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

hi psi

'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.'

I don't in fact have a problem with PWS except insofar as I have a problem with the assumption that the undefined primitive 'necessary' is other than the start of a a logical fairy story.

Btw, I notice that the HPW has disappeared from the debate no doubt to a possible world inaccessible from the actual world in which there parts are mutually accessible.

'Fairness': How very.......English!

Hi Bx4,

"I don't in fact have a problem with PWS except insofar as I have a problem with the assumption that the undefined primitive 'necessary' is other than the start of a a logical fairy story."
No problem then since we have been using a defined operator 'necessarily'.

"'Fairness': How very.......English!"
Ah, yes. Must seem quite alien to you. Cup of tea?

psi

'Since we have been using a defined operator 'necessarily'

'It is necessary that p'

Tricky thing synonyms.

I don't recall defining the primitive /Box/ did you?

'Must seem quite alien to you'

Indeed. Undefined evaluative terms usually are.

'Cup of tea'

Oolong, thanks

Hi Bx4,

"Tricky thing synonyms."
Not necessarily.

"I don't recall defining the primitive /Box/ did you?"
If by this you mean the untypable modal operator depicted by a box, then yes, although I represented it with '@'.

"Indeed. Undefined evaluative terms usually are."
Well I did ask stephen to flesh out what he meant by 'fair' but all I got was win/win.

"Oolong, thanks"
Lovely. Whilst we sip, let me say that given you have declared that pedagogy is not your thing, and still lacking an argument for @Kg(Y) I cast into a backwater, no doubt I should have attended to it earlier, and caught a Pike. Before I beat it's brains out*, it fixed me with it's fishy stare and said 'this is about to become accidentally necessary'. What a notion. Where are the smelling salts?

ttfn

*No fish were harmed in this world in the writing of this post.

hi psi

'Not necessarily'

But possibly.

'If by this you mean the untypable modal operator depicted by a box, then yes, although I represented it with '@'.'

I think you have misunderstood my point. I was not asking which notation' was asigned to the modal primitive 'necessarily' but if you had defined it.

'Well I did ask stephen to flesh out what he meant by 'fair' but all I got was win/win'

Would not lose/lose also be fair? Though it's all a bit boring I much preferred the HWP and its Parts.....

'Lovely. Whilst we sip'

Surely, no true Englishman would sip Oolong. I thought for the proles it was Typhoo with excessive amounts of milk and sugar as in 'A nice cuppa char' and for the nobs Earl Grey' with lemon.

'say that given you have declared that pedagogy is not your thing'

I certainly prefer the socratic to the pedagogic style.

'argument for @Kg(Y) I cast into a backwater, '

Fear not I am noodling a way iat a reply to your 581. It is proving to be quite long and I haven't got past the preamble.....

'no doubt I should have attended to it earlier, and caught a Pike'

The significance of this metaphor escapes me though for some reason the Lobster Quadrille springs to mind.

'it fixed me with it's fishy stare and said 'this is about to become accidentally necessary'

Just before it had all your fingers of at the knuckle joints. Painful and a bit beyond the restorative effects of sal volatile.

'No fish were harmed in this world in the writing of this post.'

And no actual guitarist lost any fingers to a grumpy fish in this world.

bsy

Hi Bx4,

"But possibly."
Although not possibly necessary.

"I think you have misunderstood my point. I was not asking which notation' was asigned to the modal primitive 'necessarily' but if you had defined it."
I think you missed my answer, which was hidden in clear view..'then yes'.

"Would not lose/lose also be fair? Though it's all a bit boring I much preferred the HWP and its Parts....."
I don't see why not, and I agree it is a bit dull.

"Surely, no true Englishman would sip Oolong. I thought for the proles it was Typhoo with excessive amounts of milk and sugar as in 'A nice cuppa char' and for the nobs Earl Grey' with lemon."
Careful, you wouldn't want to get near the 'No True Englishman' fallacy.

"Fear not I am noodling a way iat a reply to your 581. It is proving to be quite long and I haven't got past the preamble....."
Two short paragraphs should suffice. I wouldn't want you to get all Frasier Crane on this one.

