Liar's Paradox Revisited

[granpa]

Did you read the bit in blue? The prisoner deduces that he can't be hung on any day.
Where did he make a mistake?

i just told you. your argument goes if day 1 is the last day then day 2 is the last day. if day 2 then day3. if day 3 then day 4. if day 4 then...day 157. by the time you get 6 months down the line it is clear that it collapses. there must be an argument that moves it in the other direction. i dont know what that argument is exactly but i suspect it results in exactly what i wrote below.

if day 1 then day 2. if day 2 then day 1. hence it is unknowable.

i have changed my mind about one thing though. i believe it is unknowable from any perpective.

[raydpratt]

So your argument is that it's true, because it isn't false?
You say that "This statement is false" is a true statement?

That's correct.

A statement is never true or false by itself, but only in comparison to some controlling standard; and the Liar's Paradox uses the term "false," and thus it must be judged by what we legitimately mean by "false."

Specifically, the Liar's Paradox only refers to its own stated truth value of "false" which does not prove it to be false (petitio principii). However, the Liar's Paradox ingeniously tells the truth by admitting, in effect, that it falsely asserts that it is provably false.

The Liar's Paradox should be interpreted as saying "This very statement falsely asserts that it is provably false," and I believe that is a true statement.

It was (and still is) very difficult for me to sort out the difference between using "true" and "false" as terms in a statement and then using such terms as outside judgments about a statement. I believe that the standard discussions of the Liar's Paradox blur that distinction and commit a fallacy of ambiguity, but I'm not ready to dissect that beast.

Why is it important?

We have U.S. Supreme Court decisions that make it a matter of law that a prison official's explanations are to be taken as "true" if they are arguably rational (as opposed to psychotically delusional and incomprehensible?) regardless of whether the officials are actually telling the truth, even in regard to simple factual events, not just in regard to reasons for a policy or practice, etc. Although this is billed as the "rational relation" test for disposing of a legal challenge to a state's action (or a state's policy, practice, law, or decision), it is ridiculous to extend that test to whether an official's statements about simple factual events are to be taken as true.

Prisoners lost 18 years of case law establishing their right of access to the courts and had it replaced with a gutless decision that villified a lower-court judge for not taking the prison officials' factual statements as true even after the judge had been repeatedly lied to for over 10 years.

I have pretty much lost interest in law as a carreer because I can't imagine pursuing years of litigation and then taking a case to the highest and most important court in the nation and then being confronted by politically-motivated, intellectually dishonest court.

I cannot accept that a lie about a fact must be taken as true from anyone. I am an American.

The Liar's Paradox is important because we all need to think better about the difference between using "true" or "false" as mere terms in statements and actually judging the truth or falsity of statements.

Very Respectfully,
Ray Donald Pratt,
AAS-Legal Assistant; and,
former "Writ Writer,"
see, e.g., Pratt v. Sumner,
807 F.2d 817 (9th Cir. 1987)

[sigurdV]

This tread seems deserted. Sigh!
If it revives i will return since the foundations of logic, the truth about truth
really interests me.
I think ill open a new thread