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#4904·Rob Rosenbaum, 1 day agoI think you misunderstand both my own argument and the meaning of ambiguity. "I'm currently located in a hemisphere" is not ambiguous in its meaning due to not knowing which hemisphere you're in. The meaning is ambiguous to the extent that we do not have absolute knowledge of what you are, what it is to be located, or what a hemisphere is - or what "in" is. While you obviously know what those words mean, you do not have absolute, 100% defined boundaries of what they refer to and what they don't. But you would have to have that to have absolute truth.
I may be wrong in this argument, but I don't see how your counterexample refutes it.
I think you misunderstand both my own argument and the meaning of ambiguity.
You’re saying that, to hold a true idea in the sense of absolute truth in my head, I’d have to have perfect definitions, which require infinite amounts of information, and having all that information is impossible. Right?
While you obviously know what those words mean, you do not have absolute, 100% defined boundaries of what they refer to and what they don't.
I think it’s enough to know what the words mean for the idea to be true. We don’t have to have “100% defined boundaries”.
Truth means correspondence with the facts (Tarski). Not infinite precision.
I think a ‘trick’ cynics use (not maliciously, still I like to call it a trick) is to set an unrealistically high standard for truth. And then, when no idea ends up being able to meet that standard, they say the idea can’t be true.