It seems to me that the dream example doesn’t actually violate the principle “Yes require the possibility of no”, but just a very tricky case.
If i understand correctly, what you’re saying is basically that the observation itself is evidence. now, it’s only evidence if it happens only in one case, when you’re awake. so wouldn’t saying “observation as evidence requires the possibility of no observation” be correct and consistent with the principle?
Yeah. But I fear that a more common reading of “yes requires the possibility of no” takes it to mean “yes requires the possibility of an explicit no”, when in fact it’s just “yes requires the possibility of not-yes”. I would rather explicitly highlight this by adding “yes requires the possibility of no, or at least, silence”, rather than just lumping this under “tricky cases” of yes-requires-the-possibility-of-no.
Fair enough, thanks for the clarification . “not-yes” actually makes things clearer to me than “silence”, but unfortunately it doesn’t sound elegant. anyway I’m happy my intuition of the principle was right, and it was more a matter of labeling.
It seems to me that the dream example doesn’t actually violate the principle “Yes require the possibility of no”, but just a very tricky case.
If i understand correctly, what you’re saying is basically that the observation itself is evidence. now, it’s only evidence if it happens only in one case, when you’re awake. so wouldn’t saying “observation as evidence requires the possibility of no observation” be correct and consistent with the principle?
Yeah. But I fear that a more common reading of “yes requires the possibility of no” takes it to mean “yes requires the possibility of an explicit no”, when in fact it’s just “yes requires the possibility of not-yes”. I would rather explicitly highlight this by adding “yes requires the possibility of no, or at least, silence”, rather than just lumping this under “tricky cases” of yes-requires-the-possibility-of-no.
Fair enough, thanks for the clarification . “not-yes” actually makes things clearer to me than “silence”, but unfortunately it doesn’t sound elegant. anyway I’m happy my intuition of the principle was right, and it was more a matter of labeling.