Many of your sentences are confusing because you repeatedly use the locution “I see X”/ “I don’t see X” in a nonstandard way, apparently to mean “X would have happened” /”X would not have happened”.
This is not the way that phrase is usually understood. Normally, “I see X” is taken to mean either “I observe X” or “I predict X”. For example I might say (if I were so inclined):
Unlike you, I see a lot of rationality being demonstrated by SI employees.
meaning that I believe (from my observation) they are in fact being rational. Or, I might say:
I don’t see Luke quitting his job at SI tomorrow to become a punk rocker.
meaning that I don’t predict that will happen. But I would not generally say:
* I don’t see these people taking a higher salary.
if what I mean is “these people should/would not have taken a higher salary [if such-and-such were true]”.
Oh, I see ;) Thanks. I’ll definitely act on your comment, but I was using “I see X” as “I predict X”—just in the context of a possible world. E.g., I predict in the possible world in which SIers are superior in general rationality and committed to their cause, Luke wouldn’t have that list of accomplishments. Or, “yet I still see the Singularity Institute having made the improvements...”
I now see that I’ve been using ‘see’ as syntactic sugar for counterfactual talk… but no more!
I was using “I see X” as “I predict X”—just in the context of a possible world.
To get away with this, you really need, at minimum, an explicit counterfactual clause (“if”, “unless”, etc.) to introduce it: “In a world where SIers are superior in general rationality, I don’t see Luke having that list of accomplishments.”
The problem was not so much that your usage itself was logically inconceivable, but rather that it collided with the other interpretations of “I see X” in the particular contexts in which it occurred. E.g. “I don’t see them taking higher salaries” sounded like you were saying that they weren’t taking higher salaries. (There was an “if” clause, but it came way too late!)
Many of your sentences are confusing because you repeatedly use the locution “I see X”/ “I don’t see X” in a nonstandard way, apparently to mean “X would have happened” /”X would not have happened”.
This is not the way that phrase is usually understood. Normally, “I see X” is taken to mean either “I observe X” or “I predict X”. For example I might say (if I were so inclined):
meaning that I believe (from my observation) they are in fact being rational. Or, I might say:
meaning that I don’t predict that will happen. But I would not generally say:
if what I mean is “these people should/would not have taken a higher salary [if such-and-such were true]”.
Oh, I see ;) Thanks. I’ll definitely act on your comment, but I was using “I see X” as “I predict X”—just in the context of a possible world. E.g., I predict in the possible world in which SIers are superior in general rationality and committed to their cause, Luke wouldn’t have that list of accomplishments. Or, “yet I still see the Singularity Institute having made the improvements...”
I now see that I’ve been using ‘see’ as syntactic sugar for counterfactual talk… but no more!
To get away with this, you really need, at minimum, an explicit counterfactual clause (“if”, “unless”, etc.) to introduce it: “In a world where SIers are superior in general rationality, I don’t see Luke having that list of accomplishments.”
The problem was not so much that your usage itself was logically inconceivable, but rather that it collided with the other interpretations of “I see X” in the particular contexts in which it occurred. E.g. “I don’t see them taking higher salaries” sounded like you were saying that they weren’t taking higher salaries. (There was an “if” clause, but it came way too late!)