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Constructing the World
Week 4
David Chalmers
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The Case for Scrutability
(1) PQTI and the Cosmoscope
(2) The Cosmoscope Argument
(3) Empirical Scrutability
(4) Conditional Scrutability
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Scrutability of Ordinary Truths
• Aim: make an initial case that there is a compact class of truths such that all ordinary truths are scrutable from base truths.
• Ordinary truths: macroscopic truths such as ‘Water is H2O’, ‘Life on our planet is based on DNA’, ‘Platypuses are mammals’, etc.
• Hard cases (math, mental, moral, modal, social, metaphysical, vague, names, deference, ...) later.
• Issues specifically about a priori scrutability next week.
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Base Truths• Base Truths: PQTI. Includes
• P: microphysical and macrophysical truths, in (final plus classical) physical vocabulary
• Q: phenomenal truths, in pure phenomenal vocabulary
• T: a “that’s-all” truth
• I: indexical truths: ‘I am ...’, ‘Now is ...’.
• Laws and counterfactuals in the vocabulary of P and Q.
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Positive Truths• To avoid issues about characterizing T (in
terms of apriority), I’ll argue for: all ordinary positive truths are scrutable from PQI.
• Positive truths: Those that cannot conceivably be falsified by adding something to a world.
• E.g. ‘There are more than five particles’
• Not: ‘There is no ectoplasm’, ‘Everything alive is made of DNA’.
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The Cosmoscope• A virtual reality device that stores the
information in PQI and makes it usable. It contains
(i) a supercomputer to store and calculate
(ii) holographic tools that use P to zoom and display information about matter in regions
(iii) virtual reality for knowledge of experience
(iv) a “you are here” marker
(v) a simulation mechanism for knowledge of counterfactuals
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Empirical and Conditional Mode• Cosmoscope in empirical mode: Tells one
about the character of one’s own world.
• Relevant to Empirical Scrutability
• Cosmoscope in conditional mode: Tells one about a scenario that may or may not be one’s own world, to enable conditional conclusions.
• Relevant to Conditional and A Priori Scrutability
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Using a Cosmoscope
• Say a subject utters S. They could then in principle use a Cosmoscope to investigate the truth of S.
• In empirical mode, determine the truth of S.
• In conditional mode: determine whether, if things are as the Cosmoscope describes, S is true.
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The Joys of the Cosmoscope
• The Cosmoscope delivers multiple supermovies of the world:
• phenomenological supermovies, geometrical supermovies, counterfactual supermovies, microphysical supermovies
• at all locations and scales of space and time
• One could clearly use this to come to know very many ordinary truths.
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The Cosmoscope Argument
1. All ordinary truths are scrutable from a Cosmoscope.
2. If a truth is scrutable from a Cosmoscope, it is scrutable from PQI.
_________________________
3. All ordinary truths are scrutable from PQI.
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Case for Premise 1
(1) All knowable ordinary truths are knowable through perception, introspection, and reasoning
(2) Any truth knowable through perception, introspection, and reasonable is scrutable from a Cosmoscope
______________________
(3) So: all knowable ordinary truths are scrutable from a Cosmoscope.
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The Case for Premise 1, continued.(3) All knowable ordinary truths are scrutable
from a Cosmoscope.
(4) All unknowable ordinary truths are Fitch-unknowable or scale-unknowable.
(5) Scale-unknowability is no obstacle to scrutability and Fitch-unknowability is an obstacle only to empirical scrutability; so
(6) All ordinary truths are conditionally scrutable and all non-Fitchian truths are empirically scrutable from a Cosmoscope.
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The Case for Premise 2
• The Cosmoscope is simply providing information in PQI along with truths for reasoning with this information.
• Anything that can be known with the aid of a Cosmoscope can be known by an ideal reasoner given PQI, without the aid of a Cosmoscope.
• So: Any truth scrutable from a Cosmoscope is scrutable from PQI.
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Another Case for Scrutability
• One can make a more detailed case for Scrutability by considering how one can reason from PQI.
• Use Q to know phenomenal truths and as a prima facie guide to perceptual truths.
• Use counterfactuals about Q as a guide to more
• Use P to rule out skeptical perceptual scenarios, and as a guide to unperceived parts of the world.
• Use Q as a guide to other minds.
• And so on.
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The completeness of PQTI
• P enables knowledge of geometrical structure and dynamics at all levels. Q enables knowledge of experience and appearance.
• Together, PQTI enables knowledge of (actual and counterfactual) appearance, behavior, composition, distribution of all bodies of matter in one’s environment.
• It also enables one to rule out arbitrary skeptical hypotheses.
• Knowing this enables one to know all ordinary truths.
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Empirical Scrutability
• Not all truths are empirically scrutable from a Cosmoscope.
• E.g. ‘There is no Cosmoscope’
• P, Q
• One could just exclude non-Fitchian truths.
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Complete Cosmoscopes
• Best to suppose that the Cosmoscope is a nonphysical device that only affects a local piece of spacetime, then erases all traces.
• Complete Cosmoscope: Delivers PQI*, true in world of use (not original world)
• Problem 1: scrutability from Cosmoscope isn’t scrutability from original PQI.
• Problem 2: paradoxes of will/action.
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The Incomplete Cosmoscope
• Incomplete Cosmoscope: Delivers PQI-, truths common to original world and world of use.
• “Local” truths about the area of Cosmoscope interaction are excluded.
• Empirical Scrutability: All nonlocal truths are scrutable from PQI-.
• This avoids Fitchian worries?
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Conditional Scrutability
• For all ordinary true sentence tokens M, the speaker is in a position to know that if PQI’, then M (PQI’ = conjunction of PQI).
• This requires cr*(M|PQI’) to be high.
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Argument for Conditional Scrutability• Direct: All ordinary truths are conditionally
scrutable from a Cosmoscope, so from PQI.
• Indirect: (i) Empirical scrutability says knowledge of PQI- suffices for knowledge of nonlocal M. (ii) Conditionalization suggests: before knowing PQI-, one is in a position to know that if PQI-, then M. (iii) Locality/Fitch pose no special worries for Conditional Scrutability. So (iv) Conditional Scrutability.
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The Objection from Experience
• Having a perceptual experience provides grounds for knowledge in a way that merely knowing about the experience does not.
• But: perception plays its epistemic role in virtue of providing knowledge of certain perceived states of affairs: shapes, colors, etc. That knowledge is also provided by PQI.
• What about high-level contents? The argument for scrutability goes through even assuming low-level contents, so high-level contents are epistemologically inessential.
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The Objection from Idealization
•Arguments for Scrutability require a strong idealization of reasoning, memory, etc.
•Infinite capacity, infinitary reasoning!
•The Cosmoscope offloads some but not all of the idealization.
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Three Objections from Idealization
• Conceptual objection: The idealization isn’t well-defined.
• Infinitary reasoners are presumably possible, and there are facts about what they could know.
• Epistemological objection: We can’t know what these reasoners could know.
• Why not? We can reason generally as before. Perhaps they’ll correct our views about what’s true, but the arguments will still go through.
• Objection from applicability: Next time.