Re 2. First, let me adopt bounded realism here, with physics (external reality or territory) + logic (human models of reality, or maps). Let me ignore the ultraviolet divergence of decompartmentalization (hence “bounded”), where Many Words, Tegmark IV and modal realism are considered “territory”. To this end, let me put the UV cutoff on logic at the Popper’s boundary: only experimentally falsifiable maps are worth considering. A map is “true” means that it is an accurate representation of the piece of territory it is intended to represent. I apologize in advance if I am inventing new terms for the standard philosophical concepts—feel free to point me to the standard terminology.
I suspect you have, in fact, reinvented something. For reference, how does this “bounded realism” evaluate this statement:
On August 1st 2008 at midnight Greenwich time, a one-foot sphere of chocolate cake spontaneously formed in the center of the Sun; and then, in the natural course of events, this Boltzmann Cake almost instantly dissolved.
It makes no predictions; this is, in a sense, epiphenomenal cake—I know of no test we could perform that would distinguish between a world where this statement is false and one where it is true. Certainly tracking it provides us with no predictive power.
Yet is it somehow invalid? Is it gibberish? Can it be rejected a priori? Is there any sense in which it might be true? Is there any sense in which it might be false?
Sorry if I’m misinterpreting you here; I doubt this has much effect on your overall point.
I suspect you have, in fact, reinvented something. For reference, how does this “bounded realism” evaluate this statement:
It makes no predictions; this is, in a sense, epiphenomenal cake—I know of no test we could perform that would distinguish between a world where this statement is false and one where it is true. Certainly tracking it provides us with no predictive power.
Yet is it somehow invalid? Is it gibberish? Can it be rejected a priori? Is there any sense in which it might be true? Is there any sense in which it might be false?
Sorry if I’m misinterpreting you here; I doubt this has much effect on your overall point.