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eli_sennesh comments on Hypothetical situations are not meant to exist - Less Wrong Discussion

1 Post author: casebash 27 September 2015 10:58AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 29 September 2015 12:04:08AM 4 points [-]

I disagree. The real world has a fixed causal structure, and therefore, a certain fixed counterfactual structure. Thus, only some hypothetical situations are realistic. Thus, some "hypothetical" thought-experiments amount to asking, "What would you do if I fundamentally altered the rules of reality in the following ways?".

Comment author: casebash 29 September 2015 12:34:35AM -1 points [-]

I don't suppose you could clarify what scenarios you consider to be unrealistic and invalid?

Comment author: VoiceOfRa 29 September 2015 11:05:30PM *  2 points [-]

Suppose I doubled the mass of this rock while keeping all other things, including it's volume and density, constant.

Comment author: casebash 30 September 2015 01:07:15AM -1 points [-]

Well you've created a contradiction there. You could imagine a rock having it's mass doubled with respect to certain equations and it might still work. But to just double the mass with regard to everything will lead to a paradox.