If placed equidistant from the two compounds, it bonds with CO every time.
You are portraying a molecule-level interaction as strictly deterministic. Thats misleading, in a way, although it also makes the point that everything about counterfactuals is ultimately about physics, not decision theory...what decision you actually make does not float free of physics.
This is not about any decision algorithm per se, but the results of an algorithm must have the possibility of being different in order for the prediction to have gone right. In the case of molecules in a vacuum, there is no difference possible
Now you make it even more explicit that you are assuming physical determinism, and at the molecular level too.
Determinism straightforwardly implies that there are no real , not-in-the-mind
counterfactuals, because it implies that everything happens with an objective probability of 1.000, so the things that didn’t happen had no probability of happening
Indeterminism can easily be expressed in terms of probability: its the claim that an event B, and the conditional on an event A, can have an objective probability of less than 1.0. With the corollary that further alternatives, C and, and D can also happen since they have probability greater than 0.0. Given the premise, such alternatives have to exist, since the overall probability has to add up to one. The existence of such unactualised possibilities is equivalent to the existence of real counterfactuals: so indeterminism and counterfactual realism are equivalent to each other.
So the Megarian claim …
“Only that which happens is possible.”
… is conditional on the truth of determinism. It’s an implication of determinism; it’s not true per se.
You make a prediction, it doesn’t happen. Could it have?
If you want to know whether it really could , you need to know whether there is real indeterminism, and whether the prediction was one if the allowable possibilities. You can’t figure it out from decision theory
Exactly right. As I said above, “let’s presume a simple metaphysics,” i.e. determinism. It’s not only that if physical determinism were true, counterfactuals would only exist in the mind, but also that counterfactuals those counterfactuals made in the mind, can only work as heuristic for gleaning new information from the environment, if you assume determinism with regard to some things but not others.
This model interesting because we must construct a probabilistic universe in our minds even if we in fact inhabit a deterministic one.
but also that counterfactuals those counterfactuals made in the mind, can only work as heuristic for gleaning new information from the environment, if you assume determinism with regard to some things but not others.
You are portraying a molecule-level interaction as strictly deterministic. Thats misleading, in a way, although it also makes the point that everything about counterfactuals is ultimately about physics, not decision theory...what decision you actually make does not float free of physics.
Now you make it even more explicit that you are assuming physical determinism, and at the molecular level too.
Determinism straightforwardly implies that there are no real , not-in-the-mind counterfactuals, because it implies that everything happens with an objective probability of 1.000, so the things that didn’t happen had no probability of happening
Indeterminism can easily be expressed in terms of probability: its the claim that an event B, and the conditional on an event A, can have an objective probability of less than 1.0. With the corollary that further alternatives, C and, and D can also happen since they have probability greater than 0.0. Given the premise, such alternatives have to exist, since the overall probability has to add up to one. The existence of such unactualised possibilities is equivalent to the existence of real counterfactuals: so indeterminism and counterfactual realism are equivalent to each other.
So the Megarian claim …
“Only that which happens is possible.”
… is conditional on the truth of determinism. It’s an implication of determinism; it’s not true per se.
If you want to know whether it really could , you need to know whether there is real indeterminism, and whether the prediction was one if the allowable possibilities. You can’t figure it out from decision theory
Exactly right. As I said above, “let’s presume a simple metaphysics,” i.e. determinism. It’s not only that if physical determinism were true, counterfactuals would only exist in the mind, but also that counterfactuals those counterfactuals made in the mind, can only work as heuristic for gleaning new information from the environment, if you assume determinism with regard to some things but not others.
This model interesting because we must construct a probabilistic universe in our minds even if we in fact inhabit a deterministic one.
I don’t see why.