1. Intro
Put concisely:
- Joseph C. Schmid wrote “The End is Near: Grim Reapers and Endless Futures” in a peer-reviewed journal published by Oxford University Press called Mind.
- I (Wade A. Tisthammer) wrote paper responding to his paper “A Grim End Is at Hand: Schmid’s Grim Reaper Symmetry Argument, Precognitive Grandfather Paradoxes, and an Intrinsicality Test” in that same journal.
- Schmid wrote a blog article responding to my paper.
- And now I’m responding to him.
Before moving on I wanted to say that it’s a privilege to interact with Schmid. I’m not the dumbest guy in the world (Oxford University Press publishing one of my philosophy papers convinced me of that) but vis-à-vis philosophy Schmid is way smarter than I am. It’s no accident that he got into one of the finest PhD philosophy programs in the English-speaking world (Princeton University).
In section 2 of this article I’ll describe Schmid’s paper and my paper. In section 3 of this article I’ll describe Schmid’s blog article and my response.
2. Background
2.1 The Topic of the Papers
The papers relate to arguments against an infinite past, which is relevant to First Cause arguments for the existence of God. Schmid’s original paper discusses a certain kind of argument against an infinite past that uses something called the patchwork principle (which comes in various forms). Robert C. Koons’s paper “A New Kalam Argument: Revenge of the Grim Reaper” is an exemplar of such an argument against an infinite past (be warned though that his paper is highly technical). Very roughly (I’ll go into more detail later), the patchwork principle says that if X is possible at some region and Y is possible at an adjacent region, then it’s possible to have a situation where X and Y happen together. For example, if it’s possible for me to be at a particular stop sign, and it’s possible for Joe Schmid to be at that same stop sign one meter away from the location where I would be standing, then it’s possible for there to be a situation where I and Joe are near the stop sign at our respective locations, preferably discussing philosophy or commiserating over my receding hairline. One can use the patchwork principle by copying-and-pasting possible situations together along an infinite past such that they lead to a contradiction (whereas no contradiction would exist for a finite series of such situations), and from this one can infer the impossibility of an infinite past.
Joe Schmid cleverly constructs a symmetry argument: using the patchwork principle, it seems that one can construct an argument against an endless future using an infinite sequence of situations where among other things God reveals the future. The paper I wrote in response argues that Schmid’s symmetry argument doesn’t quite succeed. How? There’s one important caveat to the patchwork principle I left out in my oversimplification: the qualities you’re copying and pasting for the patchwork principle must be intrinsic, and if God’s foreknowledge is of a certain type, then God revealing the future isn’t necessarily intrinsic to a situation. What the heck does “intrinsic” mean, and what type of “foreknowledge” am I talking about? I’ll explain that soon, starting with God’s foreknowledge.
2.2 God’s Foreknowledge
Among other things, God is a soothsayer and God foreknows all future events, or at least so certain religions would have us believe. One type of foreknowledge called simple foreknowledge is knowing what the future will be in a kind of direct way (such that this foreknowledge isn’t inferred from anything; one would just kind of know the future in an “immediate” fashion). Another type of foreknowledge is subjunctive foreknowledge where one knows the future because of one’s knowledge of what would happen. For example, the Christian could believe that Jesus’s foreknowledge worked this way: Jesus knows that if he were to tell Peter that he will deny Jesus three times, Peter would deny him anyway. Using this subjunctive foreknowledge, Jesus tells Peter that he will deny Jesus three times.
In my paper I provide a motivation for the theist to ascribe subjunctive foreknowledge to God for soothsaying instead of simple foreknowledge. The rationale for this is similar to the famous grandfather paradox for time travel (in what follows I’ll be referring to a specific type of backwards time travel where traveling back in time alters your own past, instead of e.g., creating a separate parallel universe). If a man goes back in time before his parents were born and kills his grandfather, then he couldn’t have been born and thus couldn’t have gone back in time to kill his own grandfather: a contradiction. The grandfather paradox has been used to argue against the possibility of time travel (again, I’m referring to the aforementioned specific type of backwards time travel).
