Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Nov 11, 2022 11:59 amCute sophistry.
The portion of reality that the proposition "This sentence is false" refers to is itself.
Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Nov 11, 2022 11:59 amThat's just your mind playing tricks on you. There is only one sentence and it's pretty clear which portion of reality is being refered to: itself.
Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Nov 11, 2022 11:59 amFor as long as you remain unable to assign a truth-value to the sentence "This sentence is false." it's neither true; nor false.
Yes, it refers to itself. Specifically, it refers to its truth value i.e. the truth value of "This sentence is false". But such a thing does not really exist. Truth value refers to the difference between what's inside the referred portion of reality and what's said about that portion of reality. Since the referred portion of reality is missing (as explained in the previous post), the sentence has no truth value. That's why it's "Neither true or false". It's the same reason why dogs are neither true nor false. Dogs aren't beliefs, so they have no truth value. "This sentence is false" is NOT a proper belief. That's why you can't use it to disprove the law of excluded middle.
Let's say you have two symbols: A and B. Let's say you want to figure out the meaning of A. Let's say the meaning of A is given as "Equal to the meaning of B". And let's say that the meaning of B is given as "Equal to the meaning of A". What's the meaning of A? Can you deduce it? You can't, right? There isn't enough information to do so. And if you tried to discover the meaning by following the clues, you'd end up in an endless loop. What's the meaning of A?
"It's the meaning of B." Okay, but what's the meaning of B?
"It's the meaning of A." Okay, so what's the meaning of A?
"It's the meaning of B." And so on ad infinitum. It's a circular reference. You never get to a point where you say "Right, so this is what A means!" As such, the meaning of both A and B is not fully specified. Your response would be something like "But it is! The meaning of A is the meaning of B!" but that would be missing the point.
Here's another example. What's the referred portion of reality in the case of "Unicorns that live on Earth are green"? The referred portion of reality is "Unicorns that live on Earth". But such a portion of reality does not really exist. There are no unicorns living on the planet Earth. As such, that portion of reality is actually missing. And since it is missing, the statement is not a
proper statement. It is NOT a belief. Your retort would be something like "But it does exist! The referred portion of reality are unicorns that live on Earth!" But that would be, once again, missing the point.
Consider this:
"Joe Biden's right head is larger than his left head."
The opposite belief is "Joe Biden's right head is equal in size to or smaller than his left head". According to the law of excluded middle, either P or not-P is true. If P is true, not-P is false, If P is false, not-P is true. So if the above statement is false, then it's negation, which is that Joe Biden's right head is not larger than his left head, is true. Noone is going to say the above statement is true, so it seems like, but only on the surface, that according to the law of excluded middle, we must accept the opposite belief. The reality is that we don't because the law of excluded middle only applies to
proper statements i.e. statements that are describing
real portions of reality. Joe Biden's right head and left head are non-existent portions of reality, so the above statement is NOT a proper statement and the law of excluded middle does not apply to it. It's a bit silly to apply the law of excluded middle to things that have no truth value (i.e. to things that aren't beliefs.) The only reason people are applying it to these statements is because they are a bit too dumb to understand that these symbols do not really represent beliefs. They LOOK like they do but they actually DON'T. Sophistry is ENTIRELY about deceiving appearances i.e. things looking like something they are not.