[ExI] What can be said to be "wrong", and what is "Truth"?

[Stefano Vaj]

On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 7:27 PM, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
> So long as we resist the temptation to affirm that what we have
> found is beyond criticism, we are entirely justified in believing
> our beliefs that have survived serious criticism, and
> especially those that can be reproduced publicly.

Mmhhh, you are giving it an "objectivist" spin which is really
unnecessary. We have unveiled something new, OK, we are less wrong
than we were before simply because our reality evolves and - in our
perception thereof, obviously - it allows now to achieve things were
were not able to before, or to cast a more penetrant glance on our
world.

> Quite right. But don't you confess that on a day-to-day basis, the
> real Stefano goes around with a conviction *nearing* certainty
> that (a) he's alive (b) the city around him is definitely real (c) someone
> did say in fact what you most clearly and certainly heard him to say
> (d) that if you drop your newpaper, it will fall to the ground, and so on
> and so on?
> It's only at odd moments that you call these beliefs about daily life
> into question, (e.g. the entirely actual possibility that we are living
> in a simulation). Normally, it is quite useless when driving home from
> work to wonder whether the light ahead is red or is merely a perception
> by a possibly non-existent being, blah, blah, blah.


Frankly, if something that hurts appears to hit me on the nose, I
react without giving the least thought as to the objective, essential
reality of the same. It's only at odd moments in life that you wonder
whether there are real noumena behind the phenomena you believe to
perceive... :-)

> Therefore, I make this compromise with the non-realists: just assume
> that your working model of the universe is "correct", simply for expediency.
> Almost always, they'll go along with that.

I make this compromise with realists: just assume that anybody's
working model of the universe by definition is as correct (for him or
her) as any objectivist model would be, since otherwise he or she
would change it.

In other words: subjective realities work exactly as allegedly
"objective" realities for those who are concerned by them.

Stefano Vaj