From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org] Sent: Monday, May 06, 2002 9:04 AM To: alt.atheism.moderated Subject: Re: Science & atheism are cultures. "Paul Holbach" wrote: > I know that for Lewis "actual" is an indexical word, referring to > "what is here and now". I doubt he means precisely "here and now", as opposed to just "this". > although it is impossible > to look at the all-encompassing world [..] from the outside, I > can nevertheless infer the actuality of the whole world from the > actuality of something within the world Yes, being able to say "this" of anything in a world implies that the world is "this" world. > The actual existence of any > part of the world entails the actual existence of the whole world > regardless of how many parts there are. But existence of the parts is defined with respect to the other parts. There is nothing "other" with respect to which one can define the existence of the world. > > > Possible worlds are mental contents of imagination > > > and nothing more. > > > > The same could be said of "actual" worlds that are not this world. > > I donīt think so since "being actual" and "being nothing more than > possible" are incompatible. Only by stipulation. Please identify this "something more than possible" that constitutes actuality for a world. > Two words cannot be semantically non-different if the one entails the > other but not the other way round: > > - For all x, if x is actual, then x is possible. > - Not for all x, if x is possible, then x is actual. > > I think thatīs fairly obvious, isnīt it?! Within the domain or scope that the words apply to, yes. Outside that domain or scope, it's simply not applicable. > > I agree that the actual world is evidence that absolute > > possibility does not obtain. I'm not sure I agree that > > the actual world is evidence that absolute possibility > > could not possibly obtain. > > You mean "absolute impossibility", donīt you...? Yes. (Oops.) > OK, the fact that there is a world excludes that there has ever been a > state of absolute impossibility before the world came into existence. That's sort of what I meant by "the actual world is evidence that absolute impossibility does not obtain". Note that you are improperly promoting temporality to being something outside the scope of discussion, where in fact temporality is just another thing that one might consider possibly impossible. > according to the cosmologists, the universe is going > to exist forever, what would render an absolute impossibility > even in the future impossible). You are again confusing the issues of whether absolute impossibility obtains (tenselessly) and whether it is possible. > > (How could we ever come to know that another universe is actual?) > > How a trans-world contact could be established is indeed an extremely > intricate epistemological issue. No, it's simply impossible, by the definition of universe/world. > > Whether a world is possible does not depend on any minds. > > purely logical, "free-floating" > trans-actual possibilites are mind-dependent, No, they are not. > at least due to the fact > that logic presupposes (verbal) signs, and signs presuppose minds. Mind-created representations of logic indeed presuppose minds, but the possibility of a world is independent of any minds, and does not vary from mind to mind. > And what distinguishes a fictional from a real world? > You canīt get killed by Darth Vader Nor can you get killed by an actual/real villain from another universe. > > the ontological phrase 'the actual world' just means "this world". > > As long as we donīt know of any other actual world than ours, we > may interpret it this way. Well, by definition we cannot know about other actual worlds, so QED. > itīs reasonable to postulate that > inexistence be the limit of knowability such that absolute > unknowability is equated with inexistence. Right. > But the scope of the knowable would certainly expand rather quickly, > if new practical epistemological methods were developed. "Absolute unknowability" is by definition immune to "new practical epistemological methods". > > Why not? Any possible world can be described by a model. What is > > contradictory about a world described by a model with an empty > > domain set? > > You need to distinguish between a possible theoretic description of an > empty world (which doesnīt require the objective existence of an empty > world) and the possibility of an empty world itself. How else is a world's possibility *defined* except by correspondence to a non-self-contradictory model of it? You're asking me to distinguish between a definiendum and its definition! > *absolute nothingness* is a logically untenable concept I may or may not get around to digging up your proposed proof of this, but I'm not confident it's any more convincing than your proof of the impossibility of actual infinitudes. :-) > > Is this supposed to be an explanation why the impossibility of > > nothingness is omitted from philosophy reference works? > > Sorry, but thatīs a weak argument from authority. I do not claim that the consensus of the philosophical community is infallible, but it would be silly to claim that such consensus is not a good hint as to whether a position is defensible or not. > philosophical reference works do always mirror the personal > views of their authors to a certain degree. Can you give examples of other philosophical issues for which you think there is a conspiracy among contributers, editors, and reviewers of philosophy reference works? > Itīs an essential characteristic of philosophy > that there is no such thing as the absolute metaphysical truth. Is this truth itself an "absolute metaphysical truth"? Whether it is or not, you seem to consider it the sort of "essential" consensus truth that you're trying to argue cannot exist. > Hypothesis H = "Nothingness exists." / "Nothing exists." (in the > ontological sense) > H is equivalent to "Everything does not exist." > This can formulated in an equivalent way such that > "Everything possesses some positive property P such that P entails the > possession of the negative property of being inexistent." > But there is no such property P; therefore H must be rejected! I'm not sure I buy (or even understand) your distinction between "positive" and "negative" properties. Is there a summary of this argument in any philosophy reference work you can point me to? > I remind you of my dictum "To be is to be something." I'm not sure I buy this either. To logically be is to be the value of a bound variable. To ontologically be is to have causal relations with this sentence. > "Nothing(ness) exists." Reifying nothingness here seems like a mistake. > is equivalent to > "For all x, x(is P) and x(is inexistent)." (= S) > > Whatever the unknown (positive) property P, there is no possible > truth-condition under which S is true, for if it were true, then S > itself wouldnīt exist You again seem to be confusing descriptions of worlds with the worlds themselves. > (Sentences as complex signs certainly imply the existence of minds, There's definitely something wrong with a logical argument that seems to assume that logic can only apply if minds exist. -- brian@holtz.org http://humanknowledge.net