h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Bx4,
"The fact that your your de dicto definition of an indetereministic processes /assumes/ a particular /interpretation/ of indeterminacy as a premise that is consistent with your conclusion suggests otherwise. I could assume an indeterministic 'many worlds' interpretation or a deterministic 'hidden variable' inteptetation as premises which would result ia quite different conclusions. So your conclusion is assumed in your premise."
I'm sorry, I don't understand this, what conclusion? It might help me to see where I'm going wrong if you could clarify here, I thought I'd said 'whether', meaning whether or not the world is deterministic or not by whatever interpretation.

Ok, but maybe I'm wrong. So suppose we remove any assumption that synthetic propositions are contingent (maybe I had assumed this, since if something is synthetic, like 'it is raining (x,y,z,t)' it seems odd to assume that this is not contingent, meaning it is logically necessary.) Suppose we also leave to one side, any considerations of indeterminacy. What does this do to the argument?

As far as I can see, it leaves us in the same place, with you owing an argument for @Kg(Y) . If you assume that synthetic propositions are logically necessary, then you don't need @Kg(Y) anyway, since @(E) follows directly anyway. But why assume that?

"If so then nothing in that statement is of /any/ relevance to events in the /actual/ world. So what is the point of your de dicto definition?"
I don't see why you think that. The proposition p is true by reference to a tenseless fact, which in the case of synthetic propositions is an event in the world.

I don't believe that possibilities exist in any other sense than an idea does. A possibility is a kind of idea which is embodied in the branching structure IF...THEN...ELSE (if I wrote it in, say PASCAL*).

So I agree, pink unicorns, although rather more useful to think about. So I don't have a motive to persuade you otherwise.

* Showing my age

Haven't read the thread yet.

ttfn

Hi Bx4,
Just so we are clear, if you have had chance to read #581, do you now agree that @p means 'necessarily, p is true'?

ttfn

'Just so we are clear, if you have had chance to read #581, do you now agree that @p means 'necessarily, p is true'?'

No except in the case where (non-modal) p is true. See the quotes from the IEP and SEP and my earlier response to your variant of Ramsey's ladder.

I need clear up a couple points about 581 before replying to it but first having disengaged from sl absurd 'mereological' argument I be you wish you hadn't the Tralmalfadore joke I need to similarly disengage from his even moral nonsensical 'clinical trial subthread.

In any case it seems a bit confusing to engage in debate about your 581 both here and on 'Compatibilism'. I was just saying that my remark above referred not your Ramsey's Ladder argument but to your Possible Worlds' one

bsy

Hi Bx4,

"No except in the case where (non-modal) p is true. See the quotes from the IEP and SEP and my earlier response to your variant of Ramsey's ladder."
I did, hence my #581 which deals with these quotes. Of course if I assert p it could turn out that p is false, then I'm just wrong when I assert p. But the meaning of 2) in:

1) p => q
2) p

is not a statement that p can be either true or false. It is to take p as a premise, in which case the conclusion only follows if p is true.

When we have:

1) @p => @q
2) @p

then we are taking 2) as a premise, so the conclusion only follows if @p is true, a necessary but not sufficient condition for which is that p is true.

"I need clear up a couple points about 581 before replying to it but first having disengaged from sl absurd 'mereological' argument I be you wish you hadn't the Tralmalfadore joke"


"In any case it seems a bit confusing to engage in debate about your 581 both here and on 'Compatibilism'. I was just saying that my remark above referred not your Ramsey's Ladder argument but to your Possible Worlds' one"
Ok, sorry about mixing the threads here. I still don't know what you have against my possible worlds argument. You seem to be arguing against modal realism, but I'm not a modal realist so I'm a bit stumped. Nor is my remark about your interpretation of actualism a 'gambit', it might be that yours is the established actualist view, but that doesn't mean it makes sense to me. Hence from my perspective, the view that actualism rules out possible worlds semantics as a valid tool is problematic (to say the least).

ttfn

hi psi

I think I prefer to leave any debate relating to your 581 (and two priors (577, 578, I think) to 'compatibilism' I an time poor and conducting overlapping confuses me cos I is a bit of a dimbulb a I become muddled.

I reply to your early indeterminism post but leave much.

I should have a bit more time now that I have successfully derached myself from the great debate ' On the Distiguishability of the Parts of the Worm People of Terra, Sol'

I'm not anticipating anthinng happening soon on the 'clinical trial sub-thread which is just as well since I suspect the answer is .....induction. Which would get us into one about 'The Tedious Thunk of Mr Popper, Philosopher' and I do not want go there.

One point:

' Hence from my perspective, the view that actualism rules out possible worlds semantics as a valid tool is problematic (to say the least).'