We can construct a similar paradox for soothsaying, what is known in the literature (thanks to my paper) as the precognitive grandfather paradox. Here’s an excerpt from a post-print version (the version after referee comments but just prior to the journal’s proofreader and copyeditor) of the paper that explains it:
Consider the following scenario that I will label (MM1). Miss Murder commits to herself that she will kill Smith if and only if Smith will have a grandchild. The world is such that if Miss Murder did not kill Smith, then Smith would eventually have a grandchild. To see if Smith will have a grandchild, on November 9th at 8:55 a.m. Miss Murder enters the room of an infallible soothsayer who has simple foreknowledge. The soothsayer waves her elegant hands over the crystal ball which, at precisely 9:00 a.m., will reveal whether Smith will have a grandchild. What will it show? If it shows that Smith will have a grandchild, then Miss Murder will kill Smith and prevent him from having a grandchild, in which case the crystal ball couldn’t have shown that Smith will have a grandchild. A contradiction. If however the crystal ball shows that Smith will not have a grandchild, then Miss Murder will not kill Smith, but then Smith will have a grandchild, and the crystal ball couldn’t have shown that Smith will not have a grandchild. Another contradiction. Either way, Miss Murder killing Smith if and only if Smith will have a grandchild creates a contradiction….The result is a sort of precognitive grandfather paradox.In this paper I say that this motivates the theist to favor subjunctive foreknowledge over simple foreknowledge for God’s future-revealing abilities. Joe Schmid replies thusly:
Note, though, that this motivation strikes me as very weak. The paradox only shows that it cannot be the case that someone acts on the basis of simple foreknowledge in a way that successfully refutes the content of that very foreknowledge. But that doesn’t imply that simple foreknowledge (or acting on the basis of simple foreknowledge) is impossible; it simply implies that, in any world in which someone acts on the basis of simple foreknowledge, no such action successfully refutes the content of that foreknowledge.What’s the basis for my thinking that the precognitive grandfather paradox provides the aforementioned motivation? Think back to our grandfather paradox for time travel. Intuitively, it seems that if time travel were possible then something like the grandfather paradox could happen. Similarly, it intuitively seems that if we had a soothsayer who could report on whatever will happen in the future with her simple foreknowledge, then something like the precognitive grandfather paradox could happen.
I say “intuitively” but in reality intuitions differ. One might reject libertarian freedom in favor of the whole world being deterministic, and think that it’s a brute fact that there just can’t be any deterministic system that’s self-contradictory like that. For example, in response to the grandfather paradox argument against time travel, one might think that you could not shoot your gun to kill your grandfather upon going back in time because it’ll be determined that some interfering event will inevitably thwart you, like slipping on a banana peel or your gun jamming. The same sort of principle could be applied to the precognitive grandfather paradox; e.g., deterministic forces resulting in Miss Murder not asking whether Smith will have a grandchild (perhaps she slips on a banana peel before she can consult the soothsayer) or thwarting her attempt to kill Smith (such as her gun jamming or her falling victim to a notorious banana-peel-slipping epidemic). Some people will find this kind of thinking to avoid a possible contradiction ad hoc (like me) but others will find it reasonable. As with many things in philosophy, your intuition mileage may vary.
2.3 Intrinsicality
To explain intrinsicality I’ll quote from the great 20th century American philosopher David Lewis (1941–2001).
A sentence or statement or proposition that ascribes intrinsic properties to something is entirely about that thing; whereas an ascription of extrinsic properties to something is not entirely about that thing, though it may well be about some larger whole which includes that thing as part....If something has an intrinsic property, then so does any perfect duplicate of that thing; whereas duplicates situated in different surroundings will differ in their extrinsic properties….Two things are perfect duplicates iff they have the very same intrinsic properties.1In my paper I used the phrase “intrinsic copy” instead of “perfect duplicate” to mean “having the very same intrinsic properties” but in retrospect perhaps “perfect duplicate” would have worked better.
Schmid’s paper also refers to “dispositions” and “powers” (I suspect that’s largely because Robert Koons does in his paper) and I’ll explain those next.