"The significance of this metaphor escapes me though for some reason the Lobster Quadrille springs to mind."
Well, it was the demon barber William who came up with 'accidentally necessary' apparently, and I haven't read the Pike paper yet.

"Just before it had all your fingers of at the knuckle joints. Painful and a bit beyond the restorative effects of sal volatile."
Charming!

ttfn

Hi Bx4,

I've just started reading the Freddoso, which I hadn't realised is also about accidental necessity. So you're already up to speed with all this...

ttfn

psi 'Although not possibly necessary' But not not necessarily possible. 'I don't see why not,' I'm not clear why a contract has to be fair or what the 'moral' consequences of it not being so are. I would have thought that assuming that none of the parties are coerced a variant of caveat emptor, caveat contractor, comes in to play. 'and I agree it is a bit dull.' Indeed back to the Parts of the Hypothetical Worm Person. Hurrah! "'No True Englishman' fallacy."" Would you not have to show first that my statement commits the fallacy? 'Two short paragraphs should suffice.' No really. As I want to make my argument clear, draw your attention to a couple of citations to which you really haven't addressed deal with a number of issues with your locution of Ramsey's Ladder and a few other bits and bobs.*** ' I wouldn't want you to get all Frasier Crane on this one.' I have no idea who that is. A relative of Ichabod's perhaps? 'Well, it was the demon barber William who came up with 'accidentally necessary' apparently' Indeed was though my mentioning it to Stephen in http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbreligion/F2213237?thread=7585638&skip=500&show=20#p101159948 was not intended to be wholly serious though I can't see that one could barber a Pike......... 'and I haven't read the Pike paper yet.' ...lost me a bit here who's Pike? Not http://www.matt-pike.com/philosophy/index.php 'charming' Indeed-sound advice that no guitarist should have a close encounter with a live Pike should he wish to remain such. ***Also it lets me put in an inordinate amount of 'symbolicals' which will annoy stephen whose persistence with his ill conceived 'clinical trial' argument after I had given him a cartoon describing how to do it right continues to annoy me.

hi psi

'I've just started reading the Freddoso, which I hadn't realised is also about accidental necessity.'

I'd have thought the title 'Accidental Necessity and Logical Determinism' a bit of a giveaway.

'So you're already up to speed with all this..'

With its inhererent flakiness at least......

bsy

Hi Bx4,

On contracts, I think we agree, I see them as mechanisms which are morally neutral.

On citations that you think I haven't addressed, I have noted them and have given responses that I think are consistent with the parts of them you seem to endorse, but I suppose we'll see how that plays out.

Frasier Crane is a fictional character from American telly, the show called Frasier is probably my favourite sitcom*. Mind you there's Black Books...

Nelson Pike is referenced in two SEP articles, the contents of which might explain clearbury's 'infallible belief' locution:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/omniscience/#ForHumFreAct

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-will-foreknowledge/

"I'd have thought the title 'Accidental Necessity and Logical Determinism' a bit of a giveaway."
Well, ironically, I got the tense wrong. I said 'I hadn't realised', whereas the reason I downloaded the paper was your citation, but I saved it as 'Freddoso' and subsequently forgot what it was about.

As for flakiness, we all have a touch of that perhaps...

*I'm sure you wouldn't be so flaky as to ever watch telly, let alone a sitcom.

'
Nelson Pike is referenced in two SEP articles, the contents of which might explain clearbury's 'infallible belief' locution'

clearbury's locution was not 'infallible belief' but 'infallible true belief'.

These two locutions are not the same.A point I thought you accepted since since we both treat the actual locution as being epistemic not deontic as you point out in your 447:

'He uses the construction: "infallible true belief" by which I think he means "infallible knowledge". I think this is shorthand, for I have a memory that clearbury has referred to Gettier problems before and so he would be able to give a more rigorous definition of 'knowledge' than 'true belief' if pressed.'

and your 449

'I think clearbury was trying to say that all god's beliefs about events are true (not in error) and omniscience just ensures that god actually has beliefs about all events. I think that nails it really.'

