1 hour ago, studiot said:

I don't know whether to say this as not a very good example or is a very good example

The question is example of what ?

It is true in some number systems but not in others, where pi may not even be defined.

So how can it be absolute truth ?

I try not to write TLDR posts in this format of forum. Please take it as understood that any necessary applicable space definitions are in place to establish uniquely that the statement I gave is to be taken to apply within the everyday understanding of school level geometry and number theory.

This is after all the 'absolute truth' a former school maths teacher once presented to his former students, is it not?

In that space, I maintain that it's a pretty good example of an absolute truth.

I accept without reservation that the statement may have limited applicability in cloud cuckoo land. Or Grok.

13 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

I try not to write TLDR posts in this format of forum. Please take it as understood that any necessary applicable space definitions are in place to establish uniquely that the statement I gave is to be taken to apply within the everyday understanding of school level geometry and number theory.

This is after all the 'absolute truth' a former school maths teacher once presented to his former students, is it not?

In that space, I maintain that it's a pretty good example of an absolute truth.

I accept without reservation that the statement may have limited applicability in cloud cuckoo land. Or Grok.

Since the times of the ancient Greeks schoolboys have been taught that neither Pi nor the square root of 2 are members of the rational number system.

But if you couldn't be bothered to read my post, why reply ?

2 hours ago, geordief said:

"let not the perfect be the enemy of the good"

Absolutely! Especially to an engineer whose duty is merely to meet the applicable specifications: anything beyond that being a case of gilding the lily - an unprofessional waste of time and money.

But note that the example given was not concerned with providing a perfectly accurate value for π - it was concerned with specifying bounds within which we know that value to lie.

There's quite a significant difference. Like I can't give you a precise value for the wavelength of green in a rainbow. But I can state with confidence that in every rainbow I've ever seen, the green bit lay between the yellow and the blue.

19 minutes ago, studiot said:

why reply ?

Courtesy.

You should try it some time.

7 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

In what sense is:

25/8 < π < 22/7

not both the absolute truth and factual?

It is factual in our commonly used base 10 system so is true in that sense. Are you also claiming it is the entirety of truth, even in just that base 10 system?

23 minutes ago, npts2020 said:

It is factual in our commonly used base 10 system so is true in that sense. Are you also claiming it is the entirety of truth, even in just that base 10 system?

No. I'm presenting it as an example of (a pair of) true statement(s) in the context of the number line. Base 10 can be understood by default by any reasonable person.

Since at least Immanuel Kant, it has been understood as an a priori truth (ie self-evident to reason alone: not requiring of empirical factual support). So describing it as 'factual' is a misnomer in a strict epistemological sense. It's a truth. And an absolute one at that.

See Epistemology for more on that rabbit hole.

I think some of the confusion here is that such truths are not immune to wilful misinterpretation. I'm waiting for @TheVat to pop up and say it's actually Klingon for 'my hovercraft is full of eels'. However, that's clearly not the intended context. Insisting in all seriousness that it could be is bad faith I think.

28 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

No. I'm presenting it as an example of (a pair of) true statement(s) in the context of the number line. Base 10 can be understood by default by any reasonable person.

Since at least Immanuel Kant, it has been understood as an a priori truth (ie self-evident to reason alone: not requiring of empirical factual support). So describing it as 'factual' is a misnomer in a strict epistemological sense. It's a truth. And an absolute one at that.

See Epistemology for more on that rabbit hole.

I think some of the confusion here is that such truths are not immune to wilful misinterpretation. I'm waiting for @TheVat to pop up and say it's actually Klingon for 'my hovercraft is full of eels'. However, that's clearly not the intended context. Insisting in all seriousness that it could be is bad faith I think.

Since you have made the claim, I am waiting for you to substantiate it in true SF fashion.

Just saying ( to paraphrase) "It's true because I said so" is not enough.

20 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

No. I'm presenting it as an example of (a pair of) true statement(s) in the context of the number line. Base 10 can be understood by default by any reasonable person.

Since at least Immanuel Kant, it has been understood as an a priori truth (ie self-evident to reason alone: not requiring of empirical factual support). So describing it as 'factual' is a misnomer in a strict epistemological sense. It's a truth. And an absolute one at that.

See Epistemology for more on that rabbit hole.

