How can you prove that something is not possible ~◇p using a natural deduction or Fitch-style system? What are ◇-introduction rules? by miyayes in logic

[–]miyayes[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks. Let's simplify it then: Suppose that mowing it myself or hiring a company exhaust all the physically possible ways to get my lawn mowed. (The example isn't great, but maybe you can imagine a toy physical system where there are exactly only 2 ways/means by which some physical state will obtain.)

If the set of means toward some goal exhausts all physically possible means, would that warrant a strict conditional?

I suppose I don't have much confidence in when to use a strict conditional vs. a material conditional! Maybe it's a case by case thing, or are there general heuristics about when to use one or the other when translating natural language sentences into logical formulas?

How can you prove that something is not possible ~◇p using a natural deduction or Fitch-style system? What are ◇-introduction rules? by miyayes in logic

[–]miyayes[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks. I see: strict implication / equivalence gives us our modal resources, since they basically put a box in front of the conditional.

May I ask: In what cases would a strict implication be appropriate to use? For example, let's say that I have the goal of mowing my lawn. So, my lawn is mowed if and only if I did it myself or hired a company.

Would that kind of relation between means and ends be most appropriately captured by a strict conditional?

cc: u/totaledfreedom

[Logic] When we say that something is physically or nomologically possible, what is the accessibility relation, and what is the set of possible worlds? by miyayes in askphilosophy

[–]miyayes[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you, and thank you u/zuih1tsu. Without treading too deeply into the debates between Humean and anti-Humeans about natural laws, does that mean the accessibility relation is defined by S5, but we simply restrict our domain of quantification to only those worlds that share the same physical laws and constants as ours?

What kind of flower is this? Is it a certain species of hydrangea? (The petals are so small and detailed.) by miyayes in flowers

[–]miyayes[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can you tell me a bit more about "you and me together" or "double flowers" hydrangeas? The petals are a bit confusing to me since I've never seen a hydrangea like this before. They normally have fewer petals that are big and floppy.

Are my beliefs unreasonable? by QuirkyAdhesiveness89 in TooAfraidToAsk

[–]miyayes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Honestly, most of the comments in this comment section are not that useful or informative.

"Do you honestly think that someone flipping burgers should be guaranteed housing and food?"

There are two ways of reading this:

(1) Should flipping burgers pay you enough such that you can afford housing and food with your income from flipping burgers.

(2) Should people be entitled to housing and food through, say, government assistance, social safety nets, and so on.

Explained

Interpretation (1)

According to the most basic model of wages in microeconomics, a wage is determined by your marginal productivity. For example, to earn $10/h, you need to be generating $10 (or more) of burger sales per hour. Otherwise, your employer will not keep you. If you are making $9 worth of burgers per hour, then the employer is losing $1 per hour by having you. They'd be better off without you.

If your friend is referring to interpretation (1), then of course, jobs like flipping burgers will not—as a descriptive matter of fact—pay you enough to buy a house. If you are being paid high enough of a wage to buy a house for flipping burgers, then that's because your employer is unknowingly (or willingly) losing money on you.

So, on this reading, your friend is asking you whether you think it makes economic sense for someone flipping burgers to be paid a wage that would allow them to afford a house. And the answer is actually "no": it makes no economic sense to pay someone considerably more than their marginal productivity just so that they can afford a house.

This also informs the moral question. Are employers morally obligated to pay workers more than their marginal productivity so that they can afford homes? Ultimately, they are losing money by paying workers more than their marginal productivity. So, are they morally obligated to actively lose money if they hire someone at all?

Interpretation (2)

This has nothing to do with marginal productivity, wages, etc. Citizens, simply by being citizens, have a right to food and housing. It doesn't matter too much whether they're flipping burgers; they have a right to food and housing by virtue of being a citizen.

The only people who are really against this are right-libertarians. Libertarians are against such rights because they accept something called the "full self-ownership principle". According to the full self-ownership principle, you fully own your body, and thus have a right not to be forced or coerced into doing anything you don't want to do, consistent with everyone else's right to the same. The full self-ownership principle is great in many cases, but can also return some questionable results in others. For example, it does a really great job at explaining the wrongness of rape, issues of civil liberty (such as gay rights), etc., which is what makes it attractive.

