“What concrete state of the world—which quarks in which positions—corresponds to “There are three apples on the table, and there could be four apples on the table”? Having trouble answering that? Next, say how that world-state is different from “There are three apples on the table, and there couldn’t be four apples on the table.”″
For the former: An ordinary kitchen table with three apples on it. For the latter: An ordinary kitchen table with three apples on it, wired to a pressure-sensitive detonator that will set off 10 kg of C4 if any more weight is added onto the table.
“But “I could have a heart attack at any time” and “I could have a heart attack any time I wanted to” are nonetheless not exactly the same usage of could, though they are confusingly similar.”
They both refer to possible consequences if the initial states were changed, while still obeying a set of constraints. The first refers to a change in initial external states (“there’s a clot in the artery”/”there’s not a clot in the artery”), while the second refers to a change in initial internal states (“my mind activates the induce-heart-attack nerve signal”/”my mind doesn’t activate the induce-heart-attack nerve signal”). Note that “could” only makes sense if the initial conditions are limited to a pre-defined subset. For the above apple-table example, in the second case, you would say that the statement “there could be four apples on the table” is false, but you have to assume that the range of initial states the “could” refers to don’t refer to states in which the detonator is disabled. For the heart-attack example, you have to exclude initial states in which the Mad Scientist Doctor (tm) snuck in in the middle of the night and wired up a deliberation-based heart-attack-inducer.
“What concrete state of the world—which quarks in which positions—corresponds to “There are three apples on the table, and there could be four apples on the table”? Having trouble answering that? Next, say how that world-state is different from “There are three apples on the table, and there couldn’t be four apples on the table.”″
For the former: An ordinary kitchen table with three apples on it. For the latter: An ordinary kitchen table with three apples on it, wired to a pressure-sensitive detonator that will set off 10 kg of C4 if any more weight is added onto the table.
“But “I could have a heart attack at any time” and “I could have a heart attack any time I wanted to” are nonetheless not exactly the same usage of could, though they are confusingly similar.”
They both refer to possible consequences if the initial states were changed, while still obeying a set of constraints. The first refers to a change in initial external states (“there’s a clot in the artery”/”there’s not a clot in the artery”), while the second refers to a change in initial internal states (“my mind activates the induce-heart-attack nerve signal”/”my mind doesn’t activate the induce-heart-attack nerve signal”). Note that “could” only makes sense if the initial conditions are limited to a pre-defined subset. For the above apple-table example, in the second case, you would say that the statement “there could be four apples on the table” is false, but you have to assume that the range of initial states the “could” refers to don’t refer to states in which the detonator is disabled. For the heart-attack example, you have to exclude initial states in which the Mad Scientist Doctor (tm) snuck in in the middle of the night and wired up a deliberation-based heart-attack-inducer.