I have no problem with this, it follows from truth being necessarily presupposed by thought/belief and information being a product of organizing data which requires thought/belief.

Your argument:




Let me explain. (hopefully)

The lie that you have double D breasts is meaningless whereas it does not pertain to truth. It is a lie, therefore it is not information.

Just because a person might "understand" what the actual words are suppose to mean, that does not make it meaningful where truth is concerned. Where any information does not pertain to truth, it is not meaningful in the universal sense.

"Red blue goth driving saturn queen dogfood" is also meaningless but it is not a lie because it is so obviously meaningless that it is not mistook as truth or anything meaningful

C'mon Jb, stop being so stubborn. If you did not know what would make the claim true, you would not understand the claim(it would be meaningless). You know what would make the claim true, therefore you know that it is false. It is still information, it still pertains to truth, it just does not obtain.

I am glad that you agree that fact does not equal truth, and I would hope that most of the things we call 'fact' are truth, but I have my doubts about that.

Objective reality cannot be described accurately unless they are an all knowing, all seeing being.

Any attempt to describe objective reality is subject to errors because that attempt comes only from a single human observer or a group of human observers.

As far as it having meaning, nothing does until the human brain attributes meaning to it.

I'm not being stubborn. I don't know why you would think that.

I understand the claim that you have big boobs. If it is not true, then the claim is false. It is a lie. But it is meaningless because the only true information coming from the claim is that the claim is false, and a lie.

The information that the claim is false merely eliminates the claim as information that would pertain to truth.

Now if you do have big boobs ... then that is information that pertains to truth.

A complete and flawless description... I agree, omniscience is required. An accurate description of that which is not subject to our minds, I disagree. We need not know everything in order to know something. I mean I know that I am on my lanai typing away at a keyboard in an attempt to clarify issues that are arising in our discussion. I have no reason at all to doubt that.



Yes. Descriptions are error prone.



Nope. Dark clouds quickly forming over the horizon means that it may soon rain, regardless of whether or not anyone is around to take an account of those things and draw that conclusion.

Jb. We are both objects in the world and subjects taking an account of it.

Yes dark clouds mean it may rain. Even animal observers have learned the meaning of that. But if they had not learned it, it would be meaningless to them. If no one is around to take account of those things, meaning is not needed.

Because we're both stubborn, and one of us admits it.





Yes, you understand that it is not true, therefore it cannot be meaningless because you understand what it means.



Correct, assuming that I intentionally and deliberately make a false claim. Not all false claims are lies. Lies involve deliberate intent to deceive.



No, it is false because the claim does not correspond to fact/reality. It is necessarily meaningful or we would not even be able to know that it is false. As I've said, meaningless claims are not truth apt. Meaning and truth are very, very, closely 'related'. If we have no idea what it would take for a claim to be true, then we do not understand the claim at all. It is meaningless(to us that is).



No, the claim does pertain to truth. Pertaining to truth and obtaining it are different. You're saying that because a claim does not correspond to fact which obtains, then it does not pertain. That is not the case. All positive claims are truth claims. All belief is taken to be true. Just because a claim/belief is false, does not make it not pertain to truth. If it did not pertain to truth, it could not be false. False and true are meaningless without each other. As I've already said, all thought/belief necessarily presupposes truth. In other words every thought/belief either in the mind or expressed to another presupposes and therefore pertains to truth.

Becoming aware of what those conditions mean is unnecessary, in fact, impossible if no one is around. Those conditions still mean that it may rain soon.

But that is irrelevant because there is no one to know that or find meaning in that.

You have put your observation point to these matters as if you are an invisible observer who does not exist.

On the contrary, I am not stubborn. I have and I am still making a persistent and sincere effort to focus and listen and understand you so you can prove your claim that objective morality exists.

I want it to exist. I want to understand why you believe it exists.

I have adjusted and accepted many of your premises, tried to come to an agreement on definitions of words etc.

I ask only that you make a little effort in return to communicate with me and attempt to understand what I am saying.

We would not have gotten this far if I had been my normal(past) stubborn self.

It means nothing because it is a LIE and it does not pertain to truth.

