I could do with one post that contains all of the ideas I may work on in the future. Most of these ideas are currently scattered on several previous posts and others in my head and hanging around where they will be easily forgotten.
Recoflection- Taking the conjunction of van Fraassen’s Reflection Principle and Temporal Conditionalization to their natural conclusion.
The 2-dimensional account of Free Will- Against the conclusions of psychologists Iyengaar, Lepper and Schwartz on the “desirability” of Free Will, and a defence of the Humean account. (This is the subject of my MA dissertation)
Solving Newcomb’s Paradox with a Wonky Coin- A new strategy is offered and the logics of decision used by both the 1-boxers and the 2-boxers support the new strategy. Also arguing that NP is a pseudo-problem. My new strategy is offered just to dissolve this one once and for all.
Two Transcendental Arguments for God’s Non-Existence- Focusing on the conjunction of God’s omnipotence with the existence of percepts. If there were an omnipotent God there would be effectively (or actually) no such thing as time or perception.
Brains-In-Vats and Self-Location- Putnam meets Elga
Modal Realism and Rigid Determinism: Compatible? Main question here is whether there is a possible world identical to the actual world but where I am wearing a green shirt. Intuitively, yes. But causally, how? If that world is possible, surely indeterminism must hold of some worlds? What is an indeterministic possible world even like? Is it itself, many worlds?
Reasons to Roll: The Utility of the Dice Life- This is related to the Newcomb’s Paradox solution.
Dissolution of Dispositions- Why dispositions have no place in any scientific discourse. Like “ceteris paribus” sentences, they are useless and say nothing.
The Underdetermination of Decision Theory as a predictive/explanatory science: For any rational agent we are told that their actions are a product of their beliefs and their desires. We can observe only one of these, so how can we determine what an agent’s beliefs or desires are just from what we observe? This is also related to the applicability of Dutch Book arguments.
I'm also interested in doing some larger piece about the history of the Sleeping Beauty paradox. Other things I have considered considering are the logic of truth-tracking in knowledge ascriptions, the reflection of desires in RCT (Pascal's and Epicurus' Wagers).



2008-07-01 @ 15:08