Discerning truth from trash pt. II

Expectations = Reality

If a tree falls alone in a forest, and two people disagree about whether it made a sound, do they actually hold different beliefs?

In the classic thought experiment- one position states that because no one actually heard the tree fall- no sound occurred, and the other position states that because energy is conserved, a sound necessarily occurred. But here’s the rub:

Does sound-believer believe that someone had the psychological experience of a sound even though no one was there?

Does sound-unbeliever believe that the laws of physics changed, energy was not conserved and no soundwave actually occurred because no one was there?

No.

So we have an interesting fact- two people can apparently disagree about something while in fact expecting the same things to have happened.

This reveals a great tool for simplifying philosophical arguments- sometimes to the point of exposing their absurdity: Reduce opposing positions to just what the models expect to happen. If two models don’t differ in explanation, then the entire argument is moot.

To take a controversial example- is morality subjective or objective? This is a philosophical discussion that gets a lot of attention but every time I’ve tried to explore the expectations implied by either position I’ve found dead air.

If morality is objective does it mean that the evildoer will always be punished? If morality is subjective does it mean you don’t personally find anything wrong with mass murder? What do you actually expect that’s different than the other side and what do you think it implies?

Reducing models and arguments to expectations and predictions makes it much easier to grasp the actual content of beliefs rather than their shadows.