I didn’t have the motivation to read this deeply, but I think my reply is just
What you’re really saying (like Nate Soares here, ctrl-F “metaphysically”) is “You need to consider crazy metaphysics (imagining you’re in a hypothetical impossible reality) to make decisions in a reasonable way”, and like… yes, exactly. That’s de facto a metaphysical stance. “It makes things easier if we imagine this” is not a decisive argument for a metaphysical claim that permits you to leave it unstated as if it’s obvious.
You’re being uncooperative by not calling it metaphysics, since, under the normal meaning of metaphysics, it just is (moreso than normal decision theory).
(I probably won’t reply again if you reply is super long, btw)
Under the normal meaning of metaphysics, a mathematician can believe in meaningful truth without being a platonist, just as Bayesian probability theory does not require branching multiverse or fundamental randomness. CDT itself, with determinism, reasons through impossible realities via causal graph counterfactuals.
There is a mundane separation between utilizing a model to decide, and asserting the model as a literal claim about physical reality.
I could cut it down, but when your own document is quite long and making strong assertions then long replies are reasonable in order to get at the actual disagreements.
Sure, it’s a continuum—I’m down to bite the bullet that probabilities are very slightly metaphysical too. But believing your own reality might be impossible / changing the past / caring about alternate realities is a huge difference in degree—intuitively like 100x more metaphysical than probabilities, or something like that.
I didn’t have the motivation to read this deeply, but I think my reply is just
You’re being uncooperative by not calling it metaphysics, since, under the normal meaning of metaphysics, it just is (moreso than normal decision theory).
(I probably won’t reply again if you reply is super long, btw)
Under the normal meaning of metaphysics, a mathematician can believe in meaningful truth without being a platonist, just as Bayesian probability theory does not require branching multiverse or fundamental randomness. CDT itself, with determinism, reasons through impossible realities via causal graph counterfactuals. There is a mundane separation between utilizing a model to decide, and asserting the model as a literal claim about physical reality.
I could cut it down, but when your own document is quite long and making strong assertions then long replies are reasonable in order to get at the actual disagreements.
Sure, it’s a continuum—I’m down to bite the bullet that probabilities are very slightly metaphysical too. But believing your own reality might be impossible / changing the past / caring about alternate realities is a huge difference in degree—intuitively like 100x more metaphysical than probabilities, or something like that.