Possible Worlds and Modal Realism (explained and debated)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ค. 2024
- Join George and John as they discuss and debate different philosophical ideas, today they will be looking into the ideas of possible worlds as well as the metaphysical theory of Modal Realism.
Possible worlds are often used by philosophers to understand possible from necessary truths as well as to ponder counterfactuals. Philosophers have however questioned the ontological status of possible worlds themselves. Modal realism believes every possible world actually exists as a concrete real world, and so every possibility, every possible state of affairs that could exist does actually exist in some possible world.
Watch as possible worlds and modal realism is explained and debated.
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I’ve always believed this, instinctively, since I was a little kid - and now I’m 67. I came to the conclusion on my own and have never heard it discussed or read it until seeing this post. The idea of an infinite variety of possible worlds strikes me as not only real, but actually necessary, if you agree with the concept of infinity and an endless universe. Likewise, I believe that everything that has ever happened is still happening, only it’s in another location in the universe. We just can’t perceive it. So the concept of “time” is local. Nice video, thanks !
Same here😄
It´s true that if we accept that our universe is infinite, then there are necessarily infinite worlds, but I think these are not the worlds Lewis is referring to, as these worlds are technically not spatially and temporarily separated. Besides, Lewis´s worlds include all methaphysical possibilities, including an universe in which the speed of light is different, for example. So Lewis model goes beyond this. Anyway I agree that there is more intuition in Lewis´ arguments than people claim.
U mad
@@nataliarevenga6689 Well, as far as we know the universe is expanding but we don't know that it's infinitely so (and I would see "expanding" as indicating that there is a fixed point where the universe ends at any given moment), and most scientists believe there is something like 10^500 universes, while some don't accept any, and some argue that either way the prospect is unobservable. There are also a number of scientific theories concerning the 'end' of the universe such as the 'big crunch' that suggests the big bang will reverse its expansion and go back to a pre-big-bang state.
Overall, I am cautious about accepting infinitude of possible universes as it seems our own universe has its limits.
The mind can possibly imagine an indefinite number of things. But as Kant had said, to apply the apriori categories of understanding to non-sensible things is to embrace transcendental illusions.
Recuerda que Kant no sabía de la Inteligencia Artificial. Allí los mundos posibles de los agentes no solo es del trabajo diario... sino que son absolutamente necesarios para la mente artificial que razona.
Interesting timing on this video, especially since I literally just got done watching one on the Ontological Argument for the existence of God.
In another possible world Modal Realism can actually be defended, but in this possible world it is just some guy nerding out on a thought experiment he committed too much towards out of excitement for arguing the absurd and getting the “incredulous stare.” Fun stuff fellows.
Fun stuff follows 😂
No. Modal Realism is necessarily the case in every possible world lol. Its "true" under infallibilism, which must be logically true
Another good video. Videos covering maybe the multiverse theory, parallel universes etc would be interesting.
Thank you, and great suggestion we will look into this.
Really enjoyed this, thanks!
You're welcome, thanks for watching.
5:16 "Any chance that i could actually visit this possible world? Actually no, that is not possible." - This is where Occams Razor goes out of the window. There could have been a mental model where anything that i can think of is possible, now we have to include another cathegory "thinkable but impossible things". And how many thinkable things are impossible? One? Two? Half of them? Or they are all impossible except the world that we live in?
I have a bit different theory - i suppose that possibilities exist as some semi-real probability waves in OUR world, some ghostly invisible immaterial abstracts.
It is possible to visit, since causally distinct objects are impossible due to how relative everything is due to infinity. That's one thing Mr Lewis got wrong. Though a good amount is the case
Thoroughly enjoyed this, to my surprise 😇
Great video. I find the idea of manifesting possible worlds not convincing. There is no evidence and it is beyond our comprehension. However, it's an interesting study of relations from a mathematical perspective. Will see if my course this semester will enlighten me.
Well done!
Thank you!
