Re: Torkel Franzen on truth

On Nov 12, 7:36 pm, Aatu Koskensilta <aatu.koskensi...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On 2007-11-12, in sci.logic, abo wrote:

Obviously I don't find your explanation incomprehensible, but I do
find it lacking. It is lacking at the very beginning, in that the
entire point is how or why you think you know that you can always "add
one".

That's simply part of our conception of the naturals.

This is just the ontological fallacy (from a property of a thing you
can infer the existence of a thing). You say that you have a
conception whereby a natural number always has a successor,. Fine;
the only things that will be natural numbers are those things that
have a successor. But that doesn't imply that there exist any natural
numbers. Similarly, one could say that part our conception of God is
that He is an absolutely perfect being. But that doesn't imply that
there is any being who is absolutely perfect.

I'd add that it seems to me worthwhile to distinguish our conception
of what a natural number is, and our conception of what the natural-
number sequence is. I think it is incorrect to say that part of our
conception of what a natural number is is that it have a successor.
We do have a conception of naturals, and we'd agree that 2 is a
natural number; yet it just can't be, from the fact that 2 is a
natural number, that 10^10^10^10 exists and is a natural number, which
would in fact follow were every natural number always to have a
successor (which is a natural). I'd agree with you that our
conception of the natural-number sequence is that every natural in the
sequence has a successor (in the sequence); but then the question just
becomes whether there is any such sequence.

I find the idea that
some natural might -- perhaps by accident? -- lack a successor completely
baffling, and can make nothing of it unless it is explained what such a
thing might mean.

Here's one way to picture it: after some very big point, the naturals
fade away, ever so gradually.


One other thing. Your statement at the end about "connecting such
interests to rather elusive and incomprehensible doubts is pointless"
is a subjective claim hidden as an oracular assertion about which
there can be no dispute.

Anything at all can be disputed.

I agree with you. But surely you realize - because you surely you
intend it - that your style tends at times to be oracular, where you
assert something as if dispute is impossible. I usually find it more
appropriate, for instance, to say, "I find it obvious that..." instead
of "It's obvious that...".


You think it is pointless, no problem with that. You've been to Sunday
School, and you've learned what you've been told. Good for you!

Why do you think I've been to Sunday School?


Because you have?

.

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