JoshuaZ comments on Open Thread June 2010, Part 4 - Less Wrong
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Ah, so the issue is that I see "must" as entangled with moral and ethical claims that aren't necessarily connected to the physical world in any useful fashion.
Exactly! And to delve somewhat deeper into the levels of meaning there are many who would say that 'must' or weaker 'should' claims are about satisfying a given 'rightness' function. Of those people many of them will say that the 'rightness' function can't reasonably be described as something that is part of the physical world. After accepting that position some will say that a 'must' claim is making an objective assertion about what best satisfies a known 'rightness' function. In perhaps simpler terms, I'll look at the X/Y example we already have:
There are various things that can be accepted or rejected as 'delusions', that may be considered claims about the physical world. (In most cases the proposed delusion would be the negation, but the 'can?' is symmetric.)
Let's see...