I also didn't define "one" in "one shouldn't murder."

Do I need to because you're going to pretend to not know what "one" refers to?

I mean what the heck are you doing now re pretending to not know what "murder" refers to? What the heck does that have to do with understanding that "Murder is wrong" or "One shouldn't murder" is a judgment about behavior?

"If we believe that nature is governed by laws then I would say we have very good reason to think it is actually impossible for those laws to suddenly change."

Can you elaborate on what that good reason is? It seems to me that it runs directly into Hume's problem of induction.

My position is that I believe that there are patterns in nature, that can be used to our advantage to make predictions about what might happen next. But I cannot logically ground that belief in anything, and I accept that everything may change tomorrow - the sun not rise, people start floating in the air, pencils spontaneously combusting, enormous otters dancing the can-can inside a thimble, etc.

So, I plan and act as if things will continue to follow the pattern, but I stand ready to be surprised! As Christopher Hitchens said 'I like surprises' (mostly).

To say that nature is governed by laws already runs against Hume's pseudo-problem.

If I believe nature is governed by laws then I believe that the existence of anything at all, otters, thimbles or whatever you like, and the possible relations between, would cease the moment the laws that enable their existence ceased to govern.

What would that have to do with "oughts"? Is it some kind of joke about "oughters" ("oughtas")? ;-)

We're discussing human behaviours, I assume that "one" refers to a human being who is behaving. Now you've claimed "one shouldn't murder", but this is absolutely meaningless unless you say what murder is.

Do you see my point? You've offered "One shouldn't murder" as a judgement about human actions. But there is no judgement being expressed here unless there is a described act which is being judged not just a name, "murder", and the claim that this name refers to that which one should not do. What kind of judgement is that, to judge a name? Otherwise anytime you accuse someone of murder, that individual would say, I didn't murder, show me what "murder" means, and how my action is consistent with that, or else you have no case against me. Unless murder has a definition how can you be judging it as wrong?

If you do not say what type of act "murder" refers to, how can you claim to have made a judgement about human behaviours? "Murder" could refer to absolutely any behaviour.

But I cannot logically ground that belief in anything, and I accept that everything may change tomorrow - the sun not rise, people start floating in the air, pencils spontaneously combusting, enormous otters dancing the can-can inside a thimble, etc. — andrewk

Seems like a really large bullet to bite just to avoid supposing there is some sort of unobservable causality we infer from the patterns we do perceive. Also, I kind of wonder what's special about the future such that we could suppose it to be radically different than the past. Is it just because we haven't experienced it yet?

If I believe nature is governed by laws then I believe that the existence of anything at all, otters, thimbles or whatever you like, and the possible relations between, would cease the moment the laws that enable their existence ceased to govern. — John

What if it's the relationship between things, events, patterns which are the laws, and not something making anything behave or exist? If things are related in a certain way, then things can't help but be that way. The sun will shine tomorrow because of the relationship between matter, gravity and energy in the nucleus of hydrogen and helium atoms. It can't cease to shine until that relationship changes (conversion to heavier elements).

Also, I kind of wonder what's special about the future such that we could suppose it to be radically different than the past. Is it just because we haven't experienced it yet? — Marchesk

We haven't experienced the future yet because it hasn't happened yet. It's impossible to have experienced something which hasn't occurred. Is it difficult to fathom the meaning of "hasn't occurred"? It's just like non-existent. See, the past has occurred, and that's why the future is so radically different from the past, it has not.

Why would you be pretending that you don't know what murder refers to as a behavior and be pretending that we're just saying something about a name per se? I mean what the fnck? If you're not interested n a serious discussion I won't bother. I'm not here for your trolling practice,and if you're not trolling, there's something seriously wrong with you. Anyway, if I were to indulge you, play "Let's imagine he's an alien" game, and give you a definition of murder, why would I believe that you wouldn't simply read it as a laundry list of words, where you have no idea what any of them mean? I have no doubts that one could troll indefinitely in that vein.

Have you not seen the science fiction movie out in the theaters right now called Arrival, or read the novella it's based on?

Anyway, the future having not occurred is just an epistemic situation for us. It's not because the future is radically different. It's because we haven't perceived it yet. Today isn't radically different than yesterday or five years ago. Those were all future days at one point.

If the frozen block interpretation of relativity is correct, then the future, past and present all exist the same, ontologically speaking. We just experience the illusion of time flowing.

