kmccarty

I think the temptation is very strong to notice the distinction between the elemental nature of raw sensory inputs and the cognitive significance they are the bearers of. And this is so, and is useful to do, precisely to the extent that the cognitive significance will vary depending on context and background knowledge, such as light levels, perspective, etc. because those serve as dynamically updated calibrations of cognitive significance. But these calibrations become transparent with use, so that we see, hear and feel vividly and directly in three dimensions because we have learned that that is the cognitive significance of what we see, hear, feel and navigate through. Subjective... (read more)

I'm what David Chalmers would call a "Type-A materialist" which means that I deny the existence of "subjective facts" which aren't in some way reducible to objective facts.

The concerns Chalmers wrote about focused on the nature of phenomenal experience, and the traditional dichotomy between subjective and objective in human experience. That distinction draws a dividing line way off to the side of what I'm interested in. My main concern isn't with ineffable consciousness, it's with cognitive processing of information, information defined as that which distinguishes possibilities, reduces uncertainty and can have behavioral consequences. Consequences for what/whom? Situated epistemic agents, which I take as ubiquituous constituents of the world around... (read 397 more words →)

On further reflection, both Ancestor and each Descendant can consider the proposition P(X) = "X is a descendant & X is a lottery winner". Given the setup, Ancestor can quantify over X, and assign probability 1/N to each instance. That's how the statement {"I" will win the lottery with probability 1} is to be read, in conjunction with a particular analysis of personal identity that warrants it. This would be the same proposition each descendant considers, and also assigns probability 1/N to. On this way of looking at it, both Ancestor and each descendant are in the same epistemic state, with respect to the question of who will win... (read more)

There need be no information transferred.

I didn't quite follow this. From where to where?

But anyway, yes, that's correct that the referents of the two claims aren't the same. This could stand some further clarification as to why. In fact, Descendant's claim makes a direct reference to the individual who uttered it at the moment it's uttered, but Ancestor's claim is not about himself in the same way. As you say, he's attempting to refer to all of his descendants, and on that basis claim identity with whichever particular one of them happens to win the lottery, or not, as the case may be. (As I note above,... (read more)

I don't think personal identity is a mathematical equivalence relation. Specifically, it's not symmetric: "I'm the same person you met yesterday" actually needs to read "I was the same person you met yesterday"; "I will be the same person tomorrow" is a prediction that may fail (even assuming I survive that long). This yields failures of transitivity: "Y is the same person as X" and "Z is the same person as X" doesn't get you "Y is the same person as Z".

Given that you know there will be a future stage of you that will win the lottery how can that copy (the copy that is the future stage

Did I accuse someone of being incoherent? I didn't mean to do that, I only meant to accuse myself of not being able to follow the distinction between a rule of logic (oh, take the Rule of Detachment for instance) and a syntactic elimination rule. In virtue of what do the latter escape the quantum of sceptical doubt that we should apply to other tautologies? I think there clearly is a distinction between believing a rule of logic is reliable for a particular domain, and knowing with the same confidence that a particular instance of its application has been correctly executed. But I can't tell from the discussion if... (read more)