tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post5511879259819278120..comments2008-05-12T17:52:05.184-04:00Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235r.chappell@gmail.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-6754575237647759922008-05-12T17:52:00.000-04:002008-05-12T17:52:00.000-04:002008-05-12T17:52:00.000-04:00Oooh. Ok. That's much clearer, thanks.Paul Gowderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12987034334075962676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-59119667857272662692008-05-12T10:48:00.000-04:002008-05-12T10:48:00.000-04:002008-05-12T10:48:00.000-04:00Paul - I meant that one of the descriptions is objectively better than the other. Given that the modal baseline is that all 600 die, the appropriate description of this scenario is the "save 400/600" frame. The "kill 200/600" frame is misleading.<BR/><BR/>Alex - good, I was a little sloppy on that point. You're right that the facts about 'deflection' or 'changing course' are more localized and so may come apart from the global modal facts I'm considering. So that wasn't the best way for me to motivate my account. I should instead say that the natural 'baseline' or 'status quo', all things considered, may include local deflections and such. So the meteor may be "on course" to hit earth in some local sense -- this is its current trajectory -- even though it is not <I>set</I> to hit earth, in the broader (global status quo) modal sense.Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-9487607109943211202008-05-12T08:26:00.000-04:002008-05-12T08:26:00.000-04:002008-05-12T08:26:00.000-04:00Imagine that the course of the first and second meteors are somehow causally co-dependent. Perhaps possible changes in the course of the second meteor would have an effect on its gravitational pull, and therefore the course, of the first meteor.<BR/><BR/>Then it might be true that in most close possible worlds, the first meteor doesn't hit the earth. In those close possible worlds where we change the course of the second meteor (so that it will no longer deflect the first), the first meteor would no longer collide with the earth anyway.<BR/><BR/>That is, it might be that if the second meteor weren't on course to deflect the first meteor, then the first wouldn't have been on course to hit the earth anyway.<BR/><BR/>But still, in such scenarios, wouldn't we want to say of the actual world that the second meteor deflected the first?<BR/><BR/>(It might, of course, be that no analysis matches common language here, and yours is the least bad.)gregoryahttp://claimid.com/gregoryanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-9540362323852993942008-05-12T02:46:00.000-04:002008-05-12T02:46:00.000-04:002008-05-12T02:46:00.000-04:00I'm not sure I understand the application to the bounded rationality thing. Are you suggesting that the save 400/600 and kill 200/600 scenarios are actually different? The way those scenarios are usually framed, though, the thing that would have happened is all 600 dying. So the closest possible worlds should be the same in both cases, i.e., in the closest possible world where you don't give the treatment, 600 people die. When you give the treatment, "either" 400 die, or 600 are saved...<BR/><BR/>I think I'm misunderstanding something?Paul Gowderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12987034334075962676noreply@blogger.com