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Sewing-Machine comments on The Useful Idea of Truth - Less Wrong
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I think it's apt but ironic that you find a definition of "truth" by comparing beliefs and reality. Beliefs are something that human beings, and maybe some animals have. Reality is vast in comparison, and generally not very animal-centric. Yet every one of these diagrams has a human being or brain in it.
With one interesting exception, the space of all possible worlds. Is truth more animal-centric that reality? Wouldn't "snow is white" be a true statement if people weren't around? Maybe not--who would be around to state it? But I find it easy to imagine a possible world with white snow but no people.
Edit: What would a hypothetical post titled "The Useful Idea of Reality" contain? Would it logically come before or after this post?
If people weren't around, then "snow is white" would still be a true sentence, but it wouldn't be physically embodied anywhere (in quoted form). If we want to depict the quoted sentence, the easiest way to do that is to depict its physical embodiment.
Truth is more about how you get to know reality than it is about reality. For instance, it is easy to conceive of a possibility where everything a person knows about something points to it being true, even if it later turns out to be false. Even if you do everything right, there's no cosmic guarantee that you have found truth, and therefore cut straight through to reality.
But it is still a very important concept. Consider: someone you love is in the room with you, and all the evidence available to you points to a bear trying to get into the room. You would be ill-advised to second-guess your belief when there's impending danger.
Not exactly. White isn't a fundamental concept like mass is. Brain perception of color is an extremely relative and sticky issue. When I go outside at night and look at snow, I'd swear up and down that the stuff is blue.