[FRIAM] The epiphenomenality relation

[uǝlƃ ☤>$]

Thanks for the monist re-statements. From a perspective of inconsistency robustness (and a flowering of alternative consequence relations), Yagasawa's extension makes some attractive sense. But it seems to *break* Lewis' handling of consistency and completeness. I'm guessing we could argue that this is an inherent flaw in all monist conceptions. Pluralism allows for enlarging the universe of discourse as needed, maybe similar to the distinction in the conception of the universal Turing machine between an infinite tape versus a finite, but infinitely extensible tape. Are infinities real? Or a convenient fiction? I think those of us who believe in actual infinities *should* tend toward Lewis' modal realism and avoid the sophist[icated] prestidigitation inherent in monism. Even the hedging compromise of the parallel worlds interpretation of QM gives too much credibility to monism by metaphysically asserting universal laws across the multiverse, and using "dippy" trickery [Ω] to skirt infinities. En garde! >8^D

Ultimately, your pining for symmetry in, presumably bidirectional, traveling along a modal dimension (as opposed to the one way trip of a branching multiverse) sounds like a fideistic clutching to egalitarianism. Life isn't fair. It sucks; then you die. 8^D

I haven't the slightest idea how to respond to the Bildungsroman hook. I *think* Galen Strawson addresses ontogeny somewhere ... perhaps in "The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility", though Lewis handles Strawson's argument well, I think.

[Ω] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renormalization#Attitudes_and_interpretation

On 12/2/21 8:21 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
> All systems (existing within the same light-cone) are "nearly decomposable" ?
> 
>     Herb Simon Sez: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1909285
> 
>> One of the attractive qualities of modal realism is that it addresses both consistency (through concrete possible worlds) and completeness (through counterpart theory) in positing and testing various models. The problem becomes one of discovering which world you inhabit *from the data*, not from whatever abstracted models you may prefer.
> 
> Lewis's Modal Realism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_realism> is a new one on me, but very interesting framing.   Only skimming the Wikipedia Article on the topic leaves me with only enough information to be dangerous...  so I am refraining from rattling on about all of my reactions to it's implications (for me) and in particular some of the objections listed there to his theory.  From this thin introduction I think I find Yagasawa's extension of possible worlds being distributed on a modal dimension rather than isolated space-time structures (yet) more compelling/useful?
> 
> And what would Candide <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildungsroman> have to say about this?
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>    
> 
> 
>> On 12/1/21 6:35 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
>>> Me -> We've imputed in all cases. Certainly we can assume artificial systems were designed for a purpose, but we still don't know what that purpose is without imputing a model onto that system. And, in both cases, we could proceed to experiment with the system, in order to test the predictions of the imputed model and increase our confidence that we have imputed correctly. The ability to do these things does not distinguish between the two types of system. There are long and respected scientific traditions using experimental methods to gain confidence in our understanding of why certain systems were favored by natural selection, i.e., to determine the manner in which they help the organism better fit its environment. 
>>>
>>> Me -> Well.... it might be reification in some sense, but that term usually implies inaccuracy, which we cannot know in this case without experimentation. Even with a system we designed ourselves, where we might have a lot of insight into why we designed the system the way we did, we certainly don't have perfect knowledge. All we have there is a model of our own behavior to impute off of. Once again, this doesn't clearly differentiate the two situations. In all of these situations it is a mistake to uncritically reify our initial intuitions about the system's purpose. 

-- 
"Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie."
☤>$ uǝlƃ