I recall that apart from disagreeing over the use of infallible as a substitute for omniscient that we broadly agreed that clearbury's amphibolous (m274) conditional.

'if god has the infallible true belief that I will eat cornflakes tomorrow morning, it is impossible for me to do otherwise.'

should be read as something like:

'Necessarily, if an omniscient observer knows that clearbury will eat cornflakes at (x,y,z,t) then at (x,y,z,t) clearbury eats cornflakes.'

'
As for flakiness, we all have a touch of that perhaps..'

I'm not sure that we can conclude that clearbury was referring to the above links he first raised foreknowledge as question about stephens dodgy MSF claim as I recall....

However I think the links you cite are flaky. The first link has it that:

'Knowledge of all true propositions would seem to include knowledge of all truths about the future, at least if there are truths about the future. Thus omniscience would seem to include foreknowledge'

and the second that

'Theological fatalism is the thesis that infallible foreknowledge of a human act makes the act necessary and hence unfree.

I think this quite flaky because it assumes that the ommniscient observer exists in a A theoretic universe just because humans /perceive/the universe as having a A-theoretic temporal ontology.

I haven't read Freddoso in a while but I seen to recall his arguments were a touch flaky including the argument that a prposition like 'Socrates is sitting a T' is true only at the moment T'

'*I'm sure you wouldn't be so flaky as to ever watch telly, let alone a sitcom'.

I find the current fare, of unremitting pap of soaps. 'reality' shows, makeovers, chefs, 'intrepi'd survivalists,shows featuring 'celebrities'(of whom I have never heard or towards whomI am completely indifferent) and rolling 'news' factoids, unwatchable.

I suppose if programs like say Hancock's Half Hour, Mash, Northern Exposure, Fawlty Towers and ABFab are sitcoms then I have watched a few though at the moment I tend to watch cartoon sitcoms like South Park, Family Guy, American Dad and The Simpsons.

As for shows involving live actors I tend to prefer those with an ironic subtext like Six Feet Under, Generation Kill, Dexter and Trueblood.

bsy

Hi Bx4,

"clearbury's locution was not 'infallible belief' but 'infallible true belief'."
Sorry for that error. I put it in quotes and got it wrong. I regard 'true' as superfluous, but I think the contents of the articles explains the form of his locution. I do not mean that I think clearbury was referring directly to these articles though, just that they give an account of a traditional argument of which I think he is aware.

What I had not appreciated at the time of my #447 and #449 was that translating the conditional into a theologically neutral omniscient agent in a B-theoretic framework loses the flavour of the argument to which clearbury referred, which is about the necessity of the past and the transfer of this necessity.

I don't think your accusations of flakiness on the basis that the articles look at old arguments of infallible foreknowledge from an A-theoretic perspective are justified. In fact I think that the section on the Boethian solution addresses this issue:
"This solution denies the first premise of the basic argument: (1) Yesterday God infallibly believed T. What is denied according to this solution is not that God believes infallibly, and not that God believes the content of proposition T, but that God believed T /yesterday/." from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-will-foreknowledge/

In any case there are A-theorists and B-theorists and the historical argument about divine foreknowledge, when treated from an A-theoretic perspective, takes our perception of ontology seriously and addresses the issues from our point of view.

Freddoso does the same but says:
"The first thing to notice is that accidental necessity is as respectable and well-behaved a modality as logical, physical, or causal necessity. To make this clear I will begin with the simplifying assumption that all propositions are tensed.3 Though this assumption seems to me both natural and true, it is not crucial to my argument. But I will leave it to the friends of "tenseless" propositions to translate what I will say into their own idiom."
(Accidental Necessity and Logical Determinism, Alfred J. Freddoso, The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 80, No. 5 (May, 1983), pp. 257-278)

Now, I'm more inclined to the B-theoretic approach, but I don't think I'd call A-theorists 'flaky'.

