Learn more about books with this collection
Effective note-taking techniques
Test-taking strategies
How to create a study schedule
They are facts not about what is -- the 'actual' -- but about what could or could not be. In order to distinguish them from the actual, they are called counterfactuals. Suppose that some future space mission visited a remote planet in another solar system left a stainless-steel box containing among other things the critical edition of, say, William Blake's poems. That the poetry book is subsequently sitting somewhere on that planet is a factual property of it. That the words in it could be read is a counterfactual property, which is true regardless of whether those words will ever be read.
13
29 reads
MORE IDEAS ON THIS
As I shall explain in this book, some of these things, such as information, heat, and work, already have some explanation in physics, but it is insufficient: it is only approximate, unlike more fundamental theories of physics, such as quantum theory and general relativity. Some others, such as kn...
13
39 reads
In certain areas, it is no longer the case. The assumption that all fundamental explanations in science must be expressed only in terms of what happens, with little or no reference to counterfactuals, is now getting in the way of progress. For counterfactuals are essential to a number of things ...
13
31 reads
13
18 reads
"If you could soar high in the sky, as red kites often do in search of prey, and look down at the domain of all things known and yet to be known, you would see something very curious: a vast class of things that science has so far almost entirely neglected. These things are central to our underst...
13
38 reads
Things that have not happened -- but could happen -- are the things that constitute the world of counterfactuals, a neglected area of scientific theory.
A luminous guide to how the radical new science of counterfactuals can reveal the full scope of our ...
13
83 reads
The computer may never be so programmed; but the fact that it could is an essential fact about it, without which it would not qualify as a computer. The counterfactuals that matter to science and physics, so far neglected, are facts about what could or could not be made to happen to physical syst...
13
31 reads
"Another significant counterfactual property of physical systems, central to thermodynamics, is that a steam engine is possible. A steam engine is a device that transforms energy of one sort into energy of a different sort, and it can perform useful tasks, such as moving a piston, without ever v...
13
18 reads
13
15 reads
More generally, you can't explain the presence of a lifeboat aboard a pirate ship only in terms of an actual shipwreck. Everyone knows that the lifeboat is there because of a shipwreck that could happen (a counterfactual explanation). And that would still be the reason even if the ship never did ...
13
18 reads
The box may be never found; and laden with significance. It would signify, for instance, that a civilization visited the planet, and much about its degree of sophistication. To further grasp the importance of counterfactual properties, and their difference from actual properties, imagine a comput...
13
26 reads
A perpetual motion machine is not simply an object that moves forever once set into motion: it must also generate some useful sort of motion. If this device could exist, it would produce energy out of no energy. It could be harnessed to make your car run forever without using fuel of any sort. A...
14
22 reads
The fundamental types of counterfactuals that occur in physics are of two kinds: one is the impossibility of performing a transformation (building a perpetual motion machine); the other is the possibility of performing a transformation (building a steam engine). Both are cardinal properties of th...
13
16 reads
CURATED FROM
Related collections
More like this
The box may be never found; and laden with significance. It would signify, for instance, that a civilization visited the planet, and much about its degree of sophistication. To further grasp the importance of counterfactual properties, and their difference from actual properties, imagine a comput...
The computer may never be so programmed; but the fact that it could is an essential fact about it, without which it would not qualify as a computer. The counterfactuals that matter to science and physics, so far neglected, are facts about what could or could not be made to happen to physical syst...
Not to leave planet Earth would be like castaways on the desert Island not trying to escape. We need to explore the solar system to find out where you humans could live.
It won't solve any of our immediate problems on the planet Earth but it will give us new perspective on them and causes t...
Read & Learn
20x Faster
without
deepstash
with
deepstash
with
deepstash
Access to 200,000+ ideas
—
Access to the mobile app
—
Unlimited idea saving & library
—
—
Unlimited history
—
—
Unlimited listening to ideas
—
—
Downloading & offline access
—
—
Personalized recommendations
—
—
Supercharge your mind with one idea per day
Enter your email and spend 1 minute every day to learn something new.
I agree to receive email updates