I don't I have ever claimed that except in so far as actualism denies existent but non-actual possibilia which you said you thought a daft notion


bsy

Hi Bx4,

"I think I prefer to leave any debate relating to your 581 (and two priors (577, 578, I think) to 'compatibilism' I an time poor and conducting overlapping confuses me cos I is a bit of a dimbulb a I become muddled."
You is no dimbulb, for sure..

"I don't I have ever claimed that except in so far as actualism denies existent but non-actual possibilia which you said you thought a daft notion"
I still do. However, you queried what I see as a perfectly valid use of possible world semantics, seemingly on the basis of the non existence of possible worlds, which is still problematic (although it doesn't look like I can say the least now, 'cos I've said it again).

ttfn

hi psi

'I still do. However, you queried what I see as a perfectly valid use of possible world semantics, seemingly on the basis of the non existence of possible worlds, which is still problematic (although it doesn't look like I can say the least now, 'cos I've said it again).'

hi psi I have a number of distinct reservations about the use of PWS

1. I am using Lewis ¬#(P.¬Q) in his B.S1 model which contains no model theory. Since the B variant was first published in 1932 and Hintikkan PWS did not appear until the 1960s and are not required to deal with Lewis B variant definition of strict implication which does not involve recourse to model theory.

2. You have not given any account of why you have chosen Hintikkan semantics over other modal semantics such as Kripke's frame semantics.

3. You have provided no account that shows how PWs relates to the actual world in which some arbitrary analytic /or/ synthetic proposition p is true.

4. You have specified no accessibility condition which requires that there are possible worlds accessible from the actual world in which the proposition.

5. You have not shown why this specific accessibility relation necessarily must be used.

6. You have not shown that your ¬@KC(Y) descibes a world in which p is false.

bsy.

Hi Bx4,

1. This seems to be the anachronism objection again. I'm afraid I still don't understand it. It is as if we got different answers to an arithmetical calculation and you objected to me using a calculator because you were using log tables.

2. Did you give an account of why you chose Lewis ¬#(P.¬Q) over other formulations? I chose the simplest system which captures necessity in my view. A full specification with frames, powerset functions and accessibility relations are a bit fiddly for MB's. If I'd thought them necessary I'd have improvised, but I don't think they are.

3. PWS allows us to treat the actual world as one of a set of possible worlds and we can use this as a device to get at modal concepts like necessity. For example if a synthetic p is true we can think of possible worlds accessible from this world in which they are false. For something like a p which is logically necessary, this is such that p obtains in every possible world. This strikes me as a useful way to think about modal concepts.

4. Since @Kg(Y) is about necessity, and I agree with the SEP when it says:
"It has been shown that S5 is sound and complete for 5-validity (hence our use of the symbol ‘5’). The 5-valid arguments are exactly the arguments provable in S5. This result suggests that S5 is the correct way to formulate a logic of necessity."

then every world can see every other, so I don't need to specify an accessibility relation. I accept that there are different notions of possibility and necessity, some of which might require restrictions on the accessibility relation, but in the context of omniscience, we have logical necessity, so I'd rather restrict the universal set of possible worlds to those in which the laws of logic obtain.

5. See above. (If R lets every world be accessible from every other, by being serial, reflexive, transitive, symmetric etc then we can say that in effect we don't need to specify R in any other way. The reason to use this R is to capture the notion of logical necessity such that @p is true iff p is true in every possible world in which the laws of logic obtain.

6. ¬@Kg(Y) /doesn't/ describe a world in which p is false.

I doubt we can make progress on 6 until you have responded to #581 elsethread though.

ttfn

hi psi

I am overcome by a touch of akedia with this debate both here and on compatibilism so I'm taken of few days off.

I hope when I return I will not be faced with attempted rebuttals that rely on dodgy analogies, but in the spirit in which yours was offered here is my response:

Why do on a Cray-2 what you can do on your fingers?

I leave you and stephen to debate 'On the Application of Possible World Semantics to the Indistiguishability of the Contigent Parts of a Hypothetical Worm Person'. Got to be at least one symposiumin there.

bsy

Hi Bx4,

I disagree that the analogy is dodgy, and I hope that if and when your bout of acedia subsides you will respond to #581 and give your argument for @Kg(Y) .

"Why do on a Cray-2 what you can do on your fingers?"
If you can show that this analogy is more apt than mine, fair enough.
As it is, I'm happy to forgo PWS even though I can't quite understand your objection to it. I'll debate this in whatever framework you deem appropriate, but I'll be surprised if you can argue that @Kg(Y) is warranted.

"I leave you and stephen to debate 'On the Application of Possible World Semantics to the Indistiguishability of the Contigent Parts of a Hypothetical Worm Person'. Got to be at least one symposiumin there."
Very good..


ttfn

hi psi

'Very good.'

