Metaphysics is Boring When You Know the Answers

"Metaphysics is Boring When You Know the Answers", via MR:

While I sympathize with this, I don't agree with everything he said:

Modal statements about fundamental kinds (”gold might have had a different atomic weight”) may be grammatical but are not meaningful.

I'm not sure what he means by "fundamental kind", but counterfactuals like the above example can say a lot about the speaker's beliefs about causal relationships, or in this case about our universe's parameter settings.

I'm now thinking that what he meant was "atomic number", since that is what defines a gold atom.

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What is the meaning of the word "pace", as in "pace Lewis"?

looking for rugs

Friday I got rid of the smelly old rug in my bedroom. This exposes my floor's coldness and unevenness and paint specks.

I'm now looking for cheap (used) rugs.