You replied to a post of mine about the schrodinger equation. It's not hair splitting for me to say that my claim about that particular equation is only a claim about that particular equation -- it's not hair splitting for someone to clarify the scope of their own claim. I have the right to decide the scope of my own claims. You aren't hair splitting enough with the way you've been replying. You could do to split more hairs.

I don't think there's really any mathematics here at all.

I think you misunderstood my request. Your reply is still talking about qm as a whole, and not the Schrödinger equation in particular.

I know many interpretations involve qm being indeterministic, and if you take the time to read my initial post again you'll see I explicitly acknowledge that.

I respect that reply

If I presented this post to most experts in QM, I do not believe that many would agree with it. A small minority might.

Your first paragraph, maybe - that's probably actually mostly (maybe entirely) correct. Your second paragraph, however, would probably be a great example of why your first paragraph is true.

I'm not sure what he is referring to — Count Timothy von Icarus

I believe that he was confusing a statement about the schrodinger equation specifically with a statement about quantum mechanics as a whole, which is why he linked me to a page full of interpretations of quantum mechanics as a whole after I made a statement about the schrodinger equation specifically.

The schrodinger equation is as deteterminstic as the equation y = x^2. The various interpretations of QM don't disagree with *that specific statement about that specific equation*.

That's a long article, care to point out where the physicists in there disagree that the *schrodinger equation* in particular isn't deterministic?

we want to use superveniance to explain in some way how the mental is in some way dependant on the physical — Count Timothy von Icarus

Supervenience isn't an explanation in itself. It's more of a category. It's a way of categorising models, and the MODELS are the things that have the potential to explain.

Perhaps that's why I don't see the problems that you see. The problems you point out are where supervenience fails to explain something, or fails to rule out things that would be *bad* explanations. I don't see that as a problem, because I have much smaller ambitions for what supervenience is supposed to be.

It is not an explanation, it is a category of models.

Specifically, one might say that physicalist or materialist models of the mind MUST be supervenient in that specific sense - they must be supervenient such that any change in a mind must also come with a change in matter. You cannot have two different minds which are not also different materially, according to this category of model.

Non materialist or non physicalist models do NOT need to have the above relationship of supervenience hold.

That isn't an explanation, and I don't think it's meant to be.

So, in physicalist philosophy of mind we should like to say something like: "you cannot have variance in a subject's mental state (A) without some change in their physical constituents (B)." Two subjects that are physically identical must have the same mental properties/experiences. However, crucially this is not a one-to-one relationship. Subjects might have different physical properties and yet have the same experiences (as measured over some given duration). Mental states are multiply realizable in terms of physical states. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yeah, I think this is agreeable.

the above definition is wholly inadequate to do the job supervenience is brought in to do. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think it would help the clarity of your post if you spelled out what that is.

After reading through the various "problems" you described, I can't say I personally see them as real problems.

The claim that the schrodinger equation is deterministic is independent of the claim that quantum physics itself, as a whole, is deterministic. Every physicist agrees that the schrodinger equation is deterministic, even physicists who then go on to say "... but I believe in an interpretation of quantum physics where collapse is random".

That the schrodinger equation is deterministic is not a question - there's unanimous agreement by relevant experts there. It's what happens on/after measurement that people disagree on.

(And there's some disagreement on how ontologically real the schrodinger equation and the "probability" waves it governs are).

Well, nature very well could BE the laws. If that's the case, it's not that nature is "complying" with those laws, it's that those things we consider to be part of nature are defined by those laws, and exist because of those laws.

An atom, for example. Perhaps this atom isn't "complying" with a law, perhaps the atom exists in the first place because it is composed of things which behave according to the defined ways that those things behave.

I don't think we need to cop out so drastically. Sure, we can't prove something to certainty, but reasonable people can discuss their reasons for believing or not believing certain propositions, and they might be able to find that some propositions are unreasonable, or some people are unreasonable in their treatment of those propositions. You don't just have to throw your hands up in their air and say "we're helpless to learn anything about this topic". Even if there's no certainty to be found, there's still reasonable conversations to be had.

