This still seems sketchy. I will take a stab at definition, and we can work from there. Keep in mind that my definitions are rough draft and completely off the cuff.

Let us say that "trust" is the reliance of any existent upon the integrity of any other existent.

Let us say that "integrity" is the state of subject when the value of each element within the set of all observable elements of subject is a member of the pre-determined element-respective statical set of values.

Let us say that a "proof" is the evidence or argument by which an assertion is shown to be true.

Are these definitions acceptable for the purposes of this discussion? Suggestions?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom [mailto:tom@ricardo.de]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2001 2:11 PM
> Cc: 'cypherpunks@EINSTEIN.ssz.com'
> Subject: Re: RE: Re: authenticating Real Life(tm) -
> rhetorical bogosity
>
>
>
> "Carskadden, Rush" wrote:
> >
> > From a rhetorical standpoint, this argument is completely bogus. If
> > you want to be reckless with logic, then you might be able
> to say that
> > in a perfect world, trust of the proof may result in
> implicit trust of
> > that's proof's application to an ideal (though this is technically
> > flawed), but the trust is not transitive, nor commutative.
> Trust of a
> > proof may result in trust of a proven concept, but the two are not
> > indistinguishable.
>
> that is a good point, but I am not quite convinced. let's
> first say that
> of course a proof does not create trust in anything but the subject of
> it. so if I prove that I am me that means you can trust THAT
> part of my
> words, but not necessarily anything else.
>
>
> > Further, the colloquial connotation of the word
> > trust, which seems to me to be the major rhetorical nightmare here,
> > appears subjective, and thus hard as hell to do anything with from a
> > logical standpoint.
>
> yes, we should really define the words we are using first.
>