Denny VrandečićMay 20

"Maria and Peter are students and meet up for a late dinner. Peter asks Maria whether Tom is at the party that they intend to go to after dinner. Maria answers that Tom is at the party. After all, Tom had told her that he would be at the party. When they arrive at the party, it turns out that Tom had changed his plans, and is not at the party. Was Maria's answer true or false?"

#truth #philosophy #cognition

(please spread for visibility, I would like this to be as wide as possible)

1/2

Maria's answer was true
32.6%
Maria's answer was false
67.4%
Poll ended at .
Show threadDenny VrandečićMay 20

A new study shows that there is much, much less agreement on the answer to this question than I would have expected. Even after reading about the study, I still expect people in my bubble to have the same answer as I do. Let's see. But this probably means that the meaning of truth, in the general population, is simply different from what I would have assumed. And explains a number of public discourses.

2/2

https://reason.com/2026/05/15/the-surprising-divide-over-what-counts-as-true/

New study investigates why people disagree about what's true

A new study finds that what people think about facts, authenticity, or coherent beliefs explains why they disagree about what is true.

Reason.com
Show threadjanjkoMay 20
@vrandecic so some people equate someone lying to someone's statement being false? Then they should have a different word for someone being unintentionally wrong?
Show threadDenny VrandečićMay 20
@janjko yeah, I have the same problem. I would say Maria never lied. But for me, that doesn't mean what she said is true.
Show threadRob van Kan🔻May 20
@vrandecic @janjko as far as she knew, it was true.
Show thread\u1f0a1May 20
@edgeofeurope @vrandecic @janjko No, she had no way of knowing it was true.
Show threadkætMay 20

@bnlandor @edgeofeurope @vrandecic @janjko We can never be absolutely certain of anything at the level of logic.

This seems mainly to be a problem about the practice assigning logical truth values to real life language acts.

It seems we can all agree on the practical meaning, consequences, and so on, and whether the different parts of the bundle of things we might mean by a statement being true are satisfied and what they might be contingent on (the personalities of the people, their circumstance, etc)..

Where we disagree seems to be on this truth-value labelling pursuit which, a bit like village cricket, I'm pleased some people are passionate about, but I'm not sure I'm one of them.

Show threadbor[x]a 🇵🇸 ボルシャ 3d ago
@chiffchaff well, modality exists @bnlandor @edgeofeurope @vrandecic @janjko
Show threadkæt3d ago
@protoeuskaldun @bnlandor @edgeofeurope @vrandecic @janjko Dunnocks much more so.
Show threadbor[x]a 🇵🇸 ボルシャ 3d ago
@chiffchaff LOL, sorry for my brief reply; what I meant was that the question posed at the start has a clear logical answer for me, as Maria could have used some form of modal or evidential marker. By not doing so, even if she wasn’t lying intentionally, her statement lends itself to a fairly straightforward assessment of falsity. @bnlandor @edgeofeurope @vrandecic @janjko
Show threadkæt3d ago

@protoeuskaldun @bnlandor @edgeofeurope @vrandecic @janjko sorry, I thought you were making a claim for the foundational importance of truth values of utterances in building a model of the world.

Maria could have been clearer about her level of knowledge, to make the surface meaning match the pragmatic purpose, but that can be a tedious fool's errand if you go too far with it in real life.

Show threadDaniel Gibson2d ago

@chiffchaff @protoeuskaldun @bnlandor @edgeofeurope @vrandecic @janjko
At what point could she be 100% sure anyway? Even if he had told her earlier that he was at the party he could've left by then...
If she knew him to be chained to the wall at that party? Even then he might have died by now, which opens another can of worms about the definition of *being* at the party :-p

It's obvious that she could only answer with what she knew at the time and that a "yes" implies "as far as I know"

Show threadkæt2d ago
@Doomed_Daniel @protoeuskaldun @bnlandor @edgeofeurope @vrandecic @janjko it could be an alien hologram of him, or she could be afflicted by psychosis, or whatever. I think it's okay to say false things by accident when the world is conspiring against you, but here, as long as the questioner had a fair understanding of the answerers level of knowledge, I think "is" is just a placeholder for a complex construction already understood by context by both parties. If I ask "Is there a film at 11?" at 9, I think I can say yes truthfully, without saying "as long as there isn't a major international incident in the next two hours. That "is" is clearly about scheduling.
Show threadEvelyn Estelle

@chiffchaff @Doomed_Daniel @protoeuskaldun @bnlandor @edgeofeurope @vrandecic @janjko

Or you can just cut out all the uncertainty and assumption and say "he said he will be at the party" or "yes, the film is scheduled at 11".

6:48pmWeb