Re: COUNTERFACTUALS

From: Jacques M Mallah <jqm1584.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 21:05:42 -0400

>From hal.domain.name.hidden
>From Marchal's thesis, Maudlin's paper is in the 1989 Journal of
>Philosophy, page 407. I will try to get to the library in the next
>couple of days and take a look at it. Maudlin has a faculty web page
>at http://philosophy.rutgers.edu/people/faculty/maudlin/index.html
>but he does not have any of his writings on-line.

        Thanks Hal.

On 30 xxx -1, Marchal wrote:
> "conveniently" !!! So, now, if a paper is not available on the net it
> means
> it doesn't exist. Worst! for you, it seems it means it is a well
> keeped secret; available only to those initiated old wise people who
> still
> remembers how to get a paper without father Net and mother Web ...

        Entering the dark and deep dungeon of the mysterious library, I
fought my way in and after avoiding many deadly traps and after much
slaying of undead I paid the final price (10 cents/page) and seized a copy
of Maudlin's paper.

> it seems you have decided, once and for all, that you
> will never change your mind. "Mallah is right, everything else is
> crakpot" seems to be your favorite theory.

        It's not a theory, just a good approximation for this mailing
list most of the time.

> > My guess is that it's just an example of a false implementation in
> >the style of the 'clock and dial' example of Chalmers.

        Having glanced at it it looks like my guess was basically correct.
I'll make a slightly more detailed critique after I take a longer look.

> Ok, I have printed Chalmers' paper :
> http://ling.ucsc.edu/~chalmers/papers/rock.html>
> I will read it next week-end.
> But you will discover that Maudlin is very carefull in describing the
> character of his thought experiment. It has nothing to do with what
> Maudlin called himself the "fallacious design strategy" (or something
> like that).

        He was referring to something different than I was. (I checked.)
        Maudlin's paper predated the first time the 'false implementation'
idea as such was presented, in Chalmers' paper. Chalmers includes a
reference to Maudlin's paper and obviously does not think it ruled out
physical computationalism.
        BTW Chalmers' own proposed solution in that paper is
unsatisfactory, and he admits it, hence the need for proposals such as
mine.

                         - - - - - - -
              Jacques Mallah (jqm1584.domain.name.hidden)
       Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate
"I know what no one else knows" - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum
            My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Received on Wed Jun 30 1999 - 18:06:46 PDT

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