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From: rsl@ihwpt.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Consistency Again
Message-ID: <542@ihwpt.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 1-Nov-85 15:36:13 EST
Article-I.D.: ihwpt.542
Posted: Fri Nov  1 15:36:13 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 3-Nov-85 13:58:48 EST
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
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Todd,					11/1/85
Thanks for the continued stimulation.  I have a few comments
reguarding your (you and/or Laura) use of the concepts "truth",
"facts", "appear", and "belief" (mostly addressed to your last
paragraph in which you, once again, can not resist injecting the ole
Kantian skepticism, as I see it).

> But I am not clear about what Laura means by "facts", since these,
> on the face of it, appear to be observer-independent Truths.  If
> that is the case, then the inconsistency is reintroduced after all.
First, truth is a concept that only has meaning when applied to
statements.  "Observer-independent Truths" seems like a
conceptually-muddled notion, since all statements (thus, all truths)
are the products of human observers.  Perhaps you really mean
"observer-independent" reality, in which case, "Truth" is not an
issue (reality exists, independent of statements about it or
observations of it).
On the other hand, a fact is a particular true statement about
reality.  (We call it a fact, only because it is true; if it is not
true, it is not a fact).
"Appearances" are always appearances OF SOME OBJECT(S) and not
independent of the observed objects (appearances and objects are
causally inseparable;  mental experiences of "the presence of an
object" without causal objects present are properly identified as
hallucinations).  Observer dependency properly applies only to
interpretations of objects and their resultant appearances.
Remaining issue (if you accept the above conceptualizations)
include:  "Do (or Can) particular individuals distinguish between
their observations and their interpretations?"  "Do they report
these observations accurately and truthfully?"  If accuracy and
truthfulness are applied to both interpretations and reportings, the
result is consistency.  The absenc