MugaSofer comments on Right for the Wrong Reasons - Less Wrong
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Comments (66)
Not really.
Let me elaborate:
In a book of his, Daniel Dennett appropriates the word "actualism" to mean "the belief that only things that have actually happened, or will happen, are possible." In other words, all statements that are false are not only false, but also impossible: If the coin flip comes up heads, it was never possible for the coin flip to have come up tails. He considers this rather silly, says there are good reasons for dismissing it that aren't relevant to the current discussion, and proceeds as though the matter is solved. This strikes me as one of those philosophical positions that seem obviously absurd but very difficult to refute in practice. (It also strikes me as splitting hairs over words, so maybe it's just a wrong question in the first place?)
Well, assuming a strict definition of "possible", it's just determinism; if God's playing dice then "actualism" is false, and if he's not then it's true.
Assuming a useful definition of possible, then it's trivially false.
Looks like yet another argument over definitions.