I quite like Family Guy, American Dad and The Simpsons, and I did enjoy Six Feet Under. I loved 'The Prisoner' when I first saw it when I was 12 and have enjoyed the repeats ever since.

ttfn

hi psi

Only time for a partial reply

'I regard 'true' as superfluous'

Surprising given your reference to Gettier. We clearly disagree however at 241 in response the dubious claim that his /non-epistemic/ 'cornflakes' conditional commits the modal scope fallacy clearbury responds:

'Are you saying that all the worries about divine foreknowledge are attributable to a fallacy?
No I don't think so at all. I think this is all still being debated.'

I still take the view that the 'true' is not superfluous since it allows 'knowledge' as 'justified true belief'.

To which (242) stephen responds that the issue of 'divine foreknowledge' /is/ an example of the MSF but fails to elucidate futher.

'Foreknowledge' divine or otherwise is not mentioned further until 274 wherein clearbury says.

're divine foreknowledge. The problem of divine foreknowledge arises not because God's beliefs are true, but becasue he is infallible - so his beliefs are true and could not be false. Consequently, if god has the infallible true belief that I will eat cornflakes tomorrow morning, it is impossible for me to do otherwise. '

A point you agreed with (276):

'I think clearbury is right about divine foreknowledge.
The crux is the definition of infallibility.'

In one of the few cases where stephen and I agreed we both felt that 'infallibility' ans 'omniscience' were not synonymous arguing that one could be omniscient with respect to a specific domain does not entail a more general infallibility. See my 350, stephens 355 and 369 to which you respond (272):

'Let's stick with omniscience then'

Reason I'm laying this out is that I would probably treat 'infallible as superfluous rather 'true'. 'true belief' seems equivalent to 'knows that' and I think is important since it allows the shift from a deontic modality to an epistemic one. This allows axiom T

KcE->E(1)

which cannot exist in deontic logic becauase it is possible to /believe/ that P is true while in fact it is false but it is not possible to /know/ that P is true and for P to be false. Not sure that it makes sense to treat an omniscient observer as having belief as a propositional attitude.

Forgot to Mention Father Ted. Like the Prisoner too. The SO gave me the anniversary DVD box set last year.

bsy

Hi Bx4,

Yes, Father Ted is very good.

I'll have a think and try to lay out what I think has happened there, but in the meantime, I wonder whether you mean 'doxastic' rather than 'deontic'?

ttfn

Hi Bx4,

"I still take the view that the 'true' is not superfluous since it allows 'knowledge' as 'justified true belief'."
Of course, in doxastic logic it is possible that an agent believes p and p is false, which is not the case for knowledge, so I agree with that. My point is that the 'infallible' qualifier takes care of this in the traditional argument and this is backed up by the following quote:

"One more preliminary point is in order. The dilemma of infallible foreknowledge and human free will does not rest on the particular assumption of foreknowledge and does not require an analysis of knowledge. Most contemporary accounts of knowledge are fallibilist, which means they do not require that a person believe in a way that cannot be mistaken in order to have knowledge. She has knowledge just in case what she believes is true and she satisfies the other conditions for knowledge, such as having sufficiently strong evidence. Ordinary knowledge does not require that the belief cannot be false. For example, if I believe on strong evidence that classes begin at my university on a certain date, and when the day arrives, classes do begin, we would normally say I knew in advance that classes would begin on that date. I had foreknowledge about the date classes begin. But there is nothing problematic about that kind of foreknowledge because events could have proven me wrong even though as events actually turned out, they didn't prove me wrong. Ordinary foreknowledge does not threaten to necessitate the future because it does not require that when I know p it is not possible that my belief is false. The key problem, then, is the infallibility of the belief about the future, and this is a problem whether or not the epistemic agent with an infallible belief satisfies the other conditions required by some account of knowledge, such as sufficient evidence. As long as an agent has an infallible belief about the future, the problem arises."
from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-will-foreknowledge/

Meanwhile, clearbury probably knows that justified true belief is inadequate as an account of knowledge because he knowks about the Gettier problems.

ttfn

hi psi

I have been noodling away at this using for a few days while relying on 'hibernate' mode on spiffy new netbook but a problem here in in Zurich meant I lost the lot. Memo to me stick with lo-tech Notepad off-line

Also somewhat miffed since I spent some serious dosh on hardback Oxford companion to Mind. Only to find article on 'Memes' written Blackmore and one on supposed /male/female brain differences written by Baron-Cohen!. Expected better of Gregory.

