Counterfactuals are in the mind, so of course they depend on the mental models, including “social conventions”. They are also a bad model of the actual world, because they tempt you to argue with reality. (Here I assume a realist position.) There is only one world. There is no what could have been, only what was, is and may yet be. And that “may” is in the mind, not in the territory. Being an embedded agent, you cannot change the world, only learn more about which of your maps, if any, are more accurate. That’s why a’s and b’s in your examples are identical, only some sound more confused than others. There is no difference between an opaque and a transparent Newcomb’s.
“There is only one world. There is no what could have been, only what was, is and may yet be. And that “may” is in the mind, not in the territory”—this is largely my intuition, but I think we can construct a meaningful (but non-unique) notion of counterfactuals in the map.
“There is no difference between an opaque and a transparent Newcomb’s”—I agree that this is true to an extent as well
think we can construct a meaningful (but non-unique) notion of counterfactuals in the map
Quite likely, and you have been working on it for some time. But is it a useful direction to work in? Every time I read what people write about it, I get the impression that they end up more confused than when they had started.
With the really difficult philosophy problems, there’s a lot of going forwards, then going backwards. But that doesn’t mean that progress hasn’t been made.
Counterfactuals are in the mind, so of course they depend on the mental models, including “social conventions”. They are also a bad model of the actual world, because they tempt you to argue with reality. (Here I assume a realist position.) There is only one world. There is no what could have been, only what was, is and may yet be. And that “may” is in the mind, not in the territory. Being an embedded agent, you cannot change the world, only learn more about which of your maps, if any, are more accurate. That’s why a’s and b’s in your examples are identical, only some sound more confused than others. There is no difference between an opaque and a transparent Newcomb’s.
“There is only one world. There is no what could have been, only what was, is and may yet be. And that “may” is in the mind, not in the territory”—this is largely my intuition, but I think we can construct a meaningful (but non-unique) notion of counterfactuals in the map.
“There is no difference between an opaque and a transparent Newcomb’s”—I agree that this is true to an extent as well
Quite likely, and you have been working on it for some time. But is it a useful direction to work in? Every time I read what people write about it, I get the impression that they end up more confused than when they had started.
With the really difficult philosophy problems, there’s a lot of going forwards, then going backwards. But that doesn’t mean that progress hasn’t been made.