Ok let’s suppose that actions do run consecutively, so for example, we have walking, followed by walking and talking, followed by walking, taking and turning my head, followed by just walking, etc. Each one of these is a complete action, so for example “walking, talking and turning my head” is one action, and three observable behaviors, but not three simultaneous actions. If we accept this, it seems to me there’s an infinite number of consecutive actions that run consecutively (but never simultaneously). Every time you changed something, (even the tiniest thing that involves a thought) you would have ended the previous action and started a completely new one. Your whole life becomes a series of infinitesimally small actions; just the slightest change in anything ends any previous action COMPLETELY and precipitates a new one. And each of these actions involves its own means/goal analysis, its own value scale, its own profit/loss. Is this what you’re getting at?
So let’s say this is true. How can you keep track of what works in life and what doesn’t? How can you figure the profit or loss of say, just walking to the park, by itself, when all you’ve got to measure it by is the sum of an infinite number of infinitesimally small profit and losses of combined behaviors?
how would it work if you had actions that lasted longer, but necessarily had fewer of them.? you must apply your criticism to all alternatives before using your criticism as a criteria to disregard the alternative that you favour the least.
To answer my own question, I would say this. (I’m trying to agree with you here) Profit and loss is psychic, ordinal, and not measurable. Profit and losses from individual actions cannot be summed. I can’t say I like going for a walk twice as much as going to the movies, for example, or that going to the movies is more fun than the sum of the fun I get from two individual actions. (I can say, however, that going to the movies is more fun than a single action consisting of two behaviors.)
Let’s suppose it’s true that there are a virtually unlimited number of profit and loss assessments that must be made in our lives, ex ante. But the way we keep track of things is after the fact, ex post. It may be that ex post when we assess what we liked and what we didn’t, we view our actions differently. So ex post I can look back at my walk as one action, disregarding the talking on the phone and the million other little things I did at the time, and say “yes, I liked going for a walk better than reading a book or whatever”
Or you decide to keep walking while doing the action of answering your phone.
That is nevertheless still not a case against doing two actions at once, it merely states that two diametrical actions cannot be done at once. Nevertheless, choosing A over B is completely different from choosing B over C the three can have different values with respect to each other. For instance, I can decide that I prefer A over B because A is more valuable than B, but still I can choose B over C since B is more valuable than C; since the two are independent actions, there is nothing irrational about such actions.
as a reductio it fails, because its a fallacy. you cant use a fallacy to show how the consequences of someones position dont play out favourably. you must use valid reasoning to do such things.