In that case things must have invariant natures, no? I would count that invariance as natural law. Or perhaps you are thinking of the laws as explanations for how things are invariant; as being the origin of the invariance. But then what would be the origin of the laws?

No one claimed the future must be radically different, only that it's always possible: there are no "laws" which govern what occurs. The world only works in some way for as long as it does. "Laws" do not constrain the world to any one set of particular outcomes. Our shining sun is only given, with its relationship of mass, energy, hydrogen and helium atoms, for so long as it is given. At some point, one or more of those aspects might change and leave use without a shining sun, at least as we know it now.

The point is that, at any time, it is possible, that the world may be radically different. But that doesn't mean that it it is.

My opinion is that when and if we fully understand the laws, we will see that it could not have been otherwise. I think entropy is that way, although it's statistical and not absolute (no idea why nature has an apparent statistical quality to it, but apparently has something to do with the wave-like nature of things in QM).

The point is that, at any time, it is possible, that the world may be radically different. But that doesn't mean that it it is. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But we have never observed this to be the case, so it could be just our imagination at work. Hume did point out a real problem with induction, but that doesn't mean nature has that problem. It could just be our epistemic limitations, and not something ontologically fundamental about the world. It's easy to imagine the sun ceasing to shine tomorrow, but what would that actually mean for nature?

That's a category error. Possibility is not an empirical state. One does not observe it to confirm or falsify it's presence. It's not a state. In this sense, it has no presence.

One might say it is, indeed, our imagination at work. The world as it occurs doesn't present possibility. Each state is, by definition, itself and can never be anything else. Possibility plays out in the realm of imagination, in representation and logic. It's an awareness about how the meaning of things relate to each other.

When we talk about possibility, we are discussing what's beyond the empirical, what the world cannot and cannot do based on logical reasoning, as a way of discounting the incoherent states which cannot (as opposed to "do not" ) exist.

Indeed, nature does not have the problem, but that's sort of beside the point. We do-- and that's where it matters, for possibility is us trying to give an account of how logic (NOT nature) relates to what occurs in the world.

When we talk about possibility, we are discussing what's beyond the empirical, what the world cannot and cannot do based on logical reasoning, as a way of discounting the incoherent states which cannot (as opposed to "do not" ) exist. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Yeah, and our imaginations are not constrained by what nature can or can't do. We can imagine a perpetual motion machine (and people try to claim they've invented one), but nature allows for no such thing. Just like we can imagine FTL or time travel to the past, but we might never be able to accomplish either.

In fact, that's a problem for the Humeans. Why can't we do those things?

The point is that, at any time, it is possible, that the world may be radically different. But that doesn't mean that it it is.
— TheWillowOfDarkness

But we have never observed this to be the case
— Marchesk

I have. Up until last Tuesday, the USA had operated as a reasonably well-intentioned, albeit heavily flawed, democracy and world citizen. Then it suddenly elected a fascist as president.

But that gets it backwards. A perpetual motion machine is entirely possible-- all it would take is a machine that kept moving itself.

Sure, it impossible by our models which currently fit with the world we have observed, but those models (the "Laws" ) are only our imagination. The world may have different ideas at any point. It may change such that the present rule of conservation of energy is no longer expressed. Nature is allowed such a machine. It's possible. So far as we have observed, it is just not actual.

I have. Up until last Tuesday, the USA had operated as a reasonably well-intentioned, albeit heavily flawed, democracy and world citizen. Then it suddenly elected a fascist as president. — andrewk

Non-zero probability of multiverse interference? Human free will violating laws of nature? Trump campaign got hold of Man in the High Castle video reels?

In fact, that's a problem for the Humeans. Why can't we do those things? — Marchesk

Possibility is not actuality. There is no problem for the Humeans. They never claimed radical difference has occurred or must occur, only that it might. We can't do those things becasue, so far as we've encountered, they are only a possibility. To do them, they would have to be actual.

And indeed, this means we might never do them at all.

Humeans — Marchesk

>:O

Possibility is not actuality. There is no problem for the Humeans. They never claimed radical difference has occurred or must occur, only that it might. We can't do those things becasue, so far as we've encountered, they are only a possibility. To do them, they would have to be actual. And indeed, this means we might never do them at all. — TheWillowOfDarkness

The problem is the lack of explanation for why they might never be actual. Or more fundamentally, all the patterns we observe are brute. There's no reason the universe appears ordered. It just so happens to be that way, at least in our region of space, for the past few billion years. That's an awful lot of contingency.

