No, I’m just denying the possibility of language to describe anything that we can’t conceive. If you can’t tell me how to conceive something, how could expect me to be able to know what you are talking abut? And, if can’t conceive it yourself, how could you expect to be doing anything but playing with words?
Doesn’t the word “material” exclude things in your head? But I already referred to “emotions” and other things like that as observables!
Historical evidence? What’s that? Aren’t we both Austrians here!
Also, I’m not sure what you are asking me to prove here. Language is a kind of action. If you think that there is more to it than just the fact that particular people acting in particular ways at particular times, it is up to you to show me how to observe what you are talking about.
I read your argument about infinities being absurd, but, regardless of how sound it was, it was about space, not time. Why couldn’t time just go in a circle? A → B → C → A → B → C . . .
I have no idea what those words are supposed to refer to.
I also have no idea what those words are supposed to refer to.
Only in practice, because an omniscient being wouldn’t use any arbitrary models.
Whoever wins.
It just happens that society exists, and that means that the people who “won” the fight aren’t the rapists, thieves, and whatever, but are the “social” kind of people: those who think that raping people, stealing from people, and so on is “evil”, and would be willing to beat anybody into submission who doesn’t carry their same ideas.
Oh, wait, but what about the state? Looks like their utility matters too. They won, right? I mean, they are doing pretty well right now.
Keep in mind that I’m not prescribing anything. I’m just describing what is going on. People punish anti-social people because society is useful to them, and these anti-social people can’t be trusted to not try to tear it down. And the fact that society exists right now means that the social people are generally stronger, and have an easier time imposing their will, on the anti-social people.
So whose utility? Everybody’s. Well, everybody’s who is still alive. Everybody acts in their own interest, and things happen. One of those things is that social people punish anti-social people for being anti-social. That means that more people will end up being around whose utility is “socially oriented” instead of the opposite. Why? Because they have been able to beat the others in submission. They are stronger. Again, the fact that society exists implies that the social people are able to impose their wills on the anti-social people.
See these posts: This and this.
In those posts, I try to explain why I think that psychology (thymology) is necessary for praxeology. Sure, acting just means that you prefer A to B. But what the hell does that mean? It means something, and that something implies that it is nonsense to prefer anything if you are omnipotent.
I mean I have no idea how anybody could argue against this: If you are omnipotent, that means that you could stamp out all of your dissatisfaction in one moment, which would mean that you would be instantly content and would never act again. But what if the omnipotent being wants to act? What if he wants to be dissatisfied? Isn’t that a paradox? Wouldn’t he not be omnipotent anymore if he couldn’t pull that off? No, this is all just wordplay. An omnipotent being wanting to act: that is just wordplay. How could you “want to be dissatisfied”? How the hell could you even imagine “wanting to be dissatisfied”? The bottom line is that, to act, you must be dissatisfied with your position, and an omnipotent being would be forced to stamp out all of its dissatisfaction in just one moment. And, either way, I’m not sure that the idea of “omnipotence” is conceivable anyway.
No idea. Really, I’m totally lost at this point. I’m just going to try to make my final push about being “correctly incorrect”, and then I just ask that you maybe try to explain how believing in God could give us a way to explain what the “foundation for truth” is.
Let me start from the beginning.
How do people usually use the word “correct”?
First, sometimes people use the word “correct” to describe language reflecting reality. If a sequence of words reflects reality, it is “correct” in that sense; and, if it doesn’t reflect reality, it is “incorrect” in that sense. So, for example, let’s say that, if I walk north, I won’t get home. Let’s say that we believe that idea. Well, in that case, if somebody were to say that, if I were to walk north, I would end up getting home, he would be “incorrect” in that sense. We would call him “incorrect” in that sense. If, in our minds, we were to imagine the images, sounds, and so on conventionally associated with that sequence of words in that contex, we wouldn’t believe it. We could easily imagine walking north in a particular way, seeing my house approaching from a particular angle, and so on, but we just wouldn’t believe it. We would call it “incorrect” in that sense.
And, second, sometimes people use the word much differently, to describe a sequence of images, sounds, emotions, and so on in somebody’s head reflecting reality. If such a sequence in somebody’s head reflects reality, they are “correct” in that sense; and, if it doesn’t reflect reality, they are “incorrect” in that sense. So, for example, let’s say that, if I walk south, I will get home. Let’s say that we believe that idea. Well, in that case, if somebody were to imagine that, if I were to walk north, I would end up getting home, he would be “incorrect” in that sense. We would call him “incorrect” in that sense. If, in our minds, we were to imagine walking north and getting home, we wouldn’t believe it. We could easily imagine walking north in a particular way, seeing my house approaching from a particular angle, and so on, but we just wouldn’t believe it. We would call him “incorrect” in that sense.
