boasts of Athiests II

This is getting heavily semantically confused.The statements in question have been *defined* as personal and subjective. Personal and subjective statements were further defined as having no truth value or being meaningless in the sense that they have no objective truth. Value statements were the main example and these are clearly subjective and personal -- you can't say that your preference for red is based on an objective absolute value of red so that it should be preferred over all other colors.That doesn't mean that people can't make true statements.

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This is getting heavily semantically confused.

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I think that you are the one getting confused. See below for reasons.

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The statements in question have been *defined* as personal and subjective. Personal and subjective statements were further defined as having no truth value or being meaningless in the sense that they have no objective truth.

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I saw no sign of any authoritative definition DEFINING such statements as having no truth-value. Let alone claimign that they are meaningless - which Robin denies. And I would suggest that Robin knows better what he meant better than you do.

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Value statements were the main example and these are clearly subjective and personal -- you can't say that your preference for red is based on an objective absolute value of red so that it should be preferred over all other colors.

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I don't see the problem here. Any statement that "red is best" either refers to an absolute value - which is, according to you, false since there is no such value - or it refers to a subjective valuation (e.g "red is my favourite colour") which can also be true or false. Or are you claiming that the statement "red is my favourite colour" is meaningless and cannot be true or false ?

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That doesn't mean that people can't make true statements

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This has nothing to do with what I said. My assertion is that all meaningful statements (and I class paradoxes as meaningless for the purposes of this discussion) have a truth value.

OK, I understand.Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that there are no objective values. This means that no thing, experience, or behavior can be said to be any more valuable than any other thing, experience, or behavior. "Value" is not a quality that can be assigned to any experience.Then suppose I have an experience, and I make the claim, "This experience was valuable." This statement is untrue about the experience. But suppose this experience really is valuable to me (say, it makes me happy). In order for my claim to be true, it has to be a statement about me, not a statement about the experience. The experience I had need not be valuable for anyone else.

Your thoughts here seem to be answered in my previous post, a reply to Faith.To repeat, then IF "value" is assumed to refer to an objective property and there is no such objective property, then any claim that something is valuable is untrue. If it refers to a subjective property then it may well be true. In neither case is such a statement meaningless or lacking a truth-value.I would add that such a claim is about both the experience and the person - to take it as being about either one alone would be wrong.

OK. Now just a clarification about "meaning," so I can get the terms down. Would you say that a statement such as "Arithmetic is green" is meaningful?I was using the term "meaningless" to mean statements like that.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

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Would you say that a statement such as "Arithmetic is green" is meaningful?

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I would say that it is not, because arithmetic is not the sort of thing that could be considered "green" in any sense I am aware of.

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I was using the term "meaningless" to mean statements like that.

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I don't think that this discussion was about your use of "meaningless". It was about your claim that subjective evaluatiosn had no truth-value. The issue of meaning came in becsuse that entailed that such statements were meaningless.

I don't know why "the Realm of" is being used. You have the concepts of objective and unchanging for something you call truth.Who then is subject for which these truth(s)(singular or plural?) are an object?lfen

I suppose you could be talking about the environmental impact of doing arithmetic.

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Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

Why?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

So if "Arithmetic is green" is not meaningful, I would think that "Arithmetic is not green" also lacks meaning.So if we go back to the premise that there are no objective values, we can say that objective value is not a quality that can be applied to experiences, in the same way that color is a quality that cannot be applied to arithmetic, or other such concepts. So if I have an experience, and make the claim,"This experience was valuable," that would be like saying "Arithmetic is green"--as regards objective value. In that sense, the statement would not be meaningful (it would lack truth-value).It would, however, be meaningful subjectively. Suppose I had an experience of watching a certain movie, and my claim was, "This experience of watching that movie was valuable." In an objective sense, this statement would lack meaning. In a subjective sense, it would mean, "This movie was valuable to me." Let's say what we mean by "valuable" is that it made me happy. Such a statement is meaningful--it might be true or false. But the truth or falsehood has to do only with me (whether or not watching the movie made me happy).You were saying that the experience and the person could not be separated. But the movie in itself has no value. Nor, I would think, can an object (the movie) have subjective value except in connection with a subject (me or someone else).And I would think that the fact that I had a subjectively valuable experience cannot be used in evidence that the movie has value for others.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

The negation of a meaningless statement is autmatically meaningless - that is trivial.

