Adam Elga

And the reason is there's another potential response to the seeming instability that is stable.

And in order to push the move you just described, one would have to rule out that response.

And I just think you could rule out that response, but it's harder to rule out than the patently unstable response.

And let me give a kind of analog of the response in the case of memory.

So in this memory example, what should you think when you have this apparent memory?

And I think the answer is a kind of

um stepping back there's a kind of caution that is roughly um amounts to rather reduced trust in your memory the details depend on the details of the case but it's the sort of question i think it's going to determine what you should do in that case is conditional on my having a

you know, bad memory of this disease of that kind, how likely is it that I would have that apparent memory?

And that's going to be some number.

And I think there's a kind of general cautious view one should have in response to this.

And in general, and more generally, when one is relying on a faculty and the faculty says to you, this faculty is bad, or don't rely on me,

that can be reason to discount the faculty.

Not because you think, I trust the faculty totally and I'm listening to it, but rather because good faculties don't say things like that about themselves.

So one of my favorite examples of this kind is due to Roger White in unpublished work that I hope listeners will look at once it's published.

And that's the case of an x-ray machine.

that is pointed into its own innards, or something you think of as an x-ray machine, you point the machine at its own self, and inside is just a fried egg, so it seems.

You think, okay, okay, wait.

And now someone could try, let me try to make an instability argument.

And I think in the case of the x-ray machine, it will become clear why the instability argument

how to better clear more clear how to respond to the instability argument.