I think some of the confusion here is that such truths are not immune to wilful misinterpretation. I'm waiting for @TheVat to pop up and say it's actually Klingon for 'my hovercraft is full of eels'. However, that's clearly not the intended context. Insisting in all seriousness that it could be is bad faith I think.

When you argue for a statement to be accepted as an "absolute truth" you have set a very ,very high bar and have to accept any and all picking holes in it -and rebut them one by tedious one.

There is no need for there to be any "absolute truth".It does not advance anything since we can be ,as I think you already mentioned "completely confident" about any one particular thing-is that not good enough?

Apparently the Uncertainty Theorem posits that there are limits on what we can measure with full accuracy.

Perhaps that finding applies to abstract thought as well (this is a philosophical question,I see and one thing many might agree upon wrt philosophical questions could be that there is no one correct answer.)

Hoverkraftimin içi ilan balıǧı ilə doludur.

7 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Hoverkraftimin içi ilan balıǧı ilə doludur.

You were lucky.Our hovercraft was only full of jellyfish.

Edited Tuesday at 12:20 AM4 days by geordief

37 minutes ago, studiot said:

Since you have made the claim, I am waiting for you to substantiate it in true SF fashion.

Just saying ( to paraphrase) "It's true because I said so" is not enough.

Ref: Number Line

Comparing numbers:

If a particular number is farther to the right on the number line than is another number, then the first number is greater than the second (equivalently, the second is less than the first).

45 minutes ago, geordief said:

When you argue for a statement to be accepted as an "absolute truth" you have set a very ,very high bar and have to accept any and all picking holes in it -and rebut them one by tedious one.

Of course! But I can still call out bad faith arguments where they crop up, can't I?

53 minutes ago, geordief said:

There is no need for there to be any "absolute truth".It does not advance anything since we can be ,as I think you already mentioned "completely confident" about any one particular thing-is that not good enough?

In a practical sense, sometimes - yes. But why use fuzzy logic in cases where absolute logic is readily to hand?

1 hour ago, geordief said:

Apparently the Uncertainty Theorem posits that there are limits on what we can measure with full accuracy.

An example of an absolutely true statement.

1 hour ago, geordief said:

Perhaps that finding applies to abstract thought as well (this is a philosophical question,I see and one thing many might agree upon wrt philosophical questions could be that there is no one correct answer.)

Of course there are many different points of view on this. I've stated my position which is orthodox scientific realism. If someone else prefers unscientific antirealism, solipsism, or whatever than so be it. I'm happy to defend my case until the cows come home.

59 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Hoverkraftimin içi ilan balıǧı ilə doludur.

targhlIj yIngagh, yIruch!

Edited Tuesday at 12:59 AM4 days by sethoflagos

2 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

No. I'm presenting it as an example of (a pair of) true statement(s) in the context of the number line. Base 10 can be understood by default by any reasonable person.

Since at least Immanuel Kant, it has been understood as an a priori truth (ie self-evident to reason alone: not requiring of empirical factual support). So describing it as 'factual' is a misnomer in a strict epistemological sense. It's a truth. And an absolute one at that.

See Epistemology for more on that rabbit hole.

I am not arguing that any particular mathematical (or other) statement is true or not and, in fact, accept their veracity and usefulness because they are true. What I would argue, however, is that those mathematical statements are, at best, a small part of truth. Kind of like being able to see only the tip of Mona Lisa's nose. Yes, it is Mona Lisa but with such a small piece of it visible, one would be unlikely to discern what the rest of the portrait (truth?) looks like without more pieces (facts?). What you are seeming to say is "facts are truth". What I would say is "facts are true by definition but any particular one is only a small piece of "truth", which is much wider (possibly infinite) in scope.

Edited Tuesday at 02:16 AM4 days by npts2020

49 minutes ago, npts2020 said:

I am not arguing that any particular mathematical (or other) statement is true or not and, in fact, accept their veracity and usefulness because they are true. What I would argue, however, is that those mathematical statements are, at best, a small part of truth. Kind of like being able to see only the tip of Mona Lisa's nose. Yes, it is Mona Lisa but with such a small piece of it visible, one would be unlikely to discern what the rest of the portrait (truth?) looks like without more pieces (facts?). What you are seeming to say is "facts are truth". What I would say is "facts are true by definition but any particular one is only a small piece of "truth", which is much wider (possibly infinite) in scope.

I wouldn't argue with any of this.

