Doesn’t it mean the same thing in either case? Either way, I don’t know which way the coin will land or has landed, and I have some odds at which I’ll be willing to make a bet. I don’t see the problem.
(Though my willingness to bet at all will generally go down over time in the “already flipped” case, due to the increasing possibility that whoever is offering the bet somehow looked at the coin in the intervening time.)
The difference is (to the naive view; I don’t necessarily endorse it) that in the case where the coin has landed, I do not know how it landed, but there’s a sense in which I could, in theory, know; there is, in any case, something to know; there is a fact of the matter about how the coin has landed, but I do not know that fact. So the “probability” of it having landed heads, or tails—the uncertainty—is, indeed, entirely in my mind.
But in the case where the coin has yet to be tossed, there is as yet no case of the matter about whether it’s heads or tails! I don’t know whether it’ll land heads or tails, but nor could I know; there’s nothing to know! (Or do you say the future is predetermined?—asks the naive interlocutor—Else how else may one talk about probability being merely “in the mind”, for something which has not happened yet?)
Whatever the answers to these questions may be, they are certainly not obvious or simple answers… and that is my objection to the OP: that it attempts to pass off a difficult and confusing conceptual question as a simple and obvious one, thereby failing to do justice to those who find it confusing or difficult.
Doesn’t it mean the same thing in either case? Either way, I don’t know which way the coin will land or has landed, and I have some odds at which I’ll be willing to make a bet. I don’t see the problem.
(Though my willingness to bet at all will generally go down over time in the “already flipped” case, due to the increasing possibility that whoever is offering the bet somehow looked at the coin in the intervening time.)
The difference is (to the naive view; I don’t necessarily endorse it) that in the case where the coin has landed, I do not know how it landed, but there’s a sense in which I could, in theory, know; there is, in any case, something to know; there is a fact of the matter about how the coin has landed, but I do not know that fact. So the “probability” of it having landed heads, or tails—the uncertainty—is, indeed, entirely in my mind.
But in the case where the coin has yet to be tossed, there is as yet no case of the matter about whether it’s heads or tails! I don’t know whether it’ll land heads or tails, but nor could I know; there’s nothing to know! (Or do you say the future is predetermined?—asks the naive interlocutor—Else how else may one talk about probability being merely “in the mind”, for something which has not happened yet?)
Whatever the answers to these questions may be, they are certainly not obvious or simple answers… and that is my objection to the OP: that it attempts to pass off a difficult and confusing conceptual question as a simple and obvious one, thereby failing to do justice to those who find it confusing or difficult.