[From Gabriel 921203.0231CST to NET and Bill C.]
Yea, THERE AINT NO SUCH THING AS GROUND TRUTH, But, perhaps I can tell
you what there is:-
A monotonic increasing (or at least non decreasing) set of propositions
about the real world,and a set of Bayesian estimates of confidence
about same. I'd like to say something about increase of confidence
in truth or falsity, but I can't quite. But I can use Caratheodory's
Theorem - Zeits f. Physik about 1910 - ref in Margenau & Murphy
Math of Physics & Chemistry about 1945 (can't find my copy) to
say that total Shannon Info accumulated does not decrease - you
may mislay information, but you can't get rid of it. Not absolutely
sure of preceding sentence, but bottom line seems to me that we
have less to worry about from Bishop Berkeley than we thought - the tree
may cease to be when noone's about in the quad, but that doesn't matter
our knowledge of the tree certainly persists. A REAL philosopher's
view about intelligence (the nominally oxmoronic, but actually very
real Army kind). How about that for epistemology!!! Note by the way
the Margenau & Murphy is not lost, only mislaid. Uh Oh - what if
somebody took and burned the book??, and after my brain cells and
those of everybody else reading this msg have returned to their
elemental constituents? Well, I suppose there's still some philosophy
to do after all, and the good bishop was really right. But I don't
care - it really is suffiecient for most purposes that the knowledge
of the tree persists, even if somebody chopped it down last night
and burned it. That's just another Bayesian truth. I suppose we
get back in the long run to Diodorus - Does a stone at the bottom
of the ocean that has not and never will be seen exist?? - sound
of one hand clapping etc.
John G. (gabriel@caesar.eid.anl.gov)