But there is progress: we started with an unsolved informal problem (what is a counterfactual) and replaced it with an unsolved formal problem (how to specify the relative distance between possible worlds).
I wouldn’t call the latter a formal problem, since there is no formal criteria in the problem statement for judging what constitutes a correct solution. Intuition and philosophy are still all we have to go on.
There is still progress, but I think a better way of putting it is that we have found one possible way in which the original problem might be solved.
I wouldn’t call the latter a formal problem, since there is no formal criteria in the problem statement for judging what constitutes a correct solution. Intuition and philosophy are still all we have to go on.
There is still progress, but I think a better way of putting it is that we have found one possible way in which the original problem might be solved.