Brilliant video, truly proud of you. (:
Thank you :D
@@PhilosophyVibe You're welcome. Philosophy is amazing. (:
As far as I know string theory too proposes a multiverse. In each world the constants of nature are slightly different which can result in all kinds of universes.
This comes close to modal realism but it seems not completely the same.
My own version?? I imagine indeed almost endless variations of the constants of nature. Nobody knows but most likely most "solutions or combinations" are not fertile. Some might be slightly fertile, start to develop but then stop.
Others like ours take a good start and soon, based on the same constants, many parallel universes are like branching off. But they are perhaps not separated but more like pages, in a book with each page, only one letter different. What we call a movement through space or through time might be a movement of our "mind" to a possible world nearby, although there are many options explaining why we feel some free will exists. Taking a step back in time happens sometimes too but it can't be recorded in the brain.(entropy) Standing still is perhaps also possible but again, then nothing is recorded. The speed of light is the maximum speed to read the pages. Any object with many particles has many particles in common with the adjacent page and that is called superposition. Our minds can wonder like a cloud around in the nearest pages of the book. The mind is .... mm, no, that one I don't know ;-)
No mushrooms or chemicals were used for this story :-)
funniest video of this channel.
While we don't have actual contact with other realities, precise abstractions (like maths) can measure their possibility. As for the theory being counterintuitive, that actually is an axiomatic evidence in favor of the theory. See, the theory has a notion that human-like experiences heavily rely on considering its reality as dimensional, including temporal. It's unlikely to perceive a narrative that doesn't ideate dimensions; so, the ability to realize the converse truth of actual existences existing without literally being temporal is severely diminished.
We, each, are an a-temporally eternal and self-essential experience. We don't blend in as the same being; we are distinct and exist as our own reality. Interestingly, it's because we exist like unto singularities that we require such little power to exist... we may say that each of us only require a unit of one indivisible (only one constituent), particular existence that--for it--never has not existed.
Only conceptually and not actually, we exist infinitely separated by nonexistence--"my present experience isn't yours." Nonexistence also can be abstracted as our container or anything else, really, because it's non-actual and open to definitions that don't require its existence. A being would need to renounce everything existent about itself to traverse nonexistence and thereby be someone else. The narrative of someone doing just that isn't in reference to anything possible but, instead, is a measurement that ultimately states the separate nature of existences.
The infinitude of experiences that exist aren't impossibly infinite. For one, the possibility of infinite doppelgangers can account for that. Moreover, what a correct version of the theory should posit isn't that there're infinite timelines but, instead, that each moment of experience exists without changing. Even within one second of a timeline, there may be infinite moments--infinite divisions within it. Note that this doesn't invoke Zeno's paradox, since none of us become another [or different than what's been oneself].
We may later conclude that every possible experience necessarily exists, with a possibility only being an estimation that ponders a certainty because its user lacks information. My opinion, therefore, is that every self-coherent experience exists infinite times, the more useful count of any one of us instead being a ratio of itself to the rest--a percentage of quantity based on how easily coherent (not seemingly self-contradicting) it is, in comparison to another. Ex: me being a star athlete may be completely possible, but my mind that naturally thinks about metaphysics in either case is more likely to be a metaphysicist; so, my person probably has more existences as a [broke] metaphysicist.
From a Solipsistic mindset, it's revealed that I don't have direct knowledge of such experiences existing. Every thought-train of multifaceted logic isn't fully verifiable. Only an indivisible experience can completely be known; though, unfortunately, that knowledge is more intuitive as 1st-person reification, instead of as our symbols/statements that can't fully satisfy being known. The difference between inherent knowledge and partial, intellectual knowledge indicates the dissonance that we "use" to project dimensional "realities" that we fool-heartedly assume to extend beyond one's experience and yet be our actual self. Our projected identification as, both, an individual and an encompassing universe--both as legitimately whole existences--is due to us not realizing that multi-faceted structures aren't existences but only are representative measurements that indicate facts about anything real or, even, impossible. We may say that individual experience-existences are the fundamental data that we project structures by, since it only is us that don't refer to anything other than oneself in order to be completely stated: structures/concepts always require references to other data or structures, each of those nonexistent things ultimately being the same super-structure made of nonexistence but possibly partially referring to actual existences.