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So if we go back to the premise that there are no objective values, we can say that objective value is not a quality that can be applied to experiences, in the same way that color is a quality that cannot be applied to arithmetic, or other such concepts.

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For this to be analagous it cannot be simply the case that value is not objective, it must be the case that it makes no sense to even suggest that value is objective. A false statement is not the same as a meaningless one.

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You were saying that the experience and the person could not be separated. But the movie in itself has no value.

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Your argument here is problematic. The experience is watching the movie - not the movie itself. And normally that expereicne will depend on the content of the movie Even if the movie itself is considered not value, it does not negate the fact that it os a part of the value.

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And I would think that the fact that I had a subjectively valuable experience cannot be used in evidence that the movie has value for
others.

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It would be evidence that it is valuable for some others. It is unlikely that your situation is so unique that nobody else would find a similar value in the watching.

OK, I get that. Let me go back to a statement I made earlier, and change the wording somewhat (in this statement there was no premise about a lack of objective value). Here's what I said earlier:Suppose I prefer the color red to the color blue. And suppose I do so because I associate red with a favorite color of a long lost girlfriend, whom I still love. So when I see the color red, I am enthralled.Now if I make a generalization, and say, "Red is a superior color to blue," my judgment is purely subjective. [It has no truth-value at all in that it has no logical basis.]I change the words in brackets to the following: "It has truth-value but there is no evidence for my claim."The reason it has truth-value is that it could possibly be true, for all we know.And then in another statement I made to Jar, in his asking what difference it made whether my judgment was subjective or not, I said,"It may make no difference to me, but it makes a huge difference in regard to the value of the color. [My judgment of it is meaningless].I change the sentence in brackets as follows: "My judgment of it lacks merit as an argument. But it is a meaningful statement in that it might be true or false."Does this pass muster with you?Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

I think you're still hung up on the question of objectoive versus subjective.If we accept that there is no objective ranking then any claim to objectively rank one colour over another is necessarily false. On the other hand a subective ranking may well be true - in fact for it to be false you'd either have to be lying or wrong about your own preferences.TO deal with your specific examples

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Now if I make a generalization, and say, "Red is a superior color to blue," my judgment is purely subjective. [It has no truth-value at all in that it has no logical basis.]

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Firstly the judgement has a truth value as I've stated above. Lacking a logical basis does not make a statement meaningless, so the statement in square brackets is a non-sequitur.

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I change the words in brackets to the following: "It has truth-value but there is no evidence for my claim."

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That depends if it is meant objectively or subjectively. If it is meant subjectively there would be evidence in your reactions (availabel to you and to a lesser extent those observing you)

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nd then in another statement I made to Jar, in his asking what difference it made whether my judgment was subjective or not, I said,"It may make no difference to me, but it makes a huge difference in regard to the value of the color. [My judgment of it is meaningless].

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The statement in square brackets is another non-sequitur. Subjective judgements aren't meaningless jsut because they are subjective.s

OK. Subjective judgments are meaningful in that they have truth-value (can be true or false). But there are two ways they have truth-value.Let's say we don't know if there is an objective ranking of colors or not.1. I say, "I prefer red to blue" (truth value: either I do or I don't).
2. I say, "Red is superior to blue objectively," (based on my subjective association described above). Truth value: This statement is either true or false, but the argument is fallacious. The statement is put in an objective form, but the argument is subjective.Agree?Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

Seems OK.1