[knightoffaith]

>It's "X is a faithful reflection of the actual state of affairs in objective reality." That's what the word "true" means.

As you've said earlier. This sounds like a reasonable construal of the word true. But I don't see anything about propositions needing to be encoded in this definition. "The earth is round" is a faithful reflection of the actual state of affairs in objective reality. It was a faithful reflection of the actual state of affairs in objective reality even before anyone was around to conceptualize this as a proposition. You don't think so?

[lisper]

Did I point you to this already?

https://blog.rongarret.info/2015/02/31-flavors-of-ontology.h...

Did you read it? Do you accept it?

Propositions are ideas, i.e. they exist in a different ontological category than material objects like earth (note no quotation marks). The word "earth" (with quotes) is an idea, one that happens to refer to earth, i.e. the material object referred to by the word "earth", which happens to be round. The words "earth is round" (with quotes) is also an idea, one which refers to a particular property (roundness) of a particular material object (earth). That idea falls into a subset of the more general concept of ideas which we call "propositions" because they have a particular relationship to the states of material objects, i.e. "the earth is round" (with quotes) is true because the earth is round (no quotes).

Material objects are made of atoms; they cannot exist without the atoms that comprise them, but their existence is more than just the totality of the existence of their constituent atoms. All of the atoms that comprise the earth existed billions of years before the earth came into existence. Earth did not come into existence until the atoms that comprise it arranged themselves in a particular way.

Ideas are not made of atoms, they are made of information. Just like material objects, ideas do not come into existence until some information that encodes that idea arranges itself in a particular way, i.e. until they are thought of. A proposition that hasn't been thought of is like a poem that hasn't been written. Saying that an unthought-of proposition is true is like saying that an unwritten poem rhymes.

Consider the words "Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father." Do those words stand for a proposition? Is that proposition true? Was it true before 1977 (keeping in mind here that the Star Wars story ostensibly happened "a long time ago")? Would Rene Descartes be able to recognize it as a true proposition?

It's really hard to talk about ideas. With material object you can point at them, poke them, prod them, weight them, shine lights at them. You can't do any of those things with ideas. All you can do is refer to them using representations like "the earth is round" (with quotes) or "la terre est ronde" or "Die Erde ist rund" or "地球是圆的". It is the act of referring to them in a way that some being can recognize as referring to a proposition that causes the proposition to come into being, just as the act of composing a poem causes that poem to come into being. Unwritten poems do not rhyme, and they do not not-rhyme. They simply aren't. Likewise, unthought-of propositions are neither true nor false.

[knightoffaith]

>Did you read it? Do you accept it?

Accept what specifically?

Here's what I understand you to be saying, and you're free to reframe this.

1. Propositions are ideas. 2. Ideas can only exist if they are conceived. 3. "The earth is round" is a proposition. 4. Therefore, "the earth is round" can only exist if it is conceived. 5. Truth and falsity are properties of propositions. 6. If something does not exist, it cannot have any properties. 6. If it is not conceived, "the earth is round" cannot exist. 7. "The earth is round" cannot have any properties. 8. Truth and falsity are not properties of "the earth is round".

Sounds reasonable. But how do we square this with:

1. "The earth is round" reflects a state of affairs about objective reality. 2. If something reflects a state of affairs about objective reality, it is true. 3. "The earth is round" is true.

There's nothing here about "the earth is round" needing to be conceived by someone.

One issue I would raise is the first argument's 1 and 2. Propositions don't just exist insofar as they are conceived. Representations of propositions, sure, but not propositions themselves.