8 hours ago, npts2020 said:

I am not arguing that any particular mathematical (or other) statement is true or not and, in fact, accept their veracity and usefulness because they are true. What I would argue, however, is that those mathematical statements are, at best, a small part of truth. Kind of like being able to see only the tip of Mona Lisa's nose. Yes, it is Mona Lisa but with such a small piece of it visible, one would be unlikely to discern what the rest of the portrait (truth?) looks like without more pieces (facts?). What you are seeming to say is "facts are truth". What I would say is "facts are true by definition but any particular one is only a small piece of "truth", which is much wider (possibly infinite) in scope.

7 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

I wouldn't argue with any of this.

Nor would I.

Interesting example. +1

10 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

11 hours ago, studiot said:

Since you have made the claim, I am waiting for you to substantiate it in true SF fashion.

Just saying ( to paraphrase) "It's true because I said so" is not enough.

Ref: Number Line

  Quote

Comparing numbers:

If a particular number is farther to the right on the number line than is another number, then the first number is greater than the second (equivalently, the second is less than the first).

Unfortunately this is not proof of what you actually said.

If you read the article you referred to it makes it clear that there are several number lines and you chose to pick numbers from the set of rational numbers Q.

So you are referring to the Rational number line, not the Real number line that most of the article is about.

Now Pi is, as I mentioned in my first response, not a rational number or a member of Q.

So the mathematical expression your wrote, though well meant, is actually strictly meaningless.

I know what you mean, but that is not enough for the title 'absolute' , which is not the famous engineering 'near enough is good enough'.

For your further information Q is the simplest number system that is complete (which means there are no gaps).

So there are no gaps to insert numbers like Pi or, as I also mentioned, the square root of 2

That is why these numbers are irrational.

Q has the same property as R that between any pair of numbers there is an infinitude of further numbers of the set.

You can chose a rational number as close as you like to any given one, but however close your get you can never close the difference.

There will always be an infinitude of further rational numbers between your proposed one and the given one.

Yet, as the ancient Greeks (Pythagoras) found out to their horror there are further numbers that require a different number system, hence we have the Real number system.

So as I said your statement is true in the reals, but not the rationals.

47 minutes ago, studiot said:

you chose to pick numbers from the set of rational numbers Q.

No, I didn't. I picked selected values from the set of real numbers, two of which happened to be rational for purposes of clarity.

Your argument is contrived, null, and void.

23 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

In what sense is:

25/8 < π < 22/7

not both the absolute truth and factual?

Where exactly did you state these numbers to be real numbers ?

I replied almost immediately, requesting detail of your claim and noting that as it stood it did not match the absolute category of truth.

22 hours ago, studiot said:

I don't know whether to say this as not a very good example or is a very good example

The question is example of what ?

It is true in some number systems but not in others, where pi may not even be defined.

So how can it be absolute truth ?

To which you replied rather rudely and carried on in that vein subsequently.

20 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

I try not to write TLDR posts in this format of forum. Please take it as understood that any necessary applicable space definitions are in place to establish uniquely that the statement I gave is to be taken to apply within the everyday understanding of school level geometry and number theory.

This is after all the 'absolute truth' a former school maths teacher once presented to his former students, is it not?

In that space, I maintain that it's a pretty good example of an absolute truth.

I accept without reservation that the statement may have limited applicability in cloud cuckoo land. Or Grok.

1 hour ago, studiot said:

Where exactly did you state these numbers to be real numbers ?

By comparing them to π. A real number context is clearly implicit.

The category error is your own invention.

16 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

I think some of the confusion here is that such truths are not immune to wilful misinterpretation. I'm waiting for @TheVat to pop up and say it's actually Klingon for 'my hovercraft is full of eels'. However, that's clearly not the intended context. Insisting in all seriousness that it could be is bad faith I think.

23 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

targhlIj yIngagh, yIruch!

Fortunately an imperative - in this case telling me to go and mate with a targh - has no definite truth value, since it is not a proposition about some state of affairs in the RW. Now, if we were to tease out implied statements from that, e.g.

A targh is a real entity which lives on Qo'nos and resembles a terrestrial wild boar. (which statement, in turn, could imply that Qo'nos is a real planet and the Klingon homeworld and having a culture that prizes insults and so on)

Then we can examine a whole web of beliefs (see Quine for elucidation on this, the "web" being a philosophical metaphor describing human knowledge as a vast, interconnected network of statements and convictions rather than a collection of isolated, independently proven facts) that might roughly be assembled as "the Star Trek universe and timeline originating from the OS."

