We’ve previously discussed how probability is in the mind. If you are uncertain about whether a classical coin has landed heads or tails, that is a fact about your state of mind, not a property of the coin.
The argument is invalid. The existence of subjective uncertainty doesn’t imply the non existence of objective indeterminism.
The coin itself is either heads or tails.
That doesn’t mean it must have been whatever it was,
But people forget this, and think that coin.probability == 0.5, which is the Mind Projection Fallacy: treating properties of the mind as if they were properties of the external world.So I doubt it will come as any surprise to my longer-abiding readers, if I say that possibility is also in the mind.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.”
I couldn’t agree more that a snapshot of state doesn’t imply anything about modalities of possibility. Problem is, it doesn’t imply anything about modalities of necessity either. To say there are no real possibilities is to say that everything happens necessarily, deterministically and inevitably. But there is neither necessity nor possibility, neither determinism, nor indeterminism, in a snapshot.
And
then it’s even more trouble, if you try to describe could-ness in a world in which there are no agents, just apples and tables.
To describe both possibility and necessity, you need rules. In general, x!possible means “not forbidden by rules X”.
In the case of physical possibility and necessity, the rules are physical laws. A snapshot of state doesn’t give you any information about the way the state will evolve. Hence the absence of possibility from state snapshots, not to mention the absence of necessity.
I don’t know what physical laws are , ontologocally, but they are not made of atoms, and they are therefore a problem for simpler minded physicalism.
The argument is invalid. The existence of subjective uncertainty doesn’t imply the non existence of objective indeterminism.
That doesn’t mean it must have been whatever it was,
I couldn’t agree more that a snapshot of state doesn’t imply anything about modalities of possibility. Problem is, it doesn’t imply anything about modalities of necessity either. To say there are no real possibilities is to say that everything happens necessarily, deterministically and inevitably. But there is neither necessity nor possibility, neither determinism, nor indeterminism, in a snapshot.
To describe both possibility and necessity, you need rules. In general, x!possible means “not forbidden by rules X”.
In the case of physical possibility and necessity, the rules are physical laws. A snapshot of state doesn’t give you any information about the way the state will evolve. Hence the absence of possibility from state snapshots, not to mention the absence of necessity.
I don’t know what physical laws are , ontologocally, but they are not made of atoms, and they are therefore a problem for simpler minded physicalism.