2.4 Dispositions and Powers
In philosophy, a disposition is pretty much what “disposition” refers to in ordinary language. What in philosophy jargon is called a canonical disposition or overt disposition is along the lines of “the disposition to M when S” where S is the stimulus and M is the manifestation. For example, sugar has the disposition to dissolve (the manifestation) when placed in room temperature water (the stimulus). The stimulus part is optional for canonical dispositions; e.g., an object might have a disposition to emit radiation regardless of whether a stimulus is present. Another conception of disposition is called conventional dispositions and are more directly adjectival such that it includes examples of “solubility,” “fragility,” and “loquaciousness.” Conventional dispositions can arguably be reduced to canonical dispositions. In this article I will primarily be using canonical dispositions.
In philosophy, powers are the underlying reality responsible for dispositions; or to quote Alexander Bird, “powers are properties that are dispositional in nature.”2 For example, the powers behind a glass’s fragility might be the underlying natural properties responsible for that glass being fragile.
In this article I’ll primarily focus on dispositions, but powers are a good thing to keep in mind when seeing phrases like “powers and dispositions” in the philosophy literature. For more on this topic, see this Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) entry on dispositions and Dispositions and Powers from the Cambridge Elements series (though be warned that the SEP and Cambridge Elements often assume some background philosophy knowledge, so be prepared to look up things when reading them if you haven’t studied philosophy before especially in the analytic tradition).
2.5 Schmid’s Paper
The patchwork principle can be used in various ways to argue for causal finitism (the view that all causal chains have a finite length) via patching together an infinite sequence of intrinsic units of entities with certain powers and dispositions. Consider for example the famous Grim Reaper Paradox. Suppose a Grim Reaper has the following disposition: he checks on Fred at a certain time, and if Fred is alive the Grim Reaper swings his scythe and kills Fred instantly, otherwise the Grim Reaper does nothing. Turns out if we stack an infinite number of these Reapers (or the same Reaper checking on Fred an infinite number of times) such that Grim Reaper 1 checks on Fred at 12:00 + 1⁄1 hour (1:00), Grim Reaper 2 checks on Fred at 12:00 + 1⁄2 hour (12:30), Grim Reaper 3 checks on Fred at 12:00 + 1⁄4 hour (12:15), and so forth, this results in a contradiction. Fred cannot survive to 1:00, since a Grim Reaper would have killed him. However, there is no Grim Reaper who could have swung his scythe; for any Reaper you point to, there is a prior Reaper would have killed Fred if he were alive then.
Multiple variations and inspirations of this paradox are a dime a dozen, including the highly technical one that Rob Koons wrote. I won’t go into the details here because (a) that would take too long; (b) it’s highly technical; and (c) this blog article is aimed more at a lay audience. Suffice to say though that it operates on the same sort of principle as the Grim Reaper Paradox and it uses the patchwork principle to patch together infinitely many Grim-Reaper-like units to generate a Grim Reaper style paradox. At any rate, Schmid’s paper aimed to show that one can construct a parallel argument against an endless future using the patchwork principle.
How does that work? Consider the following situation S:
In [situation] S, the Reaper has the power and disposition to swing its scythe if it’s divinely revealed that no future Reaper swings its scythe, and to refrain from swinging its scythe if it’s divinely revealed that some future Reaper swings its scythe. (In the case at hand, Reaper 1 proceeds to swing its scythe.)3But if you copy and paste situation S infinitely many times onto an endless future (Grim Reaper 1 for tomorrow, Grim Reaper 2 for the day after tomorrow, etc.) the result is a contradiction similar to the Grim Reaper Paradox. Remember, Grim Reaper 1 (and every other reaper) will swing its scythe if and only if God reveals to it that no future reaper swings its scythe. So does Grim Reaper 1 swing its scythe? If so, then no future Reaper will swing its scythe, but that’s impossible because then some future Grim Reaper (e.g., Grim Reaper 2) would swing its scythe if there is no Grim Reaper after it that would swing its scythe. Does Grim Reaper 1 refrain from swinging its scythe due to some future Grim Reaper swinging its scythe? Then some future Grim Reaper n will swing its scythe, but Grim Reaper n will be in the same sort of impossible situation Grim Reaper 1 would be if Grim Reaper 1 had swung its scythe; i.e., there would have to be some future Grim Reaper (e.g., Grim Reaper n + 1) that would swing its scythe if there is no Grim Reaper after it that would swing its scythe. Either way we get a contradiction.
