Sadly, this is exactly what happened. When philosophers talk about probability, they take the “possible worlds” story at face value
Interpreted as “all philosophers who talk about possible worlds believe they are real”, that isn’t true. The belief that possible world are real, modal realism, is contentious.
The Wikipedia article attributes modal realism to David Lewis only, and cites many criticisms by other philosophers.
A lot of lot of philosophers talk about possible worlds, and perhaps taking such talk literally is the basis of the belief that modal realism is widespread … since it isn’t based on what most philosophers actually believe. But “there is a possible world where X” can be read as “it is not impossible that X”—there is no need to reify the world itself.
Talk of possible worlds is common, because of the popularity of modal logic, and modal logic is …old … the sort of thing rationalists should approve of? It allows you to put the notions of necessity and possibility on a formal basis, instead of leaving them as vague metaphysical notions.
Not on the framework of possible worlds! Here we are supposed to conceptualize all the ways the world could be that are logically consistent with our previous observations and arrive to the conclusion that there are worlds where the coin comes Heads and worlds where it comes Tails
There’s no single and obligatory notion of possibility involved in modal logic or modal realism...the logic works out the same, for logical, physical and epistemic possibility, so long as you use matching definitions of possible and necessary. For coin and dice problems, a common sense notion is enough.
I don’t know where you found the idea that modal realists have to picture a whole world in order derive a common sense truth like “a coin can lands or tails”.
Interpreted as “all philosophers who talk about possible worlds believe they are real”, that isn’t true. The belief that possible world are real, modal realism, is contentious.
Yes, you shouldn’t interpret it this way. Modal realism is not the point of contention of this post. The whole framework of “possible worlds” is, regardless of whether one thinks they are somehow real or not.
I don’t know how you manage to keep misinterpreting me about it, even though I’ve already explained it to you under a different post.
Talk of possible worlds is common, because of the popularity of modal logic, and modal logic is …old … the sort of thing rationalists should approve of?
Why? Are we suppose to endource everything that’s old? Somehow I didn’t get the memo.
It allows you to put the notions of necessity and possibility on a formal basis, instead of leaving them as vague metaphysical notions.
The sentiment is good the implementation, is not. To be useful such formalization should be based on the framework of probability experiments and not possible worlds, for the reasons described in the post
The fact that you gave no citations or examples isn’t helping. You mentioned philosophers, not otherwise specified, and I have seen philosophers have debate modal realism I don’t know of anybody insisting that probability needs a motion of possible worlds—particularly, logically possible worlds.
Here we are supposed to conceptualize all the ways the world could be that are logically consistent with our previous observations and arrive to the conclusion that there are worlds where the coin comes Heads and worlds where it comes Tails
Trying to imagine an entire possible world to.solve a simple probability problem is of course far too much effort, so it is worth condemning if anyone is actually recommending it...but is anybody?
Interpreted as “all philosophers who talk about possible worlds believe they are real”, that isn’t true. The belief that possible world are real, modal realism, is contentious.
The Wikipedia article attributes modal realism to David Lewis only, and cites many criticisms by other philosophers.
A lot of lot of philosophers talk about possible worlds, and perhaps taking such talk literally is the basis of the belief that modal realism is widespread … since it isn’t based on what most philosophers actually believe. But “there is a possible world where X” can be read as “it is not impossible that X”—there is no need to reify the world itself.
Talk of possible worlds is common, because of the popularity of modal logic, and modal logic is …old … the sort of thing rationalists should approve of? It allows you to put the notions of necessity and possibility on a formal basis, instead of leaving them as vague metaphysical notions.
Modal logic is not modal realism, no matter who says it is
There’s no single and obligatory notion of possibility involved in modal logic or modal realism...the logic works out the same, for logical, physical and epistemic possibility, so long as you use matching definitions of possible and necessary. For coin and dice problems, a common sense notion is enough.
I don’t know where you found the idea that modal realists have to picture a whole world in order derive a common sense truth like “a coin can lands or tails”.
Yes, you shouldn’t interpret it this way. Modal realism is not the point of contention of this post. The whole framework of “possible worlds” is, regardless of whether one thinks they are somehow real or not.
I don’t know how you manage to keep misinterpreting me about it, even though I’ve already explained it to you under a different post.
Why? Are we suppose to endource everything that’s old? Somehow I didn’t get the memo.
The sentiment is good the implementation, is not. To be useful such formalization should be based on the framework of probability experiments and not possible worlds, for the reasons described in the post
The fact that you gave no citations or examples isn’t helping. You mentioned philosophers, not otherwise specified, and I have seen philosophers have debate modal realism I don’t know of anybody insisting that probability needs a motion of possible worlds—particularly, logically possible worlds.
Trying to imagine an entire possible world to.solve a simple probability problem is of course far too much effort, so it is worth condemning if anyone is actually recommending it...but is anybody?