Categorizing all these facts as fictitious (and sparing you, gentle reader, from my stomach-churning account of my romantic evening with a targh - they can be quite alluring if you're lonely) then would at least allow us to assert that one premise of Seth's imperative is definitely false: there can be no mating with a fictitious alien animal in any sense that corresponds to the external world.

Now, what does a definitely false statement (Targhs exist and inhabit a Klingon home world) imply about truth values? Does it imply the converse, that there are other statements which are definitely true? I.e. absolutely true? Well, for starters, simply make a statement which negates the Targhs are real etc statement...

On 8/3/2026 at 5:56 PM, geordief said:

You were lucky.Our hovercraft was only full of jellyfish.

Did you watch "Bodkin"? That series came perilously close at one point to filling a hovercraft with eels. I absolutely recommend this series even if you are not smitten (as I am) by Siobhan Cullen.

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

Now, what does a definitely false statement (Targhs exist and inhabit a Klingon home world) imply about truth values? Does it imply the converse, that there are other statements which are definitely true? I.e. absolutely true? Well, for starters, simply make a statement which negates the Targhs are real etc statement...

Excellent point!

Another example maybe: 'Seth made a proposition concerning absolute truths that some believe may not be absolutely true'.

Try sitting on the fence with that one!

Facts are temporally permanent (always reflect reality), but truths are contemporaneous (correct at the time). As in science, the facts don't change, but the models (truths) can.

Facts exist independent of an observer, but truths are human constructs.

Edited Wednesday at 11:54 AM3 days by StringJunky

11 hours ago, TheVat said:

Did you watch "Bodkin"? That series came perilously close at one point to filling a hovercraft with eels. I absolutely recommend this series even if you are not smitten (as I am) by Siobhan Cullen.

No,I don't watch much TV or films these days.

I do have a friend who does security for some of the films in Ireland (one had Jennifer Aniston in it and I got bit of gossip on another famous actor ,Owen Wilson but I don't watch them much)

"We" also provided on site catering for Richard Harris and ,I think Tom "the Yank" Berenger in "The Field".

Harris specifically requested "no onions" but chef knew best.

27 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Facts are temporally permanent (always reflect reality), but truths are contemporaneous (correct at the time). As in science, the facts don't change, but the models (truths) can.

Facts exist independent of an observer, but truths are human constructs.

30 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Facts are temporally permanent (always reflect reality), but truths are contemporaneous (correct at the time). As in science, the facts don't change, but the models (truths) can.

Facts exist independent of an observer, but truths are human constructs.

30 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Facts are temporally permanent (always reflect reality), but truths are contemporaneous (correct at the time). As in science, the facts don't change, but the models (truths) can.

Facts exist independent of an observer, but truths are human constructs.

Is it just facetious to ask whether a "human construct" is a "fact " or a "truth"?

Can it be either (or even both)?

As an example of a "human construct" General Relativity might be a "fact" in that it was actually published as a theorem(theory?) but is it a "truth" in that it accounts for gravity more completely than antecedent theories?

(A bit of trouble posting and editing this time-lost the first reply to @StringJunky ,couldn't recover any saved draft and see that I have quoted him 3 times,which I cannot edit either)

Edited Wednesday at 12:17 PM3 days by geordief

37 minutes ago, geordief said:

Is it just facetious to ask whether a "human construct" is a "fact " or a "truth"?

Can it be either (or even both)?

As an example of a "human construct" General Relativity might be a "fact" in that it was actually published as a theorem(theory?) but is it a "truth" in that it accounts for gravity more completely t

Facts never change e.g. velocity of light is fixed in a vacuum. GR is a construct derived from facts, but as more facts emerge ,or are seen in a new light, it's description of that part of nature reduces in scope. In that sense, theories always seem to be contemporaneous in terms of their validity reflecting nature.

I find 'truths' to be more tied to human experience than as scientifically objective information.

Edited Wednesday at 01:13 PM3 days by StringJunky

14 hours ago, TheVat said:

see Quine for elucidation on this, the "web" being a philosophical metaphor describing human knowledge as a vast, interconnected network of statements and convictions rather than a collection of isolated, independently proven facts

2 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Facts exist independent of an observer, but truths are human constructs.

