Arguing that someone else is wrong, therefore you are right is a well-known cheap debating trick.
When I wascomplaining about the “but satt, it’s always possible you are wrong about that!” argument, I wasn’t complaining about all arguments that have “you are wrong, satt, therefore I am right” as a conclusion. I’m only taking issue with people mumbling “well, have you ever considered you might be wrong?” without elaborating. There’s nothing wrong with someone arguing I might be wrong about something. But they should at least give a hint as to why I’d be wrong.
Would you care to explain why I’m wrong, rather than sorting my argument into a low-status category?
In this case, “there could be a fourth explanation neither of us has thought of” amounts to saying “there could be a fourth possible terminal state for a causal chain”. Well, sure, it’s always possible. But why should I assign that possibility any substantial probability?
Causal chains are pretty basic, abstract objects — directed graphs. I’m not talking about a set of concrete objects, where a fourth example could be hiding somewhere in the physical world where no one can see it. I’m not talking about some abstruse mathematical object that’s liable to have weird properties I’m not even aware of. I’m talking about boxes connected by arrows. If there were some fourth terminal state I could arrange them to have I’d expect to know about it.
What I’ve just said might be mistaken. But you haven’t given any specifics as to where or how it goes wrong, so your comment is just another form of “but satt, it’s always possible you are wrong about that!”, which doesn’t help me.
When I was complaining about the “but satt, it’s always possible you are wrong about that!” argument, I wasn’t complaining about all arguments that have “you are wrong, satt, therefore I am right” as a conclusion. I’m only taking issue with people mumbling “well, have you ever considered you might be wrong?” without elaborating. There’s nothing wrong with someone arguing I might be wrong about something. But they should at least give a hint as to why I’d be wrong.
If someone demonstrates all the known options are wrong, that doesn’t mean it’s a wrong question, it means we don’t have an answer yet.
What I’ve just said might be mistaken. But you haven’t given any specifics as to where or how it goes wrong, so your comment is just another form of “but satt, it’s always possible you are wrong about that!”, which doesn’t help me.
Allow me to elaborate.
Explanation A, “The buck stops here because it just does” is not an explanation. See “Explain, Worship, Ignore”.
B & C, “It’s always been there” and “It’s in a causal loop” both fail to explain why the universe is not in another counterfactual state, and thus are not explanations, they are merely descriptions of the thing we are trying to explain.
Since the explanation cannot be A, B or C, it must be something other than A, B or C. (Almost a tautology, but worth stating explicitly.)
You are taking it as axiomatic that there are no other possible answers—which, indeed, has a high prior probability, since neither of us can think of any others. Thus, you conclude that there is something wrong with this argument.
I, on the other hand, feel that this little proof should cause us to update our prior that these are the only possibilities.
If someone demonstrates all the known options are wrong, that doesn’t mean it’s a wrong question, it means we don’t have an answer yet.
That’s one possibility. Another is that a satisfactory answer doesn’t exist because the question is just broken...but now we start going around in circles.
[elaboration snipped] Does that answer your question?
Not really; I still don’t know why I shouldn’t take it as axiomatic that there are no other possible answers. But you have nicely summarized what we disagree about.
That’s one possibility. Another is that a satisfactory answer doesn’t exist because the question is just broken...but now we start going around in circles.
Indeed.
I still don’t know why I shouldn’t take it as axiomatic that there are no other possible answers.
Well, if you’re taking it as axiomatic, there’s no argument I could make that could persuade you otherwise, right? So I guess I may as well tap out.
Still, at least we managed to pinpoint our disagreement, eh?
When I was complaining about the “but satt, it’s always possible you are wrong about that!” argument, I wasn’t complaining about all arguments that have “you are wrong, satt, therefore I am right” as a conclusion. I’m only taking issue with people mumbling “well, have you ever considered you might be wrong?” without elaborating. There’s nothing wrong with someone arguing I might be wrong about something. But they should at least give a hint as to why I’d be wrong.
In this case, “there could be a fourth explanation neither of us has thought of” amounts to saying “there could be a fourth possible terminal state for a causal chain”. Well, sure, it’s always possible. But why should I assign that possibility any substantial probability?
Causal chains are pretty basic, abstract objects — directed graphs. I’m not talking about a set of concrete objects, where a fourth example could be hiding somewhere in the physical world where no one can see it. I’m not talking about some abstruse mathematical object that’s liable to have weird properties I’m not even aware of. I’m talking about boxes connected by arrows. If there were some fourth terminal state I could arrange them to have I’d expect to know about it.
What I’ve just said might be mistaken. But you haven’t given any specifics as to where or how it goes wrong, so your comment is just another form of “but satt, it’s always possible you are wrong about that!”, which doesn’t help me.
If someone demonstrates all the known options are wrong, that doesn’t mean it’s a wrong question, it means we don’t have an answer yet.
Allow me to elaborate.
You are taking it as axiomatic that there are no other possible answers—which, indeed, has a high prior probability, since neither of us can think of any others. Thus, you conclude that there is something wrong with this argument.
I, on the other hand, feel that this little proof should cause us to update our prior that these are the only possibilities.
Does that answer your question?
That’s one possibility. Another is that a satisfactory answer doesn’t exist because the question is just broken...but now we start going around in circles.
Not really; I still don’t know why I shouldn’t take it as axiomatic that there are no other possible answers. But you have nicely summarized what we disagree about.
Indeed.
Well, if you’re taking it as axiomatic, there’s no argument I could make that could persuade you otherwise, right? So I guess I may as well tap out.
Still, at least we managed to pinpoint our disagreement, eh?
Wholly agreed!