Once you consciously replace “true” with “useful” and “exist” with “usefully modeled as,” a lot of confusion over what exists and what does not, what is true and what is false, what is knowledge and what it belief, what is objective and what is subjective, simply melts away.
How do you know that the people who say “agents exist” don’t mean “some systems can be usefully modelled as agents”?
By the same token, the control system approach is a useful abstraction for many observed phenomena, living or otherwise, not just agents. It does not lay claim to what an agent is, just what approach can be used to describe some agenty behaviors. I see absolutely no contradiction with what I said here or elsewhere.
You are making a claim about reality, that counterfactuals don’t exist., even though you are also making a meta claim that you don’t make claims about reality.
If probablistic agents[], and counterfactuals are both useful models (and I don’t see how you can consistentlt assert the former and deny the latter) then counterfactuals “exist” by your* lights.
[*] Or automaton, if you prefer. If someone builds a software gismo that is probablistic and acts without specific instruction, then it is an agetn and an automaton all at the same time.
How do you know that the people who say “agents exist” don’t mean “some systems can be usefully modelled as agents”?
You are making a claim about reality, that counterfactuals don’t exist., even though you are also making a meta claim that you don’t make claims about reality.
If probablistic agents[], and counterfactuals are both useful models (and I don’t see how you can consistentlt assert the former and deny the latter) then counterfactuals “exist” by your* lights.
[*] Or automaton, if you prefer. If someone builds a software gismo that is probablistic and acts without specific instruction, then it is an agetn and an automaton all at the same time.