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Page 269
Smith: Do you admit that something can be empirically true or false? Suppose I tell you (v) We are exchanging messages. Is this true or not?
CSP: True, naturally, but not in the sense in which elephants are grey animals. Your (v) asserts a fact. My $$ and ££ information does not concern facts. $$ and ££ are semantic markers recorded in an encyclopedia. If you want to speak of them in terms of truth, let me say that a $$-and-££ piece of information is True1 insofar as it is recorded by an encyclopedia. The fact that we are exchanging a message is True2. You say True in both cases, but I do not see any relationship between these two forms of Truth.
Smith: But the fact that elephants helped Hannibal was also True2.
CSP: I have been told that it was true, but I was not there to check. I know that elephants helped Hannibal only as something recorded as ££ in E.15. It is not a fact; it is a piece of recorded information. If you like, it is for me True1 that (iii) was True2. It is True1 in E.15 that (iii) is ££. If you want, everything recorded in E.15 is True1 in E.15. But "True" runs the risk of being a useless word, since in terms of your Truth, (i), (ii), and (iii) are true in different senses. I agree that both (i) and (ii) are pieces of general information, while (iii) is a piece of information about a particular event. But they are all pieces of encyclopedic information, while the fact that we are talking is simply a fact.
Smith: Do you keep in your memory all the true sentences ever uttered on this planet?
CSP: Let's say that in my actual memory I keep for every recorded expression (for instance, rose) all the properties my masters agree about. For instance, for them a rose is a flower. I do not keep occasional sentences, such as those expressing the case that in November 1327 somebody mentioned a rose. I keep some historical records. For example, there was a rose in Luther's emblem, and on the title page of Robert Fludd's Medicina Catholica. My memory also records some of the rose sentences that my masters remember as very significant, such as a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose or a rose by any other name, or stat rosa pristina nomine. So, when I receive the input rose, I am able, according to duly recorded contextual selections, to decide which portions of the content of rose I should activate in that context and which I should drop and keep apart. It is a difficult job, believe me. However, I try. . . . For instance, when I receive too many rings around Rosie, I disregard both Luther's and Fludd's roses. (It goes without saying that if my masters order me to implement a Deconstruction Program, I become far less selective.)
Smith: It seems that for you Elephants are animals and Elephants helped Hannibal are both true in E.15. I suspect, however, that if you

 
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