Sometimes, like in the above example, those two senses of the word coincide. But they don’t have to. So, for example, if somebody were to imagine that, if I walk south, I will get home, but says something much different, that, if I were to walk north, I would actually end up getting home, those two senses wouldn’t necessarily coincide. He would be incorrect in his words, but wouldn’t necessarily be incorrect in his thoughts. We would have to know a lot more about his motives and so on to say whether he would be incorrect in his thoughts. Maybe me wanted to play a joke on me, and thought that telling me to go north would end up being hilarious. But maybe it wouldn’t end up being anything to joke about. Maybe he wanted to dead, and thought that telling me to go north would end up getting me killed. And maybe it really would. Or whatever.
For another example where those two senses don’t coincide, let’s say that, if we increase the minimum wage, we would hurt the young kids looking for their first job, but that, if a particular politician gives a speech saying that we should increase the minimum wage, because it would end up helping those young kids, that is the only way that he will get re-elected. Well, in that case, if he imagines that exact situation - giving the speech, and the getting re-elected, he would be correct in his thoughts, but, if he gives the speech, he would be incorrect in his words. If he imagines that, if he gives the speech, he would get re-elected, and then decides to give the speech, he would be correct in his thoughts, but incorrect in his words.
So there are two kinds of “correctness”: first, when the particulars conventionally associated with a sequence of words reflect reality; and, second, when the particulars making up a thought reflect reality. So which kind are you talking about? If you are talking about the first, we just need to establish that the second exists, and there could be people with the desire to make their language reflect reality. I don’t think that anybody would say that it would be too big of a leap to go from correctness in the second sense to correctness in the first sense. But what about the second sense? I’m not totally sure where you are trying to go with this, but I think that you are saying that we could be “usefully incorrect” in the second sense: that is, correctly incorrect. But actually I really don’t know where you are going with this, simply because that isn’t even conceivable. It isn’t conceivable that somebody could, in their mind, imagine a causal connection, but then somehow be usefully incorrect. Isn’t being correctly incorrect just a contradiction in terms?
Somebody could believe in God not because they actually think that he has evidence that he exists, but just because he thinks that believing in him would make his life better. Well, how would it make his life better? If simply acting as if he believes in it would make other people accept him more easily; well, it isn’t that he actually believes that God exists, but that he believes that saying certain things about God existing would lead to people accepting him more. And maybe that is totally true.
My point here is that, whenever you think that you came up with a situation where something is “usefully incorrect”, it is either that you are confusing the two senses of correctness, or that you are saying that something would be useful (correct) at one time, but incorrect (useless) at another time period. How could it be any other way? If something is “correctly incorrect”, the “correctness” must refer to something else than the “incorrectness”: And I think that I have figured out what those different things are. For something to be “correctly incorrect”, the “correct” need to refer to one of the senses of correctness, and the “incorrect” needs to refer to another; or, if not that, the “correct” needs to intead refer to one time, and the “incorrect” needs to refer to another time.
Either that, or you would just have to play with words. Maybe a tribe puts their sick in quarantine because they are “cursed”, and because they want to avoid friendly fire from the Gods who are angry at them, but not at the other people in the tribe. But, then we could just say that, unless there is something that we are missing here, like that they also apply this “cursed” theory to something else, where it doesn’t work, I guess that by “cursed” and “having the gods be angry at them” on one hand, and “avoiding friendly fire by quarantining them” on the other hand, they mean the same thing that we mean when we say “sick” on one hand, and “contagious” on the other hand.
So why does utility imply a basis for truth/correctness? Well, simply because that’s how we use the word half of the time. It doesn’t really imply a basis for truth/correctness, it just really is what we mean when we talk about truth/correctness. Nothing more. Connecting your means to your ends, imagining things which reflect reality, or whatever you want to call it: This is the relevant part of what we refer to as truth/correctness. The foundation of all “truth” is utility, and can be explained very concisely in a great line from David Hume: “If we believe, that fire warms, or water refreshes, 'tis only because it costs us too much pains to think otherwise.” All of our beliefs have to do with how to bring us satisfaction. Truth/correctness in the second sense is what brings us “satisfaction”. This is how it implies the basis for it.
Sorry about how rough this is, but hopefully you got the point.