Notice that the aforementioned paradox, which we can call the Schmid Reaper Paradox, requires these two components for the situational unit in question: (a) the Grim Reaper; and (b) God revealing the future about whether a future Reaper will swing its scythe. In my response to Schmid, I argue that God revealing the future needn’t be intrinsic to a situation. To aid this I proposed an intrinsicality test, which I discuss next.
2.6 Intrinsicality Test
Quoting from section 6 of the post-print version of my paper:
A test for quality Y being intrinsic to situation X is this: if some logically possible situation X has quality Y yet an intrinsic copy of X in a patchwork does not replicate Y without resulting in a logical contradiction and non-contradictory options exist for satisfying the conditions of the patchwork, then Y is not intrinsic to X. In implementing this test, one must take care to accurately identify the intrinsic powers and dispositions of elements in the situation being copied to determine what would (or at least might) happen in the patchwork when seeing if non-contradictory options are available, since it is easy even for intelligent philosophers to inadequately identify the intrinsic powers and dispositions of elements in a situation. Before considering some quality Y of a situation to be intrinsic, it may be advisable to see if there are intrinsic powers and dispositions that led to Y obtaining, and then implement the aforementioned intrinsicality test to see if Y is preserved.Call this intrinsicality test (IT). Roughly (i.e., I’m oversimplifying), the rationale behind (IT) is this: an intrinsic property is entirely about that thing, so if whether a thing has a given property varies depending on what is outside that thing (i.e., some surrounding situation), then the property is not intrinsic to that thing. For example, if whether Sally has the property Sally is taller than Alice varies depending on what’s outside Sally (in this case, the height of Alice) then the property is not intrinsic to Sally; it’s an extrinsic property (the property is not entirely about Sally).
More precisely, the rationale behind the test is something similar that Koons wrote in his definition of intrinsicality, where a “region” is a subset of a “world” (where a “possible world” is a complete description of the way things are or could have been like, and “counterparts” are the same things in different worlds; e.g., Abraham Lincoln in the actual world had a beard, but there is a possible world in which Abraham Lincoln never had a beard and this Abraham Lincoln would be a “counterpart” to the Abraham Lincoln of the actual world):
Definition of Intrinsicality: A property P is intrinsic to a thing x within region R in world W if and only if x is P throughout R in W, and every counterpart of x in any region R' of world W' whose contents exactly duplicate the contents of R in W also has P throughout R'.4To make things more concrete, let’s apply the intrinsicality test to the following scenario. A certain dosimeter has the powers and dispositions to accurately measure X-ray radiation from 0.01 microsieverts per hour to 10,000 microsieverts per hour, reporting the detected radiation level through a loudspeaker. Suppose this dosimeter is in an environment of 0.3 microsieverts per hour, and so it says “There are 0.3 microsieverts per hour of X-ray radiation per hour.” Let’s label our existing dosimeter situation X, and label the quality of the dosimeter Reporting that there are 0.3 microsieverts of X-ray radiation per hour quality Y. Is Y (the radiation report) intrinsic to X (the dosimeter existing)? First let’s ask ourselves: what are the intrinsic powers and dispositions that led to Y obtaining? Among other things, it’s the disposition to accurately report the X-ray radiation level within a certain range in the dosimeter’s environment. With this in mind, suppose we place a perfect duplicate of X (the dosimeter existing) in a patchwork where the dosimeter is in an environment of 0.6 microsieverts of X-ray radiation per hour.5 Is Y preserved? It is not, because the specified powers and dispositions imply that the dosimeter would report 0.6 microsieverts per hour in this patchwork, not 0.3. So Y (the 0.3 microsieverts report) is not intrinsic to X (the dosimeter existing) according to this intrinsicality test. The following factors were relevant when applying the intrinsicality test here:
| (i) | Some logically possible situation X (the dosimeter existing) has quality Y (reporting 0.3 microsieverts per hour). |
