If I drop this ball, it will bounce back up to me. Is that ‘if’ in the territory? I feel like the potential to bounce when dropped is extrapolable from the physical properties of the ball. Like there’s a mathematics of correct hypothetical situations to be discovered, which is part of the territory as much as e.g. Godel’s theorem is.
This is a variant (sometimes considered a separate case) of the counterfactual if—the hypothetical if. Or possibly an even more specific variant, the predictive if.
We don’t yet know what the future territory is—you may or may not drop the ball. It may or may not bounce (perhaps there’ll be carpet there when dropped). The map contains a distribution of things that correspond imperfectly to the territory. The conditional statement that, for those imagined territories where I drop the ball, the ball will bounce up, is definitely in the map. Any time you talk about the “imagined” or “possible” or “potential”, you’re describing a map rather than the territory.
If I drop this ball, it will bounce back up to me. Is that ‘if’ in the territory? I feel like the potential to bounce when dropped is extrapolable from the physical properties of the ball. Like there’s a mathematics of correct hypothetical situations to be discovered, which is part of the territory as much as e.g. Godel’s theorem is.
This is a variant (sometimes considered a separate case) of the counterfactual if—the hypothetical if. Or possibly an even more specific variant, the predictive if.
We don’t yet know what the future territory is—you may or may not drop the ball. It may or may not bounce (perhaps there’ll be carpet there when dropped). The map contains a distribution of things that correspond imperfectly to the territory. The conditional statement that, for those imagined territories where I drop the ball, the ball will bounce up, is definitely in the map. Any time you talk about the “imagined” or “possible” or “potential”, you’re describing a map rather than the territory.
Also, see my post on Natural Structures
Counterfactuals are actually much harder to define than you might think.