From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org] Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2002 11:36 PM To: Alt.Atheism.Moderated Subject: Re: Science & atheism are cultures. "Jesse Nowells" wrote: > there is nothing "discernible" about any world > outside of the actual one. I never said other worlds were discernible. The difference between two things can be discernible (in the sense of describable), even if the two things cannot (even in principle) be observed side-by-side. > > You have no definition of 'exists' that makes this notion "absurd". > > Exists means that something is part of the totality of all that has being. That's not a definition; that's an assertion of synonymy between 'exist' and 'have being'. > No one can observe anything about worlds that are evident. So saying > that you can't distinguish between possible existence & actual existence > in worlds other than the observable world is just sophistry. Non sequitor. I can distinguish between possible existence and, say, complexity (i.e. information content) for other worlds, even though I can never observe other worlds. How? By noting that there are describable differences for worlds between the concepts of "possible existence" and "complexity". By contrast, there is no describable difference for worlds between possible existence and actual existence. -- brian@holtz.org http://humanknowledge.net