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On Thu, 15 Jun 2000, Vincent Campbell wrote:
>Information and truth are not the same thing. You specifically said the
>truth, which surely means more than simple information like passwords- it
>implies value for one thing. A password is not a truth claim, 'the world is
>flat' is a truth claim.
Good point. I accept your distinction.
>Truth claims surely only have value if they can be communicated and thus
>tested in some way or other (not necessarily experimentally, but also
>philosophically, or as a test of faith perhaps).
Without repeating the various reasons that might underlie _not_
communicating a truth, it is not clear to me that truth claims only have
value if communicated, though perhaps the question is one of to whom it
must be communicated. A truth claim may be able to be tested without being
first communicated. For instance, a person could develop a truth claim,
and then test it by him/her-self, or with a small team. The experiment
might never assert the claim itself, but be designed with it implicitly in
mind, so that the results of the experiment generate speak directly to the
value of the claim. In science, I think this happens fairly
often. Hypotheses don't always state the larger thinking or truth claim of
the experimenter; hypotheses may state well toned-down or sub-elements of
the truth claim. (Or even created after the experiment, when there is
greater clarity about what the experiment actually revealed. <smile>)
Cheers,
- Lawrence
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