On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 2:04 AM Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 9:34 PM Bruce Kellett <bhkellet...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> On Tue, May 14, 2019 at 12:07 PM Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >> >>> >>> Do you not think counterfactuals are useful in evaluating theories? >>> >> >> Not particularly. What use is it to speculate about what happens in >> unrealised scenarios? We want to know what happens in real life....... >> > > Because life isn't a single event. Future events happen too. The purpose > of the brain is to plan for those future events and respond in a manner > consistent with our best understanding of the world. If a theory can't > handle couterfactuals, it can't even make predictions. > OK. I was not thinking that making predictions involved counterfactuals in the sense that the antecedent is necessarily false. Any law-like generalisation supports simple counterfactuals: 'Sugar dissolves in water' licenses 'If this sugar cube were dropped in water it would dissolve'; but 'All the coins in my pocket are silver' does not yield 'If this penny were in my pocket it would be silver'. Counterfactual reasoning has only limited application or utility. Bruce > > Jason > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CA%2BBCJUjYP5F2ng7gRPHD9ubhZRUrm1XvCtQo9%3D5wf%3DG1%2BZ2enQ%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CA%2BBCJUjYP5F2ng7gRPHD9ubhZRUrm1XvCtQo9%3D5wf%3DG1%2BZ2enQ%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAFxXSLTtLft021_6x%3D%3DBN9h3b5%3Dppmj5CRMNJ1OPxL4o%3DuwGTA%40mail.gmail.com.