As opposed to Humans, yes. There's other weird creatures walking amongst us, like the Kantians and the Witty folk.

Exactly. That's what it means to be material. Since imagination is not enough to amount to existence, the whims of imagination can never amount to the definition of an existing state.

If there were an "explanation," some idea, some meaning imagined, would have to mean the given state must occur. All we would have to to is imagine FLT and it would happen necessarily.

But that's not how the world works. Existing states are not mere representation. Logically, there can to be no "reason" for the order of the universe because that amounts to saying imagination (the meaning of the "order" ) is enough to make it exist. Radical contingency is not a "problem." It is the only position which respects that imagination does not define existence.

:-*

In fact, that's a problem for the Humeans. Why can't we do those things? — Marchesk

This Humean can't see any problem, because we don't know that we can't do those things. All we know is that nobody has managed to do them so far - from which we can infer nothing about what might happen in the future.

This Humean can't see any problem, because we don't know that we can't do those things. All we know is that nobody has managed to do them so far - from which we can infer nothing about what might happen in the future. — andrewk

Does physics admit to the possibility of making a perpetual motion machine at some point in the future, or is it ruled out as impossible? There are different categories of things that haven't been done yet. Some we know can be done, like setting foot on Mars. Some we think can be done, such as terraforming Mars to be self-sustainable for Earth life. Some we don't know, like cold fusion. Some we think impossible, such as FTL. And some are known to be impossible, like knowing the exact position and momentum of a particle.

How does a Humean explain the differences? It's one thing to say that I will never walk from the northernmost tip of North America to the southernmost tip of South America, and another that it's impossible for me to walk from here to the Moon. Why the difference?

"Does physics admit to the possibility of making a perpetual motion machine at some point in the future, or is it ruled out as impossible?"
The current theory of Thermodynamics says it is impossible. But one thing we mostly believe is that all of our current theories are wrong, and will be replaced by newer, better theories over time.

"How does a Humean explain the differences?"
This Humean doesn't accept that there are differences, because we don't 'know' anything, so there is nothing to explain.

The current theory of Thermodynamics says it is impossible. But one thing we mostly believe is that all of our current theories are wrong, and will be replaced by newer, better theories over time. — andrewk

Wrong or incomplete? Newtonian gravity is incomplete, not wrong in the sense that Relativity invalidates everything laid down by Newton. I guess it's a question of whether science is mostly building on and refining an edifice of knowledge, or completing restarting every big discovery (or paradigm shift, to use an abused term).

On the first view, we're not mostly wrong, we're just somewhat ignorant. We have a lot of the fundamentals in place, and now we're slowly learning how they fit together. We don't expect radical changes to the fundamentals in a thousand years, we just expect a far more complete structure of knowledge.

On the second view, science in a thousand years is radically different. We're not much different than medieval scholars in that regard. Our entire scientific understanding of the cosmos is way off, waiting to be eliminated in favor of better models.

Let's use a hypothetical example. Human civilization lasts for a billion years, and it continues to advance over that time, until our descendants are virtually god-like compared to us. But they fail to create an FTL drive. They also fail to colonize the galaxy using generational ships.

If a Humean is asked why the galaxy isn't colonized, they will say that our future civilization just didn't do it. A necessitarian (pro causality) will say they didn't do it because FTL proved to be impossible, and the generation ships were just too slow to be worth it. The second explanation is more plausible, because if FTL is doable, then it would have been invented over a billion years. They just didn't do it isn't an explanation. But it works for the generation ships, which would be doable, but perhaps not worth it.

On the Humean view, neither is strictly impossible, as there are no laws ruling out galactic colonization. It just doesn't happen. On the necessitarian side, one is impossible and the other is not, but the second is a poor means of galactic travel, so it's not done, whereas FTL would be a great means of travel, but it can't be done, and thus the galaxy isn't colonized.

And maybe that's why we haven't received any alien visitors yet, or didn't find ourselves already part of a galactic civilization (this is basically Frank Drake's answer to the Fermi Paradox).

A Humean would just say that any aliens out there haven't bothered. A necessitarian would say they can't go fast enough to make it worth the effort.