I'm fine with your usage of the term 'facts' in both of these posts. However, the implicit/explicit relegation of 'truth' to a mere woolly human construct really doesn't square with my experience of the English language up until I left the UK in the 1990s (which meant I missed most of the Science Wars and New Age post-modernist brain worms that most of the West now seems to be infected with). Are we that unhappy with the traditional absolute meanings of 'TRUE' and 'FALSE' in boolean algebra? Must we replace them with 'fact' and 'fiction'?

Consider the definitions of deductive and inductive reasoning:

Deductive reasoning is the process of drawing valid inferences. An inference is valid if its conclusion follows logically from its premises, meaning that it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false. For example, the inference from the premises "all men are mortal" and "Socrates is a man" to the conclusion "Socrates is mortal" is deductively valid. An argument is sound if it is valid and all its premises are true.

Inductive reasoning refers to a variety of methods of reasoning in which the conclusion of an argument is supported not with deductive certainty, but at best with some degree of probability. Unlike deductive reasoning (such as mathematical induction), where the conclusion is certain, given the premises are correct, inductive reasoning produces conclusions that are at best probable, given the premises provided.[1]

It seems to me that those who deny the validity of an objective, absolute truth must also deny the validity of any form of deductive reasoning (it's woefully absent in most views presented).

How many times has it been claimed in the above posts that 'no truth can be 100%' as if inductive reasoning were the only game in town. Quietly (and ironically) oblivious to the FACT that the latter requires its input premises to be TRUE for its conclusions to be CONGRUENT (the 'in all probability' of induction that contrast with the VALID conclusions of deduction).

Perhaps I might also point out that all my posts here are based on the premise that I don't inhabit the Matrix. This makes them CONTINGENT (bounded by some scope of application) rather than NECESSARY (unbounded and universal - as in most of pure maths); this doesn't impact their VALIDITY, or magically convert deduction to induction.

(I'll teach you to bring Quine into the discussion!)

4 hours ago, geordief said:

Is it just facetious to ask whether a "human construct" is a "fact " or a "truth"?

Can it be either (or even both)?

Probably answered this in the preceding rant. Strictly speaking, a "fact" always exists independently of human consciousness, and therefore is never a "human construct". The contents of this thread indicate that for many, "truth" can mean whatever they want it to mean. I prefer to keep it as close to "fact" as possible, but that may be a "spectrum" leak.

Edited Wednesday at 03:53 PM3 days by sethoflagos
duplication

I might be opening a can of worms but, Seth using maths to show his point got me to thinking about if a "fact" could be not true or are all"facts" simply contingent on language and context? For example, it is pretty self-evident that 1 + 1 = 2 but any computer programmer can tell you that 1 + 1 = 10 can also be true. Another example might be "the sun is shining", which is always true but if it is in the context of being raining or nighttime could easily be false

2 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

fine with your usage of the term 'facts' in both of these posts. However, the implicit/explicit relegation of 'truth' to a mere woolly human construct really doesn't square with my experience of the English language up until I left the UK in the 1990s (which meant I missed most of the Science Wars and New Age post-modernist brain worms that most of the West now seems to be infected with). Are we that unhappy with the traditional absolute meanings of 'TRUE' and 'FALSE' in boolean algebra?

I'm not, and was just mentioning Quine (often paired with Duhem) as a nod to the need to sometimes bundle scientific hypotheses. And the facts that may come from them. That's really a whole other thread. Anyway, we can still falsify things so long as we bundle them with the background assumptions they rode in with.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duhem%E2%80%93Quine_thesis

45 minutes ago, npts2020 said:

I might be opening a can of worms but, Seth using maths to show his point got me to thinking about if a "fact" could be not true or are all"facts" simply contingent on language and context? For example, it is pretty self-evident that 1 + 1 = 2 but any computer programmer can tell you that 1 + 1 = 10 can also be true. Another example might be "the sun is shining", which is always true but if it is in the context of being raining or nighttime could easily be false

Sorta makes the point about articulating and bundling in all the background assumptions in our statements. And some of them are semantic, yes.

2 hours ago, npts2020 said:

but any computer programmer can tell you that 1 + 1 = 10

I think it more complicated than that.

A single cell can be in one of two states call them 1 and 0 - A binary system.

Adding two of these can only produce a 1 or a 0, never two digits as that would require two cells.

And a two cell system has four states 00, 01, 10, 11.