Anyhow of the attempt a recreation of v. fiddly argument contra foreknowledge, fallible or otherwise'

See 'Compatibilism' has shuddered to a halt. Unsurprising though I had expected clearbury to reappear having taught himself syymbolic logic.

Any how I like 'slow' threads and I owe you some replies but am going to be somewhat busy elsewhere over next few weeks so:

'The strongest of all warriors are these two, time and patience/'

But at least I can indulge my tendency to symbolical without being whinged at.

Leo Tolstoy

bs

Hi Bx4,

Well when that happens to me i think I write it better second time, although that might not be much of a consolation.

My old copy of OCM is still thumbed now and then, but as it is from the early 90's some of it looks badly out of date now, and I can only wonder whether some of it still lags a little even in the newer editions since memetics has been moribund for at least five years. On the whole though, a good book in my view.

Clearbury disappears for months at a time. It is still possible that he'll have nailed symbolic logic by the time he returns I suppose.

I hope your busy period bears fruit.

ttfn

hi psi

'
Well when that happens to me i think I write it better second time, although that might not be much of a consolation'

Indeed, though it was my fourth or fifth redraft. My own fault for not remaining lo-tech.

'I can only wonder whether some of it still lags a little even in the newer editions since memetics has been moribund for at least five years'

Mine is the 2004 harback but there is no indication of whether the article was simply carried forwarded or revised.

'On the whole though, a good book in my view'

I'm not so sanguine. I think that if the articles are written by someone who is the originator of, or an uncritical apologist for, a concept as is the case with Baron-Cohen or Blackmore then there is an in built bias which must raise general doubts as to the reliability of the OCM as an authorative source.

'I hope your busy period bears fruit.'

I hope we can repeat the quantity of gelt last year's combination of p-ds, royalties and profits generated. Also the 'wet work' I was involved in last year seems to be generating more than enough income to fund the more 'blue sky' stuff I am working.

In any case unsuccessful outcomes are also fruit since we now know that the available computational library routines are inadequate for the type of modelling we need to be able to do.

There is I suppose an irony in that if we develop successful new routines these will generate fresh income.Such is the lot of those of us who have opted out of state funded research.

bs

Hi Bx4,

Sanguine: I suppose the difference is that I have read a significant proportion of my copy over the years and found it to be reliable when compared with other sources, so I can tolerate what I might think is the odd dud article.

Baron-Cohen: I assume it was Simon rather than Sacha, I'm not familiar with the work on gender differences but his work on autism is respected as far as I know. If I understand you correctly though, your beef is not with individual contributors per se, but with the editorial policy of including contributions from those with a controversial pet theory to peddle. I think there is a balance to be struck between allowing legitimate contributions from those at the cutting edge and those who just want to show off their pet's lovely plumage, so it isn't surprising if they get it wrong* now and then.

Computational library routines: what language are they written in then?

* By which I mean they don't agree with me- world expert in nothing at all...

ttfn

hi psi

Rather busy in the world at mo.

'reliable'

Difficult to assess when the only two I accessed so far /were/ duds

'beef'

Certainly with the editors who commission partisan authors to write entries but don't then make sure they are balanced. Bit of a beef also with biased authors who present their positions as if there were no legitimate critiques of them.

'library routines'

Depends on the library. The grand-daddy of them all the NAG Library is available in Fortran, C and C++ and used to be available in Algol 68. We will be using C++ simply because we plan to develop the software on a Solaris-based Beowulf Cluster.

I see 'Compatibilism' has shuddered to a halt and the board has, for reasons unclear, been 'upgraded'.

bs