Yes, this is almost identical to the definition that I quoted in my post — SophistiCat

You're right, of course. Reading through this thread as someone who has been deeply fascinated by Emergence over the past couple years has been a ... frustrating experience.

may I ask you another relativity question? This might be very basic, but I don't know the answer.

Imagine you're on a train at a train station, and the train is 1 light second long.

Now imagine the train accelerates, and it continues to accelerate until it's going half light speed, 0.5c, then it stops accelerating and stays at half light speed (from the frame of reference of the train station, of course).

Through this process of accelerating, is there any difference in the length of the train *in the reference frame of the train itself*? Or, instead, is the train still 1 light second long in its own reference frame, from the perspective of someone who is on the train?

ah okay, I think we're on the same page for pretty much everything.

that's a very interesting post, but also a bit of a kamikaze move by the non physicalists. In order to demonstrate what you have about physicalism (which I'm fine with, by the way, not disagreeing), you first have to claim that there's no test you can run to demonstrate any kind of non-physicalist phenomena. Because if you could, physicalism would then be falsifiable, right?

Is that what non physicalist generally believe? That there's no possible test or experimental data to demonstrate non physical phenomena?

All this is true even under Newtonian physics, and the observer in question doesn't have to be moving in S to observe any of this. — noAxioms

In Newtonian physics... I don't know how to do that version of transformation between S and S', but it would seem to me that once you as an observer account for the time it took the light to reach you for each of your observations, wouldn't your results look exactly like they would look from the perspective of a stationary observer?

And if someone wasn't moving in S, wouldn't they just see the same thing as the original description? Both runners run the same speed, both runners arrive to their destination at the same time. The description of the scenario was from the perspective of someone in S to begin with.

All same answers as what I got. The slower runner runs a shorter distance and gets there first. The stop watch of the faster runner gets started later, and therefore is still able to show the same reading as the slower runners stop watch.

I use this to visualise the Lorentz transformations

https://www.geogebra.org/m/s7xsubde

No problem brother, hope you're enjoying your sunday.

I said "I think it's very unlikely that they would".

I think it's very unlikely that if he were in office, his Christian nationalist foreign policy handlers would let him do anything to harm or even inconvenience Israel. — flannel jesus

Do you think I should have said "It's unlikely that they wouldn't"?

You may be right. what has Trump said though? — unenlightened

He's a compulsive liar. I think it's very unlikely that if he were in office, his Christian nationalist foreign policy handlers would let him do anything to harm or even inconvenience Israel.

He's saying what he's saying because it's an opportunity to criticise Biden. He previously said he hopes the American economy fails while bidens president - he has no ethical values, only things which are convenient for him and those which are inconvenient. An opportunity to criticise Biden is convenient, and so he took that opportunity.

But I would bet on him reversing Biden policies just because they're Biden's. — unenlightened

Super naive to think republicans wouldn't support Israel if in power. We fund Israel as much as we do because of conservative policies.

the place where his use of these terms differs from everyone else is that he thinks he has to add all sorts of abstractions about judgements, when in fact how everyone else uses the word "evidence", the judgement phase is already included.

I think what he's been implying but not saying directly is that when he "judges something as evidence", it might not really be evidence. Like, to him, it's only REALLY evidence if the thing it's evidence for is also true. It can be judged as evidence, but only mistakenly, if it's not true.

But to everyone else, there's no difference between judging something as evidence, and evidence. Those mean the same thing.

Like, if you say "I believe X" and I say "why? What's your evidence?" you might say "my evidence is this this and this, but I'm still not certain" while his vocabulary would force him to say "I have judged this this and this to be evidence, but I'm still not certain". Nobody else needs to add the word "judged" in there, it's already implicit.

Perhaps another way to phrase it is, for him, "evidence" can only be objective (evidence can only be objectively true signs of objectively true facts), so if he wants to talk about subjective reasons for believing something, he has to add the word "judged" in to subjectivify it. But to everyone else, "evidence" already has that subjective nature implied.

And of course it already has subjectivity baked in. Objective truths don't care about objective evidence, evidence is how imperfect human beings share ideas about their uncertain beliefs. The only reason "evidence" is a word at all is because it's useful in cases where humans are sharing their judgements about their uncertainties, and to convince other people of their conclusions. We don't need to add words to subjectivify "evidence", it's baked in.