Which experience-beings exist--what're they like? Well, lacking the requirement of a single being literally existing as unfolding a timeline frees us from assuming that a single timeline is all that's relative to that experience-being. More than one timeline might accurately structure around that exact experience. We might have multiple pasts and futures; though, they all are narratives that break-down if they don't stick with one's present experience as being one's only immovable datum, non-existent data being conceptually modifiable. All in all, an experience's own self-coherence logically tells its probability, not necessarily the universe(s) that it's related to. At best, a universe will indicatively map the measurements of experiences and ideas that we care about. Notwithstanding, the many pieces of knowledge that it would reflect show our biases that shape our struggles, since all of those data are part of a structure than contains fallacies... not to mention that our grasps of them are partial and that any perception is as if formed via disturbance/stress/tensions. Every advantage comes with disadvantages, if it's not a paradox (unreal and imaginary).
Our languages were created with many false assumptions about our cosmology. That's why what I'm saying is so difficult to digest; I have to make the language talk itself out of its false notions, all while presenting what I really want conveyed. I'd like a new language, even if only to correctly contextualize worldly narratives.
By the way, I've heard that species who reach the peak of intellectual evolution cease to exist (die out). I imagine this reason for that: they'd realize perceptual existence (the only kind of actual existence) as created via pain. That's not to say that actual dying is possible... just that the future versions of them that wholly take such a fact as truth aren't entrapped by the naive fallacies that we existent beings submit to enough to cling to existence. Such a fact only is wholly intelligible (systematized) by someone without the limits inherent to actual existences.
The first half of what you said was good but you deviated from pure deductive reasoning into mindless babble in all respect. Extended modal realism is the truth of the world. Possible and impossible worlds all have existence, with possible having concrete existence and impossible being in some abstract only "realm" and not possible to exist in any directly perceivable way. All possible worlds are causally connected, and yes that means you should be able to visit one far, far, far into the future. It may be that interaction is only possible for very small objects, maybe even just particles. But, it must be possible in exactly that way under infallibilism, which makes modal realism necessarily true. You can view all of existence as one infinity big spider web or an infinitely long canvas, with every single possible and impossible thing on it. Causality is illusionary/relative, and change is relative due to that. That is also exactly what General Relativity says(though that's more strict empiricism and not infallible as to what I'm referencing under an epistemological poiint)
@@jasoncruz19800 The fact that I left steps out of my reasoning doesn't make my utterances babble, for anyone who's able to fill in the gaps via recognizing the universally fundamental principle of self-similarity within any given circumstance. More akin to babble--sorry to say--were your words, "...impossible worlds... have existence;" but, I can tell that you've seen much, so I relate to you and wish to assure you that your rationale models are well-shaped. Their metaphysical objects simply can be re-labeled, with self-coherence of essences admitted necessary. Anything defined is subject to its own essence or definition's implications; just as, if any person is to assert any empirical object, it first must assert an experience of it. The only defined things that don't require outsourced definitions are self-evident.
A so-called "moment of experience" meets those requirements, I implore you to consider. It firstly and obviously mustn't be paradoxical, which isn't a problem when constructed ideas aren't conflated with the qualitative, mental experience. Ideated constructs have multiple components, whereas a self-evident experience has all of itself immediate to itself. Meta-cognition is an ideated construct and differs from conscious experience in that the latter doesn't outsource its ontology and is qualitative, whereas meta-cognition isn't cognition but a denotation of such being conceptually understood and empirically recognized as an evidenced attribute. Likewise, "objects" are on maps, those maps being based on a data-copy of an experience; as in, the genuine experience is metaphysically distinct from the simulated version of it that interacts within any simulation in the realm of reason. When I speak of the parts of my experience, I actually am using an imagined model as my reference, since I'm outsourcing for additional principles. To any immediate experience, its only "principle" (natural law) self-fascinatingly is itself, self-sufficiently and as to avoid paradoxical dual-forces.
