Do possible worlds exist?
>>18257089
It's impossible to know.
They are real in my mind
>>18257156P1. We ought to believe in the existence of entities that are indispensable to our best theories about reality (scientific, philosophical, etc.)P2. Possible worlds are indispensable to our best philosophical theories about modalityConclusion: Therefore possible worlds exist
>>18257089>>18257089You are just reinventing religion
>>18257089No. We use "possible worlds" to assist in talking about hypotheticals and it works because we don't dig too deep into the inner workings of these "possible worlds". It's beyond the point of asking these hypothetical questions. But somewhere in the premise of these possible worlds is always an impossibility. Our world is the only truly possible world.
>>18257089No BUT . . . ok bear with mesothere's only one causality, one universal reaction BUT the point of having it is to determine the shape of it, if you get what I'm saying, the exact shape of things isn't determined until it happens WHICH MEANS there are multiple different configurations that almost happened and one that did. You could potentially glimpse, in passing, some shreds of a "possible world" which are shapes of things that did not happen in the real world, but could have. In theory.
Most would say it's absurd to distinguish between parts of the universal reaction, but clipping my nails doesn't carry the same weight as the big bang. There are visible energy gradients between e.g. a campfire and the sun, something way down at the bottom of the spectrum doesn't have the same influence as forces at the top. Even if the universal chemistry equation is perfect on some deep level, causality as we understand it looks like a violent interaction of many forces resulting in a wide range of outcomes.
So you could have substrate like the air in a room, and "bigger" "more energetic" "objects" like people moving around through it. To our perception of time, there's one chain of causality and one reality of who's present in the room. I think there's also room for a "possible world" (merely the cast off dust of a different future for this world) caused by the approach of multiple strong forces affecting the substrate.
>>18257238There are many solid arguments that possible worlds exist. >>18257192The same kinds of discussions come up about the reality of numbers, and you would never question those.
>>18257192I don't actually know of any religion that proposes alternate timelines/mirror universes in which your alter ego is living a similar but slightly different life.
>>18257192This. Niggas will laugh at religion and then believe without any doubt that there are infinite realities even though there’s literally no evidence for it.
>>18257807>smug e-christian rushing to bitch about the evilutionist atheists in xis free time during the holidays in 3... 2... 1...
>>18257812But gawd is a bronze age fairy tale. Possible worlds come from legit philosophy.
>>18257869>but some literal who thought about it! That makes it real!Okay, okay, everyone has to have faith. Yours isn’t a big deal.
>>18257872Please see >>18257175There are good reasons to believe possible worlds exist. Just as numbers are indispensable to our best scientific theories and therefore according to Quine we ought to believe they exist, so too possible worlds are indispensable to our best philosophical theories and so we ought to believe they exist. Your silly little bronze age sky fairy isn't indispensable to any theory we have about reality.
>>18257910Again>I think it, therefore it’s real.>and now I will seethe at a strawman that I also invented in my head.It’s no better than any religion. At least religions have people that claim to have seen things that prove the religion.
>>18257910Also>our best philosophical theoriesI’d say you have to be 18 or older to post here, but there really are adults this retarded now.
>>18257089Maybe?
>>18257928>>18257920You're literally fucking retarded. Have you studied modal logic at all?
>>18257089>infinite univerces where I'm a Gigachad or a furry God exist right now...>TRUST ME BRO! :DOccam's Razor says NO.Why multiply realities to silly levels to explain possibility?Why confusing the map (our language/models) for the territory (actual reality)?
>>18257939Occam's Razor is merely a heuristic, it's not an actual methodology for finding things out. Arguably modal realism fits Occam's razor quite well. This is because when one talks about possible worlds you can literally translate the semantics into terms of first-order logic/quantification over worlds. When I say, "There is a possible world where x, y, and z happen" what I am really saying is, "There exists a world such that x attains, y attains, and z attains." The most simple explanation is to take the semantics at face value. That these other worlds really DO exist. When one talks about possible worlds you are making an ontological commitment in your very speech itself, even if unknowingly.
>>18257939I respect this argument.
>>18257089Tree seeds are possible trees, but they are not trees.
>>18258029>but they are not treesHow do you know?
>>18258347Because they do not have the features of trees such as a stem, roots, branches and leaves.
>>18258360Why define a tree that way? Not all trees have branches. What about trees that have their branches cut off? Not all trees have leaves. What about trees in autumn that lose all their leaves?
>>18258363Why define a tree at all? There's a tree with the face of a child with Down's syndrome carved into it, so maybe we should all wear pants on our heads and not go into work next Monday.Or do you have a better idea of how to define a tree?
>>18257089It's a feature of language, like 99.99999% of our concepts
