I think it would all hinge on why we haven’t encountered those conditions before. I think I can imagine there existing a reason why we haven’t encountered those conditions before which doesn’t trigger my suspicion of insanity, but that would dramatically limit how radically those technologies could impact life.
So that seems to boil down to a “yes, if that were true, I would believe it, but I have no reason to expect it is possible for that to be true in the world I reside in.” (i.e. I would believe in God if he existed throughout my life so far, but the spontaneous appearance of God would cause me to suspect I am insane.)
but that would dramatically limit how radically those technologies could impact life.
You say, using a device built out of transistors, so that nearly anyone in the world with a similar device can read it. How limited would you have predicted the technology based and quantum mechanics would be?
Conditions that we are unlikely to observe now in our daily lives could become prevalent if we deliberately seek them out.
I could have predicted personal telegraphs in 1900, and personal television-typewriter combinations in 1920. Knowing what I do about brain makeup now, the presence of telepathy would not suggest insanity to me (so long as there are sensors involved more sophisticated than the human brain).
What I’m saying is that my condition for reverse causality existing and me considering myself sane despite possessing evidence for it is that the impacts of said reverse causality are minimal. Maybe I could be eased into something more dramatic? I’m not sure.
Edit- a comment by Marx, that quantitative changes become qualitative changes, comes to mind. If I have evidence for quantitative changes underlying a qualitative change, I can be happy with it- if I don’t, it seems like evidence for insanity. Obviously, computers are more than super typewriters like Excel is more than a super abacus- but the differences are more differences of degree than of kind. Even QM and classical mechanics and relativity appear separated by quantitative changes (or, at least, we have good reason to expect that they are).
I think it would all hinge on why we haven’t encountered those conditions before. I think I can imagine there existing a reason why we haven’t encountered those conditions before which doesn’t trigger my suspicion of insanity, but that would dramatically limit how radically those technologies could impact life.
So that seems to boil down to a “yes, if that were true, I would believe it, but I have no reason to expect it is possible for that to be true in the world I reside in.” (i.e. I would believe in God if he existed throughout my life so far, but the spontaneous appearance of God would cause me to suspect I am insane.)
You say, using a device built out of transistors, so that nearly anyone in the world with a similar device can read it. How limited would you have predicted the technology based and quantum mechanics would be?
Conditions that we are unlikely to observe now in our daily lives could become prevalent if we deliberately seek them out.
I could have predicted personal telegraphs in 1900, and personal television-typewriter combinations in 1920. Knowing what I do about brain makeup now, the presence of telepathy would not suggest insanity to me (so long as there are sensors involved more sophisticated than the human brain).
What I’m saying is that my condition for reverse causality existing and me considering myself sane despite possessing evidence for it is that the impacts of said reverse causality are minimal. Maybe I could be eased into something more dramatic? I’m not sure.
Edit- a comment by Marx, that quantitative changes become qualitative changes, comes to mind. If I have evidence for quantitative changes underlying a qualitative change, I can be happy with it- if I don’t, it seems like evidence for insanity. Obviously, computers are more than super typewriters like Excel is more than a super abacus- but the differences are more differences of degree than of kind. Even QM and classical mechanics and relativity appear separated by quantitative changes (or, at least, we have good reason to expect that they are).