Courts say 'present your evidence', not 'present what you have judged to be evidence'. To native English speakers, "what you have judged to be" is redundant.

It should be all clear now. I asked him for an example where he had evidence but he wasn't sure, he provided that example, and it became very clear that the evidence he had was also compatible with his conclusion not being true.

Strawman. I said: — Metaphysician Undercover

Absolute baloney lmao! It's not a straw man at all! In addition it to it being an obviously fair paraphrasing of what you said, especially given the reply to it, you've been replying to me for many posts now where I've said that's your evidence, and not once in all of your replies to my posts did you say "that's not my evidence", until now. If it was really a straw man, you would have clarified right away instead of pocketing it for some convenient moment later. When someone misunderstands me, I try to correct them as soon as I notice. You didn't do that, so I very much doubt I misunderstood you.

And you ended that post with " I conclude that what I see is evidence that "John is approaching" is true."

Don't give me this straw man Baloney, be honest please.

I think your unwillingness to look the very plain-as-day things in the face is what makes the discussion pointless. You said your evidence was that you saw a guy who looks like John approaching - that's not some kind of misrepresentation by me, that's what you said. You also ackowledge that you could, feasibly, see the same thing in a world where John is not approaching. That's not a trick, this is again something you've said or implied. Therefore, your evidence that John is approaching is compatible with a world in which John is not approaching.

I don't have to write paragraphs and paragraphs about the minutiae of the philosophy of judgement, all I have to do is point to a couple plain facts that you've agreed with, and what I'm saying pops out cleanly and nicely.

It looks to me like you want to write paragraphs and paragraphs about the ins and outs of judgement as a way to avoid looking at the simple, straight forward argument I'm making. Don't avoid it, look at it. Look at it directly.

what does that imply to you?

I think the two state solution is the only solution the Palestinians are willing to accept — Benkei

Based on what?

if you want to use the word evidence in a different way from English speakers, be my guest. For the rest of us, evidence is not synonymous with proof, and it often leaves uncertainty. If it leaves uncertainty, it follows that the experience we're labelling "evidence" is also compatible with a world in which the thing it's evidence for did not happen. Given that you yourself gave an example where you have evidence of something, but you're still uncertain, you clearly agree with this and just haven't thought it through yet.

If the evidence you have for John approaching wasn't also compatible with John not approaching, you would be certain. You are not certain, so it must be compatible. In other words, it's not difficult to imagine a world where you have the evidence you say you have, and yet John is not approaching.

As I said, an individual knows oneself, and also knows one's own judgements to be fallible. So when I recognize what I see down the street as John, I take this recognition as evidence that John is approaching. However, I am in no way certain that John is approaching because I also recognize the fallibility of my capacity to recognize a person at such a distance. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, you're saying it yourself here. You take the recognition as evidence, and yet you're aware that the recognition is compatible with a world in which it's not John. You are literally saying all the words required to agree with me, so I'm not really sure why you don't.

One state, equal rights, the only way: you and I have already agreed on this. (If only everyone else would - or could!) — tim wood

The only way, which is also a complete impossibility. There isn't a chance in the world that Jews want to give up Israel as they know it in exchange for that. Out of all the possible ways to end the conflict, this suggestion seems NICE but also near the bottom of the "likely to happen" list. If that's the only way... well, then Palestine's fucked.

It's my belief that the most responsible thing for people to promote is ideas that are actual possible to happen, real paths toward peace that have more than a chance in hell of being adopted by the relevant parties. Palestinians have been promised their right to return for generations by now, it should be clear that that promise is an empty one, the harsh truth is there's no return. If they accept a future without that, they actually have a chance of building prosperity for themselves

The reason I, and every other person who has jumped into this conversation, disagrees with your take, is pretty easy to see. Just google "examples of evidence in a criminal trial". Every single example you see follows the pattern at hand:

The "evidence" points to one thing being the case, but it's not certain, and you can always conceive of ways in which you would have that eviddence, even if that conclusion is not the case. Fingerprints - a person can be on trial, and have evidence be submitted that their fingerprints are at the crime scene, and nevertheless they didn't commit the crime. It's possible for your fingerprints to be somewhere and you still did not commit a crime there? Those two things are... compatible.