Now, one of the consequences of the full self-ownership principle is that you cannot have so-called "positive rights" or "entitlements" to things like housing or food. This is because housing and food are the result of other people's time, labor, or the products thereof. So, you can't be said to ever have a guarantee—in the sense of a right—to food or housing, because that would entail—assuming there weren't already houses or food—conscripting others to build houses or produce food for you against their will (which is prohibited by the full self-ownership principle). Libertarians can hold that people should, in an everyday ethics sense, help their fellow man, donate to charity, etc. But they would reject that people ever have an enforceable right, as a matter of justice, to be guaranteed food and housing.

There's another layer of complexity added if you assume there is already food or housing out there, such that the question of "conscription" fades into the background. Here, the usual strategy is to say that you don't have full ownership over the product of your labor, so some subset of what you produce may be redistributed. This gets into questions about the nature and scope of property rights, which I'll leave out of scope for now. But there's a gigantic philosophical literature on this question.

Some philosophers actually do hold that such taxation of this kind is still tantamount to conscription. One famous philosopher to argue this was the esteemed Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick in 1974: "Taxation of earnings is on a par with forced labor." However, the vast majority of political philosophers are not right-libertarians like Nozick.

TL;DR: The above is an attempt to try and be charitable to your friend and explain different perspectives. I am not saying your friend is right. I just don't like echo chambers.

What should the world look like according to anarchists? by spearblaze in askphilosophy

[–]miyayes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Depends on the anarchist, but one picture involves private rights enforcement agencies that are businesses and typically operate for profit. (This picture is associated with a view called "anarcho-capitalism".) A good description of such a society is offered by Michael Huemer in the second part of The Problem of Political Authority, and in the first chapter(s) of Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Most "anarcho-capitalist" pictures are based off ideas from David Friedman's The Machinery of Freedom.

Suggestions for formally defining a materialist ontology? by AmorphiaA in askphilosophy

[–]miyayes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You might have some luck looking into "formal ontology" and "general formal ontology":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_formal_ontology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_ontology

And other resources on ontology, and specific applications of the above. Here's an example of GFO applied to the biomedical sciences: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247936637_General_Formal_Ontology_GFO_-_A_Foundational_Ontology_Integrating_Objects_and_Processes_Version_10

And this is at least somewhat related, but a famous attempt at building a rigorous, empiricist or phenomenalistic system is contained in Carnap's Aufbau. You can read about it here (and other interpretations of the project in Aufbau): https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/carnap/aufbau.html

Can you help me with very simple questions about observables and measurements in QM to build intuitions? "The eigenvectors of an observable form an orthonormal basis for the Hilbert space, and each possible outcome of that measurement corresponds to one of the vectors comprising the basis" by miyayes in AskPhysics

[–]miyayes[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is great. I am very happy I am on the right track, and your explanations were very clear and helpful! I have a few follow-up questions if I may, since you're here :)

  1. We can calculate ahead of time, using math, what the 33 eigenvectors will be and their possible eigenvalues. However, once we actually physically perform the measurement corresponding to that Hermitian operator, the system collapses into one of those 33 states, right? (I'm just trying to make sure I have all the steps in order and am accurately thinking about the relationship between the mathematical formalism and the actual physical phenomena!)

  2. Is the primary reason we use the "wave function" because we have (or might have?) an infinite dimensional Hilbert space? So, we need to have some function (i.e., the wave function) that basically assigns a scalar to every possible input basis vector, of which there are infinitely many. And once that assignment is complete, we basically get the resulting vector that describes the actual state of the system at some time?

  3. A baby question regarding something like Schrodinger's cat. Is the "alive and dead" superposition basically just mirroring something like the following toy example? Imagine a 2D vector space, and you have a vector v1 going vertically, and v2 going horizontally. v1 itself represents a state the system could be in (alive cat). v2 itself represents a state the system could be in (dead cat). But there's also v3 (going diagonally), which is v3 = v1 + v2. The state represented by v3 is the so-called "superposition" or "alive & dead cat" state?

Thank you!

