False premise. You seem to be assuming that many people using symbols reliably in similar ways points to anything other than this convention being reliably useful in achieving some broadly desired end. It doesn’t.
Your mathematics example is also misleading because it directs attention to “mathematical truths” which are generally only considered to be valid statements within the framework of mathematics and, thus, inherently relative to a particular framework and not “absolute”.
As soon as you move to “real life” cases you are faced with the question of how to frame a situation in the first place (also see the “frame problem” in AI research). There is no “absolute” answer to this. Maybe a little bit tongue in check but ask yourself: Why is this website called “Less Wrong” and not “absolute truth”?
If you are looking to educate yourself have a look at the following resources. I found them quite insightful.
On philosophy:
Dewey, J. (1938). Logic: The Theory of Inquiry. Henry Holt and Company, INC.
Ulrich, W. (2006). Critical Pragmatism: A New Approach to Professional and Business Ethics. In Interdisciplinary Yearbook for Business Ethics. V. 1, v. 1,. Peter Lang Pub Inc.
On the frame problem:
Vervaeke, J., Lillicrap, T. P., & Richards, B. A. (2012). Relevance Realization and the Emerging Framework in Cognitive Science. Journal of Logic and Computation, 22(1), 79–99. https://doi.org/10.1093/logcom/exp067
Andersen, B. P., Miller, M., & Vervaeke, J. (2022). Predictive processing and relevance realization: Exploring convergent solutions to the frame problem. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-022-09850-6
False premise. You seem to be assuming that many people using symbols reliably in similar ways points to anything other than this convention being reliably useful in achieving some broadly desired end. It doesn’t.
Your mathematics example is also misleading because it directs attention to “mathematical truths” which are generally only considered to be valid statements within the framework of mathematics and, thus, inherently relative to a particular framework and not “absolute”.
As soon as you move to “real life” cases you are faced with the question of how to frame a situation in the first place (also see the “frame problem” in AI research). There is no “absolute” answer to this. Maybe a little bit tongue in check but ask yourself: Why is this website called “Less Wrong” and not “absolute truth”?
If you are looking to educate yourself have a look at the following resources. I found them quite insightful.
On philosophy:
Dewey, J. (1938). Logic: The Theory of Inquiry. Henry Holt and Company, INC.
Ulrich, W. (2006). Critical Pragmatism: A New Approach to Professional and Business Ethics. In Interdisciplinary Yearbook for Business Ethics. V. 1, v. 1,. Peter Lang Pub Inc.
On the frame problem:
Vervaeke, J., Lillicrap, T. P., & Richards, B. A. (2012). Relevance Realization and the Emerging Framework in Cognitive Science. Journal of Logic and Computation, 22(1), 79–99. https://doi.org/10.1093/logcom/exp067
Andersen, B. P., Miller, M., & Vervaeke, J. (2022). Predictive processing and relevance realization: Exploring convergent solutions to the frame problem. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-022-09850-6
This seems useful. Thanks!