Modal logic doesn’t tell you if some sentence is possible or necessary, it tells you what sentences must have what modal values given some other sentences with some prespecified modal values. Just like Komolgorov doesn’t tell you that the probability of a die landing on any face is 1⁄6, and that it can’t land on two values, it just tells you that given that, the probability of the die landing on an even value is 1⁄2.
Komolgorov and Bayes seem to me to be guilty of the same sort of bouncing, but i think Bayes and Komolgorov are clearly useful tools for the study of rationality. Modal logic does not define possibility, and it certainly does not reduce the notion of modality to anything, but it does constrain the assigning of modal values to fields of sentences. Any philosopher that argued otherwise is prolly a noob.
But, in general I agree with you. I am a philosopher, or at least that’s my major, and i agree that: It is only by extraordinary competence that philosophers ever produce useful reductions; that’s something I hope to change by going into the field. And btw, I plan on using your work all the time to help me make that happen. So would it bother you, or seem strange, if i called you a philosopher, Eliezer? Cause I honestly say that your one of my favorite philosophers, if not my favorite, often enough, and i would find it funny if my favorite philosopher, didn’t even consider himself a philosopher at all, and wasn’t all that intimate with the literature. It’s a fact I’d like to know for personal amusement.
Modal logic doesn’t tell you if some sentence is possible or necessary, it tells you what sentences must have what modal values given some other sentences with some prespecified modal values. Just like Komolgorov doesn’t tell you that the probability of a die landing on any face is 1⁄6, and that it can’t land on two values, it just tells you that given that, the probability of the die landing on an even value is 1⁄2.
Komolgorov and Bayes seem to me to be guilty of the same sort of bouncing, but i think Bayes and Komolgorov are clearly useful tools for the study of rationality. Modal logic does not define possibility, and it certainly does not reduce the notion of modality to anything, but it does constrain the assigning of modal values to fields of sentences. Any philosopher that argued otherwise is prolly a noob.
But, in general I agree with you. I am a philosopher, or at least that’s my major, and i agree that: It is only by extraordinary competence that philosophers ever produce useful reductions; that’s something I hope to change by going into the field. And btw, I plan on using your work all the time to help me make that happen. So would it bother you, or seem strange, if i called you a philosopher, Eliezer? Cause I honestly say that your one of my favorite philosophers, if not my favorite, often enough, and i would find it funny if my favorite philosopher, didn’t even consider himself a philosopher at all, and wasn’t all that intimate with the literature. It’s a fact I’d like to know for personal amusement.