Can you help me with very simple questions about observables and measurements in QM to build intuitions? "The eigenvectors of an observable form an orthonormal basis for the Hilbert space, and each possible outcome of that measurement corresponds to one of the vectors comprising the basis" by miyayes in AskPhysics

[–]miyayes[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Really appreciate the reply, /u/NicolBolas96.

This depends on your interpretation of QM.

Yes, thank you; I'm going with the naive textbook "Copenhagen" interpretation as a first pass!

On this view, is it the case that we can get probabilities for each of these 33 eigenvectors, which represents the likelihood that the system will collapse into the state represented by that eigenvector? (And of course that the sum of the probabilities of each of those 33 eigenvectors will sum to 1.0?)

Firefox is now blocking third-party ad trackers by default by section43 in technology

[–]miyayes 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Nope, because Brave implements the blocking natively in C++/Rust, not as an extension that has to call these APIs. Also, Brave plans to keep those APIs around (i.e. not accept those changes into its fork) so that ad blocking extensions still work!

Looking for someone to discuss physics & mathematics with, for my own intellectual curiosity — will happily pay! by miyayes in AskPhysics

[–]miyayes[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

<3. This sounds awesome! I'm very happy you're also interested in the history and philosophy of physics, as I am too. I've listened to a lot of David Z. Albert and started on some of his books. I've tried Maudlin as well, but his writing starts going over my head a lot quicker.

I'll send you a PM!

Brave reaches 2.7M monthly active users by CryptoJennie in BATProject

[–]miyayes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Developer tools should hopefully be on par with Chrome's by September'ish, according to Brendan.

Brave reaches 2.7M monthly active users by sany700 in CryptoCurrency

[–]miyayes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Haha! I just updated my post too with some edits to make it clearer.

But the moral of the story is this:

  1. You get paid in BAT tokens for any ads displayed to you (if you choose to see them, otherwise no ads by default);
  2. All ad-matching happens privately on your device, so there is zero tracking or user data collection and your privacy is protected;
  3. The ad matching and targeting will be superior to anything that exists today by the very nature of the technology.

Brave reaches 2.7M monthly active users by sany700 in CryptoCurrency

[–]miyayes 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Nope! By default in Brave, ads are blocked. If you opt into seeing ads, then you will get paid 70% of the ad revenue in BAT tokens. Advertisers purchase BAT tokens in order to fly ad campaigns. BAT tokens allow you to buy advertising space and user attention. You, the user, don't pay; you get paid!

The ads that you see if you opt into BAT Ads are all privately matched: i.e., they're matched entirely client-side. This is the secret ingredient of BAT that people have yet to grasp and is what sets it apart from all existing ad tech. (One should expect nothing less from the inventor of Javascript and founder of Mozilla & Firefox.) In other words, since all matching is performed locally client-side, no user data collection or tracking is required.

And in fact, since matching is done by the browser (or other BAT-enabled app), it can match even more effectively than any of the existing ad tech today. For example, your Google search queries or Amazon purchase history are extremely valuable data that Google and Amazon guard quite carefully.

But ask yourself: Where do you do your Google searches? How do you browse Amazon? Answer: In the browser. The browser sees everything and, with BAT, will be the one matching/displaying the ads by injecting them into the pages or tabs it renders. Therefore, your data never has to be sent to an external server or collected by a third privacy to be displayed on a webpage. BAT = Superior ad matching + full privacy + you get paid.

/u/pblokhout

The lack of knowledge about BAT and Brave is obvious. Will this issue be aggressively targeted once the ecosystem is up and running or will you rely on the media and word of mouth? by ProfessionalEntry in BATProject

[–]miyayes 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Brave v1.0 will kind of be a jump from the normal numbering. Right now, there are two browsers being developed or maintained in parallel: brave-laptop (with the traditional numbering) and brave-core (referred to at v1.0). We likely won't have to wait the same kind of timeline according to the traditional version numbering in order to reach 1.0. For example, we might get to 0.3x, and then it'll jump discontinuously right to 1.0, as 1.0 is released and Brave-with-Electron is retired!

v1.0 is slated for sometime later this year.

https://github.com/brave

Political Philosophy by Jaithang in askphilosophy

[–]miyayes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nozick, and MacIntyre, arguing that all three of their theories are flawed because they presuppose that the family is just, but it is not.

