http://www.infiniteinjury.org/blog/2005/06/20/a-puzzle-about-modal-and-physical-realism/ Good Analysis, Bad Grammar Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:11:02 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 http://www.infiniteinjury.org/blog/2005/06/20/a-puzzle-about-modal-and-physical-realism/comment-page-1/#comment-4660 TruePath Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:40:20 +0000 http://www.infiniteinjury.org/blog/2005/6/20/a-puzzle-about-modal-and-physical-realism/#comment-4660 <p>Actually I don't believe there are such things as non-rule governed rules. I would argue that a consequence of being beings who evolved in this world we will always see the world as at least partly rule governed. Indeed, I would argue that as a mathematical fact the world will always appear as a combination of totally computable behavior (predictable/rule governed) and totally random behavior. In other words exactly the way our world does appear.</p> Actually I don’t believe there are such things as non-rule governed rules. I would argue that a consequence of being beings who evolved in this world we will always see the world as at least partly rule governed. Indeed, I would argue that as a mathematical fact the world will always appear as a combination of totally computable behavior (predictable/rule governed) and totally random behavior. In other words exactly the way our world does appear.

]]> http://www.infiniteinjury.org/blog/2005/06/20/a-puzzle-about-modal-and-physical-realism/comment-page-1/#comment-3100 john Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:39:03 +0000 http://www.infiniteinjury.org/blog/2005/6/20/a-puzzle-about-modal-and-physical-realism/#comment-3100 <p>There seems to me to be a similar puzzle for modal realism, a little different from the one described here. If all possible worlds exist, then rule governed worlds - or even worlds rule governed up to some arbitrary point in time (say) 1980 - ought to be extremely rare. But we do live in such a world. The a priori probability of us finding ourselves in such a world is very low. Therefore (probably) modal realism is false (or, at least, orderly rule governed worlds are more common than other ones). Note, that this does not assume induction or physical realism. The orderliness might be merely in our experience, and it might stop tomorrow. But, assuming our memories to be accurate, our world has been orderly so far - and if modal realism is correct the chances ofv us finding ourselves in such a world would seem to be very low.</p> There seems to me to be a similar puzzle for modal realism, a little different from the one described here.
If all possible worlds exist, then rule governed worlds – or even worlds rule governed up to some arbitrary point in time (say) 1980 – ought to be extremely rare. But we do live in such a world. The a priori probability of us finding ourselves in such a world is very low. Therefore (probably) modal realism is false (or, at least, orderly rule governed worlds are more common than other ones). Note, that this does not assume induction or physical realism. The orderliness might be merely in our experience, and it might stop tomorrow. But, assuming our memories to be accurate, our world has been orderly so far – and if modal realism is correct the chances ofv us finding ourselves in such a world would seem to be very low.

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