| (ii) | A perfect duplicate of X in a patchwork does not replicate Y without resulting in a logical contradiction (the intrinsic powers and dispositions of the dosimeter don’t replicate reporting 0.3 microsieverts per hour in the patchwork without contradiction, because the specified dispositions imply it would report 0.6 microsieverts). |
| (iii) | Non-contradictory options exist for satisfying the conditions of the patchwork (the patchwork has (a) an environment of 0.6 microsieverts; and (b) a dosimeter with the specified disposition to report 0.6 microsieverts and not 0.3 microsieverts in such a circumstance). |
| (iv) | When considering some quality Y of the situation to be intrinsic, we see if there are intrinsic powers and dispositions that led to Y obtaining (in this case, the dosimeter’s disposition to accurately report the radiation level of the environment it’s in) when implementing the intrinsicality test to see if Y is preserved. |
If someone instead expected the dosimeter to report 0.3 microsieverts per hour in the patchwork of there being 0.6 microsieverts per hour, one might suspect that person didn’t correctly understand the specified powers and dispositions of our hypothetical dosimeter. A response like, “But the report of 0.3 microsieverts per hour is a matter of the circuitry, the loudspeaker, etc. which are intrinsic to the dosimeter; so the report is intrinsic to the dosimeter” would fail to properly apply factor (iv) of the intrinsicality test (and/or suffer from some other sort of confusion in applying the test).
2.7 My Paper’s Response to Schmid
Say that to “reveal a relevant future” means to give a correct and straight “Yes” or “No” answer to whether some future specified event will occur. For example, in the precognitive grandfather paradox, the soothsayer was not able to reveal the relevant future with respect to whether Smith will have a grandchild. Recall that Schmid’s symmetry argument requires that God revealing a relevant future be intrinsic to a situation.
To see how revealing a relevant future isn’t necessarily intrinsic, suppose we have a soothsayer with subjunctive foreknowledge who knows that e.g., Smith would have a grandchild if nobody kills Smith. Call this individual soothsayerj. Soothsayerj has the disposition to reveal the relevant future to Miss Murder upon request if and only if soothsayerj is capable of doing so (she has the option to not prophesy the future if she is not so capable). Suppose we modify scenario (MM1)—the one with the precognitive grandfather paradox—as follows: the soothsayer with simple foreknowledge (call her soothsayeri) is replaced with soothsayerj. Call this scenario with soothsayerj scenario (MM1+), and in this scenario soothsayerj’s dispositions are such that she would not reveal the relevant future in these circumstances.
But there are circumstances in which she would reveal the relevant future. To borrow from the paper, suppose in world w3 Miss Murder walks into soothsayerj’s room and asks whether Smith will have a grandchild. In w3, a meteor instantly kills Smith at 9:01 a.m. (though the world is such that if a meteor had not killed Smith, Smith would have a grandchild). So in w3, soothsayerj reports that Smith will not have a grandchild. Let’s label the situation of soothsayerj and Miss Murder (soothsayerj would use her subjunctive foreknowledge to reveal the relevant future to Miss Murder upon request if and only if soothsayerj is capable of doing so, Miss Murder’s determinations, etc.) Sw3.1. Note that Sw3.1 does not include a meteor killing Smith. If we made a perfect duplicate of Sw3.1 and placed it in a world in which the surrounding situations are like (MM1+), then soothsayerj would not reveal the relevant future. So soothsayerj revealing the relevant future in Sw3.1 is not intrinsic to that situation. Applying (IT):
| (i) | Some logically possible situation X (situation Sw3.1 with soothsayerj etc.) has quality Y (soothsayerj revealing the relevant future to Miss Murder). |
| (ii) | A perfect duplicate of X in a patchwork does not replicate Y without resulting in a logical contradiction (the intrinsic powers and dispositions of soothsayerj do not replicate revealing the relevant future in the patchwork without contradiction). |
| (iii) | Non-contradictory options exist for satisfying the conditions of the patchwork (soothsayerj has the option to not reveal the relevant future). |
| (iv) | When considering some quality Y of the situation to be intrinsic, we see if there are intrinsic powers and dispositions that led to Y obtaining (in this case, soothsayerj’s disposition to reveal the relevant future when she is capable while also being disposed to not reveal the relevant future when she is incapable of doing so) when implementing the intrinsicality test to see if Y is preserved. |