Sadly despite the increasing bizarreness of the debate you have not managed to introduce Possible World semantics which is a shame and a pity though well done for getting a 'reason responsive mechanism' into the frame.

Surely though given Stephen' theory of the Unconnectedness of the Parts of the Hypothetical Worm Person this would be quite difficult unless one were to posit an B-theoretic omniscient observer who necessarily knows all the parts of the HWP, @Kg(Sum(HWP(P1,P2,P3,..., P(N-2),P(N-1),P(N)))) to see the mechanism operating across the unconnected parts of the HWP?

This would allow the claim to be made that there are possible worlds accessible from the actual world, in which@Kg(Sum(HWP)(P1...PN), in which g necessarily doesn't know this.......

Also I'm bit unclear who it is that perceives the causal connection between the unconnected parts of the HWP?



bsy

Hi Bx4,

Superb!



ttfn

psi

'Superb!

Ta but serious underlying point. I think your point about the Boat of Theseus hits the nail on the head

The flaw in Stephens argument is that if there is no identity that links the infinitely sliced spatiotemporal parts of Hypothetical Worm Persons the how can a contract be meaningful.

The problem with his argument is that he asserts the discontnuity of parts but requires some unspecified form of continuity for a contract to meaningful at any temporal 'point' after it is signed.

He seems to assume, while insisting on the discontinuity of parts, that there is some sort continuity related to the persistence of memory through time.

But if there if this, or indeed any other, type of continuity between the supposedly discontinuous parts of the HWP, and the HWP is aware of this continuity then contracts work but then so does the assigning of moral responsiblity but discontinuity fails.

Earlier on the thread I asked stephen to explain how he could reconcile his assertion that the HWP can simultaneously be a /continuous/ person and as /discontinuous/ person.

Predictably, stephen failed to deal with a question that threatens one idee fixe.

I fear your chance of making progress is small......

bsy

Hi Bx4,

I agree, I tried to make the same point a number of ways including via the spacial analogy that he had conceded that both hands were his. If he'd thought about it, he would have realised he had inadvertently conceded the point even in his own analogy.

I can't help but have the intuition that the motive for the idee fixe is a certain squeamishness regarding blame and punishment. But that's just a hunch.

ttfn

hi psi

'a hunch'

Perhaps your right though I see a more geneneral proclivity for adherence to idees fixe. We had the supposed MSF/necessitarianism/ dichotomy the rejection of the notion of mapping from ordinary language, the Pv¬P and P=P arguments for alternate possibilities and modt recently, despite my pointing out that its flaws made debate impossible, his cod clinical trial design

On the HWP debate I gave him a link that discussed Theseus Boat in terms of a couple theories of identity, including the MTI.

Still he might learn. I though clearbury's style of argument had much improved since his 'Objective' days. I hope his attempt to teach himself progresses and he reurns to the debate soon.

bsy

Hi Bx4,

Fair enough, but then again people might well think the same about me, after all, what distinguishes an idee fixe from maintaining what one regards as a valid view? I agree about clearbury, I can only hope that I have improved too.

ttfn

hi psi

' what distinguishes an idee fixe from maintaining what one regards as a valid view'

The willingness to concede or at least modify a view when presented with sound arguments against it, perhaps?

' I can only hope that I have improved too.'

Who am I to judge but I note that you once admitted that you were 'notoriously gullible' with respect to philosophical woo-woo and legerdemain.

Hi Bx4,

"The willingness to concede or at least modify a view when presented with sound arguments against it, perhaps?"
So how do I know that the arguments against a view that I keep weren't sound? Surely I have to rely on my judgement of the soundness of opposing arguments, but if I get that wrong then won't it look like I have an idee fixe? Or would you say that in such an example, my view would actually /be/ such?

"Who am I to judge but I note that you once admitted that you were 'notoriously gullible' with respect to philosophical woo-woo and legerdemain."
Yes, but only by way of explanation for my now exquisitely developed critical faculties as a response in order to overcome said gullibility..

hi psi

'So how do I know that the arguments against a view that I keep weren't sound? Surely I have to rely on my judgement of the soundness of opposing arguments, but if I get that wrong then won't it look like I have an idee fixe? Or would you say that in such an example, my view would actually /be/ such?'

You don't but there is objective evidence that you /have/ change your position on various points.

'Yes, but only by way of explanation for my now exquisitely developed critical faculties as a response in order to overcome said gullibility'

Not wholly persuasive coming from one who seems to accept the whole alethic modality schtick.

Hi Bx4,

"Not wholly persuasive coming from one who seems to accept the whole alethic modality schtick."

Ah, no you don't understand...come over here and sleep next to this pod...when you wake you'll realise that life is much better when you embrace PWS...don't struggle..your problems will disappear..