Now, perhaps I have made a personal decision about what I will call meaningful.

Sorting through lies is a waste of time. Lies are not information IN MY OPINION.

You can disagree. You can call a lie meaningful and you can call it information if you want.

But when it concerns and pertains to universal truth, lies are meaningless.

I still do not understand how you are using some of your terminology.

Like:
therefore you know that it is false. It is still information, it still pertains to truth, it just does not obtain.

I don't know what you mean to say by "obtain."

"Pertaining to truth and obtaining it are different."

What does that mean?

We're talking about truth and meaning. It is important for us to understand that those things are not entirely determined solely by our taking an account of them. In other words, meaning is not necessarily subject to nor created within the mind. Meaning can exist independently of the mind, and we can become aware of that. The cloud example shows that that is the case rather nicely.

That is not to say that it is irrelevant... useless perhaps in that state of affairs in which there is no one around to put the awareness of what those conditions mean to good use. The conditions mean the same thing regardless of whether or not someone or something is around to take an account.

Convincingly separating the existence of meaning from the mind is not at all irrelevant.



Not at all. That does not even make sense. I observe from my point of view. However, my understanding is not at all limited to my physiological sensory perception and it's immediate observations.

Meaningless is without meaning, do not make it any more complex than need be.

"Creative has big boobs." has meaning. That is the only way that you could understand it, is if you understood what it meant. You understand what it means, because you know what it would take for it to be true. If you did not understand what those terms meant as they are written, you could not know that it is a false statement, because you would not understand what it would take for the claim to be true - independently of the claim itself.

"Creative has big boobs." is true statement if and only if creative has big boobs is a fact which obtains a state of affairs. If it is the case that creative has big boobs is not determined by the claim. The claim is true(or not) solely by virtue of whether or not it corresponds to fact which obtains a state of affairs in reality.

Sorry Bushidobillyclub. I missed your comment.

Actually I didn't want to get into what is "knowledge." I am envisioning "information" itself, as raw data here, not "knowledge."

Here is an example: (I am not implying that reality is a virtual computer simulated environment.. but maybe similar to one.)

Consider that reality is a virtual simulated computer environment and everything inside of that environment requires data and programing to exist and function, even rocks, dirt, etc.

All data that has no purpose or does not function is just wasting space slowing things down and is meaningless to the function of the environment. All data that contributes to the programing is valid information pertaining to the virtual reality environment.

That valid information is what I mean by "information."

Any other data that is not contributing to function (and truth) of the environment is meaningless, a waste of space.

"False information" and "Lies" in this reality that we live in only serves to slow things down as we have to sort through it all to find or obtain truth. Unfortunately that is the state of affairs we have to deal with.

The truth of the virtual reality example equals all the information that is functional and contributes. The rest of it is junk that slows things down.

The words do have meaning. But the information (as a unit) does not because it is a lie, it is false, it only slows down the process of ascertaining truth.

The way I understand that is extremely SIMPLE. The way you look at it is very complex because you are in a position that you have to sort through every false statement ever made and attempt to obtain truth from it, or make a decision if a thing is true or not.

Lies only detract from real information. They take up time, space and slow down the entire thinking process.

Creative,

You could take a stab at defining universal truth since you don't accept my definition.

Universal truth = JESUS.

It really is simple.

I will discuss this with you here:

http://mingle2.com/topic/show/299545

If a fact is the underlying metaphysical property of the universe and/or it's contents in virtue of which a proposition has it's truth value, then it follows that truth is the property of a proposition/statement which corresponds to fact/reality. A true statement corresponds, and a false one does not. From this we can continue to say that universal truth would be the property of a proposition/statement which corresponds to the underlying metaphysical property(s) of the universe and/or it's contents in such a way that it exhausts/entails all possibility of the case at hand. It can be no other way(according to our current knowledge). That requires meeting the logical criterion of being not only necessary but also sufficient in order to explain a set of conditions/outcomes that are common to a case. A single exception negates a universal truth claim.

Universal truth knows no time. It is true now, has always been true, and as far as we know, will always be true.

That is the strongest criterion known to man.