I'm not seeing why that extended thought experiment couldn't have used a coin and two scanners of different reliability.
The point is in showing that having a magical kind of knowledge certified by proofs doesn't help (presumably) in that thought experiment, and hopefully reducing events of possible worlds to logical statements. So I want to use as many logical kinds of building blocks as possible, in order to see the rest in their terms.
The point is in showing that having a magical kind of knowledge certified by proofs doesn't help (presumably) in that thought experiment, and hopefully reducing events of possible worlds to logical statements. So I want to use as many logical kinds of building blocks as possible, in order to see the rest in their terms.
Fair enough. To me it seems more illuminating to see logical facts (like the parity of Q) as physical facts (in this case, a statement about what certain kinds of physical mechanisms would do under certain circumstances.) But, at any rate, we seem to agree that these two kinds of facts ought to be thought of in the same way.
Consider the following thought experiment ("Counterfactual Calculation"):
Should you write "even" on the counterfactual test sheet, given that you're 99% sure that the answer is "even"?
This thought experiment contrasts "logical knowledge" (the usual kind) and "observational knowledge" (what you get when you look at a calculator display). The kind of knowledge you obtain by observing things is not like the kind of knowledge you obtain by thinking yourself. What is the difference (if there actually is a difference)? Why does observational knowledge work in your own possible worlds, but not in counterfactuals? How much of logical knowledge is like observational knowledge, and what are the conditions of its applicability? Can things that we consider "logical knowledge" fail to apply to some counterfactuals?
(Updateless analysis would say "observational knowledge is not knowledge" or that it's knowledge only in the sense that you should bet a certain way. This doesn't analyze the intuition of knowing the result after looking at a calculator display. There is a very salient sense in which the result becomes known, and the purpose of this thought experiment is to explore some of counterintuitive properties of such knowledge.)