Thus soothsayerj’s revealing the relevant future is extrinsic rather than intrinsic to Sw3.1 largely due to the specified intrinsic dispositions of soothsayerj. In my paper I also describe soothsayerjt which is like soothsayerj except that intrinsic features guarantee that she never utters anything false, and the result is the same as before for the same reasons; e.g., she still has the disposition to not reveal the relevant future when she is incapable of doing so (factor (iv)), and so her revealing the relevant future is still extrinsic according to (IT). A similar principle applies to the Schmid Reaper Paradox. Quoting from section 3 of the post-print:
Suppose we add some additional details to Schmid’s situation S to be as follows, designating this variation of Schmid’s S to be Sj. The version of God in Sj, which we can designate as Godj, is powerful but cannot do anything to bring about logical inconsistencies. Godj uses subjunctive foreknowledge for soothsaying decisions and he has some inclination to use his subjunctive knowledge to reveal the relevant future to the local Reaper, but Godj is disposed to not reveal any set T of relevant futures if he is incapable of revealing T (in such a case, God has the option to not prophesy the future) and using his omniscience he decides in advance what relevant futures he will reveal.In a world where there is a single instance of situation Sj (where among other things there are no other reapers) Godj reveals the relevant future and the Reaper swings his scythe. However, if we make a perfect duplicate (also called “intrinsic copy”) of Sj and paste it onto an endless future, Godj does not reveal the relevant futures since it is part of his specified dispositions to not do so in such circumstances. More explicitly:
| (i) | Some logically possible situation X (situation Sj with Godj etc.) has quality Y (Godj revealing the relevant future). |
| (ii) | A perfect duplicate of X in a patchwork does not replicate Y without resulting in a logical contradiction (the intrinsic powers and dispositions of Godj do not replicate revealing the relevant futures in the patchwork without contradiction). |
| (iii) | Non-contradictory options exist for satisfying the conditions of the patchwork (Godj has the option to not reveal the relevant futures). |
| (iv) | When considering some quality Y of the situation to be intrinsic, we see if there are intrinsic powers and dispositions that led to Y obtaining (in this case, Godj’s disposition to reveal the relevant futures when he is capable while also being disposed to not reveal the relevant futures when he is incapable of doing so) when implementing the intrinsicality test to see if Y is preserved. |
In my paper I also describe Godjt, which is like Godj except it is explicitly specified that God cannot utter a falsehood. Again, the result is the same since e.g., God is still disposed to not reveal the relevant futures when he is incapable of doing so (factor (iv)).
Note that whether we get a contradiction along the lines of the Schmid Reaper Paradox depends on what God’s specified dispositions are. If the details of situation S are like Sj then we do not. However, consider the following (quoting from section 3 of the post-print):
[I]f we have a version of the Schmid situation S (call this version Sn) where God has the power to reveal the relevant future to a Reaper no matter what (at least in the sense that God would reveal the relevant future to the Reaper regardless of what the other situations were like) then this would create a contradiction in the Schmid Reaper Paradox when Sn is intrinsically copied and patched onto an endless future.So on the “reveal the relevant future no matter what” deity, which we can label Godn, a contradiction results largely because of Godn’s specified dispositions, but a contradiction does not result in the case of Godj largely because of Godj’s specified dispositions.
3. Schmid’s Response to My Paper
As mentioned earlier, Schmid wrote a blog post responding to my paper. One thing to keep in mind in the following quote is my explanation for why an intrinsically copied soothsayerjt would be disposed to not reveal the relevant future in a (MM1+) type patchwork, and my explanation for why an intrinsically copied Godjt would be disposed to not reveal the relevant futures in the endless future patchwork. A big upshot of all this is the existence non-contradictory options in their respective patchworks.
