display all the ideas for this combination of texts
10 ideas
| 16248 | Evaluating counterfactuals involves context and interests [Maudlin] |
| Full Idea: The evaluation of counterfactual claims is widely recognised as being influenced by context and interest. | |
| From: Tim Maudlin (The Metaphysics within Physics [2007], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: Such evaluation certainly seems to involve imagination, and so the pragmatics can creep in there. I don't quite see why it should be deeply contextual. |
| 16250 | We don't pick a similar world from many - we construct one possibility from the description [Maudlin] |
| Full Idea: It seems unlikely the psychological process could mirror Lewis's semantics: people don't imagine a multiplicity of worlds and the pick out the most similar. Rather we construct representations of possible worlds from counterfactual descriptions. | |
| From: Tim Maudlin (The Metaphysics within Physics [2007], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: I approve of fitting such theories into a psychology, but this may be unfair to Lewis, who aims for a logical model, not an account of how we actually approach the problem. |
| 16268 | The counterfactual is ruined if some other cause steps in when the antecedent fails [Maudlin] |
| Full Idea: A counterexample to the counterfactual approach is that perhaps the effect would have occurred despite the absence of the cause since another cause would have stepped in to bring it about. | |
| From: Tim Maudlin (The Metaphysics within Physics [2007], 5) | |
| A reaction: …Hence you cannot say 'if C had not occurred, E would definitely not have occurred'. You have to add 'ceteris paribus', which ruins the neatness of the theory. |
| 16267 | If we know the cause of an event, we seem to assent to the counterfactual [Maudlin] |
| Full Idea: When we think we know the cause of an event, we typically assent to the corresponding Hume counterfactual. | |
| From: Tim Maudlin (The Metaphysics within Physics [2007], 5) | |
| A reaction: This is the correct grounding of the counterfactual approach - not that we think counterfactuals are causation, but that knowledge of causation will map neatly onto a network of counterfactuals, thus providing a logic for the whole process. |
| 16269 | If the effect hadn't occurred the cause wouldn't have happened, so counterfactuals are two-way [Maudlin] |
| Full Idea: If Kennedy had still been President in Dec 1963, he would not have been assassinated in Nov 1963, so the counterfactual goes both ways (where the cause seems to only go one way). | |
| From: Tim Maudlin (The Metaphysics within Physics [2007], 5) | |
| A reaction: Maudlin says a lot of fine-tuning has sort of addressed these problems, but that counterfactual causation is basically wrong-headed anyway, and I incline to agree, though one must understand what the theory is (and is not) trying to do. |
| 16247 | Laws are primitive, so two indiscernible worlds could have the same laws [Maudlin] |
| Full Idea: Laws are ontologically primitives at least in that two worlds could differ in their laws but not in any observable respect. ….[21] I take content of the laws to be expressed by equations. | |
| From: Tim Maudlin (The Metaphysics within Physics [2007], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: At least that spells out his view fairly dramatically, but I am baffled as to what he thinks a law could be. He is arguing against the Lewis regularity-axioms view, and the Armstrong universal-relations view. He ignores the essentialist view. |
| 16272 | Fundamental laws say how nature will, or might, evolve from some initial state [Maudlin] |
| Full Idea: The fundamental laws of nature appear to be laws of temporal evolution: they specify how the state of the universe will, or might, evolve from a given intial state. | |
| From: Tim Maudlin (The Metaphysics within Physics [2007], 6) | |
| A reaction: Maudlin takes both laws of nature and the passage of time to be primitive facts, and this is how they are connected. I think (this week) that I take time and causation to be primitive, but not laws. |
| 16242 | Laws of nature are ontological bedrock, and beyond analysis [Maudlin] |
| Full Idea: The laws of nature stand in no need of 'philosophical analysis'; they ought to be posited as ontological bedrock. | |
| From: Tim Maudlin (The Metaphysics within Physics [2007], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This is Maudlin's most basic principle, and I don't agree with it. The notion that laws are more deeply embedded in reality than the physical stuff they control is a sort of 'law-mysticism' that needs to be challenged. |
| 16251 | 'Humans with prime house numbers are mortal' is not a law, because not a natural kind [Maudlin] |
| Full Idea: 'All humans who live in houses with prime house numbers are mortal' is not a law because the class referred to is not a natural kind. | |
| From: Tim Maudlin (The Metaphysics within Physics [2007], 1.6) | |
| A reaction: Maudlin wants laws to be primitive, but he now needs a primitive notion of a natural kind to make it work. If kinds generate laws, you can ditch the laws, and build your theory on the kinds. He also says no death is explained by 'all humans are mortal'. |
| 16270 | If laws are just regularities, then there have to be laws [Maudlin] |
| Full Idea: On the Mill-Ramsey-Lewis account of laws, I take it that if the world is extensive and variegated enough, then there must be laws. | |
| From: Tim Maudlin (The Metaphysics within Physics [2007], 5.2) | |
| A reaction: A nice point. If there is any sort of pattern discernible in the surface waves on the sea, then there must be a law to cover it, not matter how vague or complex. |