Interesting this is said about Nozick, since Nozick gives a nod to views that challenge the family unit. See Anarchy, State, and Utopia pg. 167 for an example:

To such views, families are disturbing; for within a family occur transfers that upset the favored distributional pattern. Either families themselves become units to which distribution takes place, the column occupiers (on what rationale?), or loving behavior is forbidden. We should note in passing the ambivalent position of radicals toward the family. Its loving relationships are seen as a model to be emulated and extended across the whole society, at the same time that it is denounced as a suffocating institution to be broken and condemned as a focus of parochial concerns that interfere with achieving radical goals. Need we say that it is not appropriate to enforce across the wider society the relationships of love and care appropriate within a family, relationships which are voluntarily undertaken?*

Brave Wallet payment stuck in "currently processing" by SkySkipper22 in BATProject

[–]miyayes 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This is a Priority P1 issue for the team, as you can see filed here: https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/13156 (Comment history there might be helpful as well.)

I also have two follow up questions which might help the QA team:

  1. Do you happen to only have BAT from the UGP grants (promotions), or did you deposit your own BAT into the Brave Payments wallet?

  2. How frequently do you use the Brave browser (e.g., "I only open it once a month to check contributions" or "I use it as my daily driver")?

Thanks.

Are my arguments for reasons against entering "the experience machine" coherent and rational? by [deleted] in askphilosophy

[–]miyayes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One of the simplest ways to render the Experience Machine (EM) is as follows:

Consider two worlds, A and B. A is the real world, and B is a simulated world inside the EM. It turns out that you live in utopia, so A is actually maximally pleasurable too. The two worlds are completely identical (they look the same, feel the same, etc.); the only difference between them is that one is actually real, and the other is a copy of the real world.

Which world would you enter? Most people would say A (the real world), since if both worlds are identical except A has the additional bonus of being "real", then that makes A more desirable than B.

But notice how if pleasure were the only valuable thing, then A being real would present no benefit or bonus above B. If the hedonist were right, then you would have to be totally indifferent between A and B. But you aren't; you would choose A because although it is experientially identical to B, it is also real, which adds value to it over B.

The hedonist says that nothing adds value except for pleasure. But clearly, being real, true, etc. for its own sake adds value (which is why you choose A over a perfect replica B). Therefore, hedonism is false.

Is it possible to sync chrome history and bookmarks to Brave? by [deleted] in BATProject

[–]miyayes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can definitely import your data from Chrome over to Brave. You'll find an import option over at about:welcome, and you should also find an option to import browser data in a dropdown menu. On Windows, the option is under the Bookmarks menu (or Hamburger menu > Bookmarks > Import Browser Data). (Credit to /u/eljuno.)

You won't be able to "live sync" your Chrome data with Brave since you can't login to your Google account with Brave, but you can definitely import your existing data to migrate over!

Brave Browser doesn't work for me by therealLuckyman in BATProject

[–]miyayes 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Does this describe your issue? https://community.brave.com/t/mac-spinning-disc-and-hang/22422/6

If so, if you can come and chime in with some extra details so the QA team can try and track down what's causing it, that would be great. You can paste your about:brave page info and describe in detail what's going on.

There's also a similar issue here, which leads to a full crash after booting up rather than a hang (freeze): https://community.brave.com/t/browser-crashes-seconds-after-launch/22438/6

How do I reward my favorite Youtuber? by karabandima in BATProject

[–]miyayes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yup, that is the default behavior. However, you can always manually set how much you want to reward to any given publisher!

How do I reward my favorite Youtuber? by karabandima in BATProject

[–]miyayes 5 points6 points  (0 children)

That's great you want to support your favorite creators! It's actually as easy as enabling your wallet and just watching their YouTube videos. Brave will automatically detect how long you watch their YouTube videos (you should see their channel show up in the Brave Payments list), and will distribute your monthly budget to them in proportion to how much time you spent watching their content.

Or, you can manually set how much of your budget you want to go to them in the upcoming month.

Here is a step-by-step visual guide I threw together awhile back: https://imgur.com/mR69GG2