Announcement
Collapse
No announcement yet.
Daily Stoic
Collapse
X
-
01-01-2022, 03:02 PM
Originally posted by Tripps View Post
There are no true opinions, there are only true facts.
Well now, there you go.
There are degrees of facts: How accurate is the measurement or observation or underlying assumptions? And a fact without context is meaningless. Furthermore, truth can only be determined from a constellation of facts. Thus, unless two viewers can agree on the constellation, they will disagree on "truth." Therefore, there are no true opinions nor true facts. Truth is no more than a descriptor applied to collectively held assumptions applied to constellations of always inaccurate facts.
And the fact that I am communicating these ideas using multiple layers of symbolisms, that you may not agree with, is proof of my statement.
- 3 likes
Comment
-
Mathematics is tautological at all levels of symbolism. It is always comprised of at least two layers of symbolisms. As a written language, the notations are symbolic: the written notation represents abstractions such as a number or operator. And like all written languages, uniformity in expression and meaning are necessary to convey abstract ideas. These symbols in turn represent another layer of abstraction, such as a number, real or imaginary, equivalence, pi, zero, and hundreds more.
These, too, are consistent in meaning. We learn those meanings when studying mathematics. Mathematicians in turn create and/or discover new ideas, generate new notations to represent that abstraction, and then teach those to others. The abstractions must be accepted as true to become part of the lexicon. Hence, the tautology.
Some individuals believe the universe is entirely mathematics. The very idea of a Theory of Everything (TOE) encapsulates that belief. I for one find that idea amusing. It is analogous to saying that a single equation captures the entirety of a person. Everything that you are biologically, emotionally; everything you have experienced, learned, felt, loved; all that you are in a social construct; summed in one abstract equation. That other intelligent creatures throughout the universe "discover" the very same ideas is meaningless in the argument that mathematics is "real."
There are limits to all symbolic systems: Godel's Theorem has proven this. Therefore, no language, including mathematics, has the last word concerning itself. Truth lies in the eye of the beholder.
- 2 likes
Comment

Comment