A pre-semantics for counterfactual conditionals and similar logics

TL;DR

This paper proposes a neuroscience-inspired pre-semantics for counterfactual conditionals, focusing on brain structures rather than model distances, offering a more realistic approach to understanding their meaning.

Contribution

It introduces a novel pre-semantics framework based on brain structures, moving away from traditional model-based semantics for counterfactuals.

Findings

Neuroscience findings inform the new semantics

No atomic pictures; always look inside

Reconceptualizes counterfactual meaning

Abstract

The elegant Stalnaker/Lewis semantics for counterfactual conditonals works with distances between models. But human beings certainly have no tables of models and distances in their head. We begin here an investigation using a more realistic picture, based on findings in neuroscience. We call it a pre-semantics, as its meaning is not a description of the world, but of the brain, whose structure is (partly) determined by the world it reasons about. In the final section, we reconsider the components, and postulate that there are no atomic pictures, we can always look inside.