But whether a non-contradictory option is available to satisfy the conditions of the patchwork is the very question at issue! Whether a non-contradictory option is available depends precisely on whether an intrinsic copy of the soothsayerjt would also utter the relevant sentence (since if an intrinsic copy would utter the relevant sentence, contradiction ensues), which in turn depends on whether uttering the relevant sentence is intrinsic to the individually possible localized situation. We therefore cannot non-question-beggingly appeal to the presence of a non-contradictory option to establish that uttering the relevant sentence is extrinsic to the individually possible localized situation.One might wonder, “Where does Schmid address your explanation for why an intrinsically copied soothsayerjt would not reveal the relevant future?” The answer is simple: he doesn’t. He asserts there are no non-contradictory options without taking into account the specified dispositions of what an intrinsically copied soothsayerjt would do in those circumstances. The same applies to Godjt: in his blog post, he never addresses my explanation for why an intrinsically copied Godjt would be disposed to not reveal the relevant futures in the endless future patchwork.
Tisthammer then applies the same maneuver to the God-Reaper case, but the same problems arise: first, appealing to the claim that non-contradictory options exist for the patchwork presupposes, rather than establishes, that God’s revelation to the Reaper is extrinsic
At first I was frustrated, but then it occurred to me that what was perhaps obvious to me and Robert Koons (with respect to Koons’s application of the patchwork principle and relevantly similar applications) wasn’t obvious to everyone when it came to using the patchwork principle: what exactly are we copying when copying and pasting things onto a patchwork. Schmid has not, I think, correctly understood the nature of the “perfect duplicate” (what I also called “intrinsic copy” in the paper) in the application of the patchwork principle (at least in the context of the paper). In retrospect and in fairness to Schmid, I probably didn’t pick the best definition of “intrinsic” and/or “intrinsic copy” for my paper given how I was using the terms.
To help see what I and Koons seem to have in mind by a perfect duplicate vis-à-vis the patchwork principle, consider what one might mean in ordinary language when we say one thing is a “perfect duplicate” of something else. We can conceive of a machine, similar to the replicators in Star Trek: The Next Generation, that perfectly replicates a device like our hypothetical dosimeter at the molecular level, and that the two (qualitatively) identical dosimeters are then placed in different environments with different radiation levels. Suppose I have one of the perfectly replicated dosimeters and La Forge has the other. If my dosimeter accurately reports 0.3 microsieverts per hour, and I say, “La Forge has a perfect duplicate of my dosimeter” and La Forge’s dosimeter accurately reports 0.6 microsieverts per hour to due to the environment La Forge is in, the objection “They’re not perfect duplicates because they give different radiation readings” would seem to obviously misconstrue what I mean by La Forge having a perfect duplicate of my dosimeter. It would seem that part of what I mean by “perfect duplicate” here is that the dosimeter is copied in a way to preserve its intrinsic powers and dispositions. This type of perfect duplicate (copied in a way to preserve its specified intrinsic powers and dispositions) is how I interpreted Koons’s writings. It would seem that Schmid didn’t correctly understand this important aspect of a “perfect duplicate,” apparently interpreting it in a way so that a “perfect duplicate” of my dosimeter entails that La Forge’s dosimeter would also report 0.3 microsieverts per hour despite La Forge being in an environment of 0.6 microsieverts per hour. I thought my interpretation of Koons was obvious, and I thought this interpretation of my paper would be obvious, but in hindsight assuming that people would naturally interpret it in this way was a mistake.
At any rate, if part of our conception of an “intrinsic copy” is that we are copying the thing in a way to preserve the thing’s specified intrinsic dispositions (as in the case of the perfectly replicated dosimeter given to myself and La Forge), then it follows that soothsayerjt will not reveal the relevant future to Miss Murder because her specified dispositions entail that she won’t in those circumstances. Similarly, Godjt’s specified dispositions entail that he won’t reveal the relevant futures in an Sj endless future patchwork. (Recall the applications of factor (iv) for soothsayerj and Godj; they similarly apply to soothsayerjt and Godjt.)
