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In what way can statements about a multiverse not be ontological? Are you committing to modal realism, Platonic realism, or are you just pulling my leg? If you

In what way can statements about a multiverse not be ontological? Are you committing to modal realism, Platonic realism, or are you just pulling my leg? If you commit to the multiverse being physical, by extension you're making claims about ontological concerns, since all physical claims require there to be a notion of something existing, even if you're wanting to claim that something counterfactually exists. Then that gets into modal realism etc etc. Likewise you can't be fully confident in multiversal theories since no physicist endorses a multiversal theory without also accepting it as interpretative, as no experiment has been performed to anoint multiversal theories as being correct. So you're still postulating something worthy of criticism even if there was nothing ontological involved.

whatshisface 7y ago
Each universe gets its own version of Spiderman, and we live in the universe with the fictional Spiderman. That's one theory that matches our observations. Since basically every theory matches our observations, including the theory that there isn't a physical multiverse, every argument is equally specious and aesthetic.
- bordercases 7y ago
  Every theory matches observations given interpretations of those theories, and it's impossible to engage in discourse without additionally engaging in interpretation. So some theories are going to be eliminated from view given one perspective or the other since interpretations must be chosen over others. I think where you're wrong is thinking it's possible to evade this and make the claim that all arguments are specious without simultaneously gesturing that you don't want to engage in the discourse anymore: it's a self-defeating claim. Notice that none of this prevents there from being a singular subject that we can talk about, but there can still be substantial disagreement as to the nature of the thing be discussed. If we are disputing whether or not there is a multiverse I would just ask you, what are your grounds for accepting that we occupy a multiverse and what brought you to do so?
  - thegagne 7y ago
    He watched Spiderman, and it was cool.
    - bordercases 7y ago
      Oh fuck I forgot about that part.
  - calf 7y ago
    > So some theories are going to be eliminated from view given one perspective or the other since interpretations must be chosen over others. I'm not familiar with this point; is this a reference to model theory? Can you explain or provide a reference to this stuff?
    - bordercases 7y ago
      https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce-semiotics/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce-semiotics/ I'm leaning on the fact that theories are significations of events, but significations are only possible when relative to an interpretive scheme that allows those events to be connected to the theory. A deep-math version of this would be picking whether or not you want to work with the axiom of choice or not when using groups to represent vectors (the groups and vectors aren't important here, but they play the role of theories and objects). Deciding whether or not you accept the axiom of choice can a have major impact on what theorems you are willing to accept as justifiable, but the decision is not purely aesthetical, because it's possible to have technical reasons for using the axiom of choice. Resolving whether or not the axiom of choice for the purposes of your practice can be done but it won't usually be within the scope of the system. Often you need to introduce further information from outside the system to justify use of the axiom. And so you are building on further postulates, making more choices at the exclusion of others. A more science-y example: It can be seen as a restatement of the Duhem-Quine thesis: you always need postulates to relate a hypothesis to its observation. These postulates might correspond to truth or might not but you are almost working with a set of assumptions with varying levels of validation when doing any scientific work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duhem%E2%80%93Quine_thesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duhem%E2%80%93Quine_thesis All of this drives out from philosophical school of American Pragmatism, which includes philosophers like Charles Peirce and Charles Morris who pioneered the semiotic theory. To a lesser extent Carnap might fit in this category since he bought the semantics/syntactics/pragmatics distinction that Peirce and Morris created, then set up classical logic as we know it (including model theory), although he's usually considered a positivist.

whatshisface 7y ago

Each universe gets its own version of Spiderman, and we live in the universe with the fictional Spiderman. That's one theory that matches our observations. Since basically every theory matches our observations, including the theory that there isn't a physical multiverse, every argument is equally specious and aesthetic.

bordercases 7y ago
Every theory matches observations given interpretations of those theories, and it's impossible to engage in discourse without additionally engaging in interpretation. So some theories are going to be eliminated from view given one perspective or the other since interpretations must be chosen over others. I think where you're wrong is thinking it's possible to evade this and make the claim that all arguments are specious without simultaneously gesturing that you don't want to engage in the discourse anymore: it's a self-defeating claim. Notice that none of this prevents there from being a singular subject that we can talk about, but there can still be substantial disagreement as to the nature of the thing be discussed. If we are disputing whether or not there is a multiverse I would just ask you, what are your grounds for accepting that we occupy a multiverse and what brought you to do so?
- thegagne 7y ago
  He watched Spiderman, and it was cool.
  - bordercases 7y ago
    Oh fuck I forgot about that part.
- calf 7y ago
  > So some theories are going to be eliminated from view given one perspective or the other since interpretations must be chosen over others. I'm not familiar with this point; is this a reference to model theory? Can you explain or provide a reference to this stuff?
  - bordercases 7y ago
    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce-semiotics/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce-semiotics/ I'm leaning on the fact that theories are significations of events, but significations are only possible when relative to an interpretive scheme that allows those events to be connected to the theory. A deep-math version of this would be picking whether or not you want to work with the axiom of choice or not when using groups to represent vectors (the groups and vectors aren't important here, but they play the role of theories and objects). Deciding whether or not you accept the axiom of choice can a have major impact on what theorems you are willing to accept as justifiable, but the decision is not purely aesthetical, because it's possible to have technical reasons for using the axiom of choice. Resolving whether or not the axiom of choice for the purposes of your practice can be done but it won't usually be within the scope of the system. Often you need to introduce further information from outside the system to justify use of the axiom. And so you are building on further postulates, making more choices at the exclusion of others. A more science-y example: It can be seen as a restatement of the Duhem-Quine thesis: you always need postulates to relate a hypothesis to its observation. These postulates might correspond to truth or might not but you are almost working with a set of assumptions with varying levels of validation when doing any scientific work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duhem%E2%80%93Quine_thesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duhem%E2%80%93Quine_thesis All of this drives out from philosophical school of American Pragmatism, which includes philosophers like Charles Peirce and Charles Morris who pioneered the semiotic theory. To a lesser extent Carnap might fit in this category since he bought the semantics/syntactics/pragmatics distinction that Peirce and Morris created, then set up classical logic as we know it (including model theory), although he's usually considered a positivist.