Testimonies are evidence, but someone could testify against you and it still be the case that you didn't commit the crime, can't it?

The rest of the world treats the word "evidence" in a similar way to what I'm saying here. Evidence is not synonymous with proof. A piece of information may be evidence, and still be *compatible with the opposite conclusion*. Perhaps you don't like that the rest of the world talks about evidence in these terms, but language is there for mutual understanding, and if you want to have mutual understanding with other english speakers, it would help you to understand what the rest of us mean by 'evidence'.

Therefore you have prejudice, you believe that the object supports the hypothesis prior to the judgement, because it is taken for granted as "evidence". — Metaphysician Undercover

What? YOU'RE the one who told ME it was evidence. If I'm prejudiced by granting that it's evidence, SURELY you are too, right? YOU told ME it was evidence.

In fact, that's the entire reason why I asked you to come up with a scenario and an example of evidence instead of providing one myself - I was predicting exactly this sort of thing from you. I present a scenario, I say such-and-such is evidence, and you find some weird reason to decide "that's not evidence". I thought I'd sidestep that by letting YOU choose the evidence, so you can't find some silly reason to deny that it's evidence afterward. Apparently I underestimated your ability to ... do whatever it is you're doing.

To me, it makes perfect sense how I framed it. You have evidence. The evidence you have increases your confidence that John is approaching, but you're not certain it's John approaching because the thing you're experiencing as evidence, you could also experience if John were not approaching. I don't think there's anything outlandish about what I'm saying here.

Do you believe that John is approaching?
Yes.
Why? What's your evidence?
I see someone that looks like John approaching.

That evidence, clearly, is compatible with the statement "John is not approaching". That's why you're not certain.

no worries brother.

Those aren't the two statements I said were compatible. "John is approaching" vs "John is not approaching" - I did not say these two statemnts could be true at the same time.

Yes, perfect.

So, you have information that you rationally interpret as evidence for the statemnt "John is approaching".

However, that information you have, that evidence, is COMPATIBLE with the statement "John is not approaching", isn't it? You're not certain John is approaching - the only reason you're not certain is because you know there's a way where you could experience seeing what you're seeing, while it's simultaneously true that John is not approaching. So the statement "I see what I think is John approaching" is completely compatible (but not evidence for, just compatible) with the statement "John is not approaching" - compatible because they can both be true at the same time.

If they couldn't both be true at the same time, then you would be certain John was approaching.

Make sense?

I answered that question already, here: — Metaphysician Undercover

The request was for you to come up with and present a specific scenario. You haven't done that. Nothing in your post was a specific scenario.

Here's what I said:

Can you think of a situation where you have evidence for a claim, but the evidence does not leave you certain that the claim is true? Please describe that situation, the evidence, and why you're not certain the claim is true even after finding that evidence.

I do not see a description, from you, of any of that stuff. Do you understand what I'm asking for?

I just want a simple example. Something like:

I'm a jury member on a murder trial. The prosecution has show me <some piece of evidence> which I rationally consider evidence that the defendant committed the murder, BUT that evidence still doesn't leave me 100% sure the defendant committed the murder. I'm not 100% sure because <...>.

Just a simple example. Doesn't have to be murder, could be evidence that you have milk in your fridge, or that your doctor got their medical degree from Yale, or that your shoes were made in China. Just a simple example of a scenario where you have evidence, but despite seeing that evidence, you're still not sure. Can you come up with an example like this? Please share it if you can.

It is not a burden females should have to bear - deciding whether or not to allow males to take from them. — AmadeusD

Keep in mind that the majority of trans support in society, up to and including the idea that they should be allowed to compete, comes from females.

I agree that it's an unfortunate reality that people would be criticised for "no" votes, and that it would not be fair to female competitors for them to put up with that. On the flip side, a bunch of men deciding for women something that those women don't want seems unfair as well, in case those women DO want to allow trans to compete with them.

Perhaps the majority of women's soccer, for example, want to allow trans athletes. Why should a bunch of men in a board room decide, and not the women themselves for whom the league was created?

quite the opposite