistic inference
like "if A then B then C" etc. They don't tell us anything about
what's actually true or why. Finite tautological reduction to self
contradictory alternatives on the other hand tells us what's actually
true and necessarily and universally true of everything.

An algebraic expression does not give a quantitative result without
quantitative parameters, and a logical expression does not give a truth
value without logical parameters. Truth value calculations can be
expressed as algebraic calculations, as well as using truth tables.
After all, not every statement is 100% true or false.

One can assign an attribute to an object as a function, like I just did.
One can also use a function to include an object in a set which is
described by an attribute, like sky(blue) or moon(blue) - "this object
is a member of that set". The object alone also doesn't constitute an
entire statement. "Sky" and "moon" do not have truth values. Blue(sky)
might be true less than 50% of the time, and blue(moon) less than 1%,
but "blue" and "sky" and "moon" are never true or false, because that
sentence no verb. There is no "is" there, eh, what? :)

Tony, I think you're confusing the supposed truth or falsity of a
single predicate with the supposed truth or falsity of an abstract
proposition. For that matter we can always make a proposition
out of a single predicate by saying "it is blue (or whatever)".

Without defining "it", there is no measure of the truth value of the
statement, "it is blue".

Well "it" is a universal subject, Tony. It has no definition of its
own apart from that. "It" can and does stand for any subject.
And any predicate can be true or not of "it". "It" just gives us a
universal subjective reference point for predicates just as "not"
gives a universal predicate reference point for all predicates.

So, "it" is "x", a variable parameter. Fill in that blank, and then you
can evaluate the expression.

Likewise, if I say, "the moon is thus", one
cannot ascertain the truth value of that statement without knowing which
"thus" the moon is asserted to satisfy.

Of course not. One can never ascertain actual "truth values" for
anything as far as I can tell. They just represent an arithmetic
mechanization of syllogistic inference. In other words "truth values"
just mechanize arithmetically something that wasn't true to begin
with.

They simply express a certainty of truth, from 0 to 1.

When you begin to talk about problematic intermediate "truth values"
the picture becomes even clearer. Syllogistic inference offers no way
to determine actual truth. All it produces are truisms not truth. Thus
the truth of given predicates or predicate combination is problematic
and we are left with no recourse but to express truth mathematically
in terms of some kind of degree of confidence akin to a probability.

I won't object to that.

The whole situation would be a joke if it weren't so pathetic.

All humor is based on pain and foolishness. It's all pathetic. So, laugh
a little. :)

However the difference is that a single predicate such as "blue"
cannot be abstractly analyzed for truth in the context of other
predicates. For example we could not analyze "illogical" abstractly in
the context of "sky" unless we had both predicates together as in
"illogical sky". But that doesn't mean single isolated predicates are
not either true or false.

But, it does. In order for there to be a statement with a logical truth
value,

I'm not sure what the significance of "truth value" is, Tony. I deal
with truth and finite tautological regressions to self contradictory
alternatives as the basis for truth and not merely the assignment and
evaluation of truth values whatever that may mean.

Truth assumes values between 0, commonly known as "false", and 1, or
"true". In Boolean logic there are only these two values, but statistics
allows for the full spectrum. So, a statement has a truth value, which
can perhaps be evaluated, and which will always fall within these
bounds, quantitatively.

Except you can't actually assign a "truth value" to any predicate as
far as I can tell except by a naive assumption of truth to begin with.

Right. ASSUMING predicates a and b are true and false, respectively, a
AND b is false, a OR b is true. The value of the expression depends on
the values of the variables. Presumably, in real world situations, we
can at least give a guesstimate of the certainty for any assertion
involved in the logical statement, and therefore calculate at least a
rough estimate of the certainty of the entire expression. That's science
for you. ;)

there must be buried within it a logical implication, "this
implies that". The only implication for "blue" alone is that such a
thing as "blue" exists. Does "florange" exist, by virtue of the fact
that I just used the word?

If "blue" and "fast" are predicates, is "blue fast" a predicate? Does
that sound wrong? How about "chicken porch"? Is that true or false?

Well all predicates and predicate combinations are what they are,
Tony.

They are expressions of logical implication.

And they can range from true to false to self contradictory.

Which may or may not be true but you can't assign any "truth value" to
any predicate as far as I can see except by naive assumption of truth.

You can only assume truth, or calculate from other assumed truths. Some
things are rather certain, but could still be wrong. The sun might not
"rise" tomorrow, but I'll bet you it will. Assuming it does, chances
are, it will become warmer during the first half of the day.

Self-contradictory = automatically false.

I

don't see the problem with that whether we're considering things
literally or even metaphorically for that matter. It's all one system
of predicates and predicate combinations which are either true or
false in combinations. Some predicate combinations appear silly
because we already understand the combinations are false and self
contradictory. But that isn't to say the predicates themselves cannot
be true or false alone or in other combinations in given instances.

I think you need to distinguish between predicates and attributes and
objects. Predicates are assignments of attributes to objects, and only
predicates have truth values, true, fals, or somewhere in between.

If you could demonstrate the difference between "attributes" and
"predicates" perhaps I would. Both "attributes" and "predicates" are
"predicated" of something or "it" through "predication".

Grammar lesson 101:

Let's say the most basic elements of any expression are objects, that
is, nouns. If we are speaking, we are speaking about something.
Otherwise we should shut up.

We can describe objects, which means we assign attributes to them, that
is, adjectives describe nouns. When we assign attributes to nouns, or
nouns to sets described by those attributes, we use an assumed predicate
relation, either "describes" or "is a member of this class". The
predicate is the verb of the statement. Real world predicates include
actions and events, but unless you have rules pertaining to specific
actions or events, those predicates do not come into play in the
evaluation of a logical statement.

In a predicate, the core is some verb, like "is". If there is no "is" or
"does" or "has", then there is no predicate. A full statement also must
have a noun, a subject, or it's not talking about anything. A statement
does not require an attribute, such as "blue", but the most interesting,
of course, do. Of course there are those like, "0 exists", which have
their utility.

So, there are objects, predicates involving an attribute or event, and
statements that combine the two.:)

The fast chicken on the blue porch, don't you agree? I see no
contradiction in that....

Nor do I. Nor do I see any problem in evaluating the truth or falsity
of "it is blue". No special mystery there that I can see.

~v~~

Only, just, what is it?

What is what? I can't see much that it matters exactly what "blue" may
be if it is true or false. The only thing that matters is whether it's
true or not and whether it's true combined with other predicates.

"true blue" is just a patriotic phrase.

In the same regard what is "sky"? Who cares what "sky" is? The only
thing that matters in this particular context is whether a combination
of true "blue" and true "sky" remains true. That's how combinations of
predicates acquire meaning and definition. Definitions and meanings of
words are not just abbreviations as David Marcus would have us
believe. They are true or not considered in isolation or combination
with other words.

~v~~

Right. A full statement requires a subject and a predicate. "is blue" is
just the predicate, and therefore is not a statement, and has no truth
value in isolation.