We needed a technology that would help us live “as if” things untrue were actually true, that would allow us to think in five and six dimensions rather than just in over-literal, excessively reality-bound terms. (If thinking in five and six dimensions sounds New Agey to you, realize that, in science, quantum mechanics already has physicists authoring equations and theories in eleven and even twelve dimensions.)
I feel that endorsing stuff like that is pretty much backpedaling from rationality.
I agree and don’t endorse his explanation here. Acting as if untrue things were true sounds to me like an attempt to force pre-modern thinking after you’ve already seen that it doesn’t work. I’m willing to give the guy a little slack because this is the kind of mistake it’s easy to make when you’re trying to figure out how to explain these ideas at first, and based on the other things he writes I’m willing to believe he’s pointing at the same things as me, though he sometimes lacks sufficient precision of language to express it.
From Abramson’s article that you link to:
I feel that endorsing stuff like that is pretty much backpedaling from rationality.
I agree and don’t endorse his explanation here. Acting as if untrue things were true sounds to me like an attempt to force pre-modern thinking after you’ve already seen that it doesn’t work. I’m willing to give the guy a little slack because this is the kind of mistake it’s easy to make when you’re trying to figure out how to explain these ideas at first, and based on the other things he writes I’m willing to believe he’s pointing at the same things as me, though he sometimes lacks sufficient precision of language to express it.