Timeline for What is 'Ability to Do Otherwise'?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 24, 2022 at 18:02 | comment | added | Kristian Berry | Something depends on or is caught up in strong free will if and only if it is a matter of alternative cosmological possibilities. Or, at least, if first with Kant we say that this will is situated in a quasi-noumenal context, and then second that physical worlds are concrete empirical models of mathematical worlds, and so third that the range of possible mathematical worlds corresponds to the alternative possibilities of the principle at issue re: the OP, then it is modal mathematics that specifically requires strong free will. Anything else, IDK but I suppose not so much? | |
| Jun 24, 2022 at 5:42 | comment | added | J Kusin | does any other human activity require as strong of free will as set theory, say philosophy, creative writing, or music? | |
| Jun 24, 2022 at 5:09 | comment | added | Kristian Berry | Thirdly, the refusal to accept relative and absolute infinity is superstitious. People who don't accept transfinite set theory and who huff and puff about potential-vs.-actual infinity are the mathematical equivalent of Flat Earthers. | |
| Jun 24, 2022 at 5:08 | comment | added | Kristian Berry | As far as constructivism goes, it depends on a faulty concept of mathematical intuition, first of all. Second of all, its denial of things like double-negation elimination seems absurd (intuitively, canceling out a cancellation restores whatever was eliminated in the first place, so right off the bat our intuition defies the "intuitionism" at issue). | |
| Jun 24, 2022 at 5:06 | comment | added | Kristian Berry | It has to do with how the logical background is integrated into the substantial mathematics. Hamkins has explained in extraordinary detail how to situate multiversal set theory modulo modal logic, and if we bring deontic/justification logic into the picture (to justify the axioms, which can't be justified by deduction from other mathematical principles), we end up with a sort of "supererogatory" multiverse all over again. Even if God doesn't exist, the concept of God does, and involves absolute free will, so to explain what free will is supposed to be means explaining how God would have it. | |
| Jun 24, 2022 at 2:08 | comment | added | J Kusin | Why is set theory closest to free will? Why not constructive math or any other foundation to some useful math? | |
| Jun 24, 2022 at 0:56 | history | answered | Kristian Berry | CC BY-SA 4.0 |