4. Conclusion
To summarize, Schmid critiqued an argument against an infinite past by arguing that an application of the patchwork principle could be used to argue against an endless future. However, Schmid’s symmetry argument relied on God’s revealing the relevant future to be intrinsic, and I argued that isn’t necessarily the case with Godj, though it would be the case with Godn. Really it depends on the specified dispositions of the deity in question. My intrinsicality test (IT) showed that there were non-contradictory options available for when Sj is intrinsically copied onto an endless future thanks largely to the specified intrinsic dispositions of Godj.
Schmid’s response that no non-contradictory options were available apparently relied on not correctly understanding what a “perfect duplicate” was in the context of how the patchwork principle was used in the paper; namely, something analogous to perfectly replicated dosimeters with the same specified dispositions in the scenario where I say that La Forge’s dosimeter is a perfect duplicate of my own even when his dosimeter gives a different reading due to being in a different environment. In Schmid’s defense, I didn’t specify the “copied in a way to preserve the specified powers and dispositions” aspect of a “perfect duplicate.” I assumed that this aspect was obvious (I thought it was an obvious interpretation of Koons, and that it would similarly be obvious in my paper) but in retrospect that assumption was not a good one to make.
I’m glad Schmid wrote his blog article because it exposes the importance of asking the following question when using the patchwork principle: what exactly are we copying when pasting these perfect duplicates onto a patchwork? I think it should be made clear that we are duplicating in a way to preserve a thing’s specified intrinsic powers and dispositions; e.g., the disposition of the dosimeter to accurately report the radiation level of the environment it’s in. I think this more or less matches what we often mean in ordinary language by a “duplicate” of something. For example, if I’m holding a dosimeter in an environment of 0.3 microsieverts per hour and I claim La Forge is holding a perfect duplicate of my dosimeter when La Forge is in an environment of 0.6 microsieverts per hour, you likely would not say that my “La Forge has a perfect duplicate of my dosimeter” claim is false merely because La Forge’s dosimeter reports a different radiation level than my dosimeter; that would seem to clearly misconstrue what I meant by the phrase “perfect duplicate.”
Similarly, in the patchworks I was using I was duplicating soothsayerj and Godj in a way to preserve their respective specified intrinsic dispositions when placed in patchworks. How I had interpreted Koons in his use of the patchwork principle is that the kind of duplicates he was using were those that preserved a thing’s intrinsic powers and dispositions. It seems that Schmid may not have shared this interpretation.
1 Lewis, David. 1983. “Extrinsic Properties.” Philosophical Studies, Vol. 44, No. 2, pp. 197–200. ↩
2 Bird Alexander. April 2016. “Overpowering: How the Powers Ontology Has Overreached Itself”, Noûs, Vol. 125, No. 498, p. 341. ↩
3 Schmid, Joseph C. 2023. “The End is Near: Grim Reapers and Endless Futures.”, Mind, p. 9. ↩
4 Koons, Robert. June 2012. “A New Kalam Argument: Revenge of the Grim Reaper”, Noûs, Vol. 48, No. 2, p. 258. ↩
5 I’m making some implicit assumptions here, like the X-ray radiation not inexplicably stopping right before reaching the dosimeter’s radiation sensitive material. On that note, even if Schmid’s symmetry argument doesn’t work, that doesn’t mean there aren’t other successful objections. One problem is that Schmid has convincingly argued that patchwork principles of the sort Koons has in mind are at best insufficient for getting the desired outcome when patching together intrinsically copied situations. For example, when sending a signal to pass information between adjacent spatiotemporal regions, one needs to assume that the signal doesn’t inexplicably stop at points between those two regions. I think this could be repaired by making those implicit assumptions more explicit, but (a) those assumptions could be challenged; and (b) Schmid has a valid point such that at the very least further specification of those supplemental assumptions is required for a tighter and more effective argument. ↩