Conversely, systematic and universal laws aren't real forces, them instead being descriptive attributes/modes of enacted possibility. A gatekeeper that has a hand in deciding the existence of distinct things isn't only impossible via duality but is unnecessary, since impossible things naturally won't/can't exist and possible things haven't anything to contradict their existing. The web that you speak of--reminiscent of Indra's Net--is an objective map, as real as any person but less literally existent than a local subject (self-evident, immediate experience). Modal Realism, according to Wikipedia, has this tenet: "possible worlds are causally isolated from each other." Their similarities are concepts unifying them under each concept, but the concepts/attributes don't transfer existential power or require the worlds to be identical. I agree that a person might be able to visit its future, but that person-construct is constituted as of a grander world and therefore is part of a mapped narrative and needn't be more existent than that. It's only because conceptual things are insubstantial that they can relate to everything and transform. Any single "thing" that's shared or ontologically multi-faceted is of an imaginary unity. However truthful, logical, meaningful, relevant, flexible, etc.; they all reference more than themselves, straightaway revealing them as not being sources of essentiality.
Boomin!
drops mic*
I was like the counterargument just destroys modality, which is in line with my thinking as I was "following" along.
9:10 EXACTLY, creepy💀💀😭 10:10 same same
What if all extraterrestrial species and alien life are just possible worlds?
Well that would be the case if modal realism were true
1:30 2:30 3:50 exactly 5:18 :')
Imagine the perfect island.....
It’s the “atheists of the gaps” argument.
There is actually a modal argument for the existence of God. Because there is a conceivable universe where god exists, and if god exists in at least one possible world, then he must a prior exist in all possible worlds.
@@gamefreak23788 So, if God exists in this world, and there are other possible worlds, he also exists in that one too, right? Is that what you’re trying to say?
@@incognito3990 if we can say that God exists in at least one possible world, then he must exist in all possible worlds, a prior from his omnipresence. That's how the argument goes at least, but this is why i believe it is more likely that he is an impossibility in all universes because he has a lot of qualities that are logically contradictory.
@@incognito3990 There's a few of this type of argument. One is that if God has maximal greatness then a God that only existed in one possible world and not all would not be maximally great. As God is maximally great by nature/definition, God must exist in all possible worlds, which includes this one.
The other argument is that modal logic suggests that "x exists" is possible, impossible or necessary. "God exists" isn't something considered possible, as "possible" suggests that it could be true or could be false. If God exists he either exists necessarily as a necessary being, or it is impossible for God to exist. As God's existence isn't impossible, it must be necessary.
All of these arguments are bad.
@@gamefreak23788 If you can trace that qualities from looking at the nature of working of God in this world, each separately, then though it looks contradictory to exist all those qualities to be possessed by the single entity God, as the cause of the reality, then it should be taken as true, a nature of reality for God. This is like wave particle duality, both are inferred from observations separately, and look contradictory to be of same thing, how ever it can be understood or conceptualised in a unified way from which the apparent contradictions are gone.
If everything possible has happened in another possible world. For example. There is a possible world where I didn't write this comment, but if you imagine there is a possible world where that possible world by itself doesn't exist. Here we have a contradiction, since I don't see how there can be a possible world where the possible world by itself doesn't exist.
There are many things contradicting, which are beyond our imagination
@@user-ey8mj4tv2p Omnipotent being can perform a contradiction. An omnipotent being can create a square circle as easily as you can lift up a feather. 🏞️⛰️🏔️🗻
@@bettergaming2321 there are paradoxes beyond human understanding
@@user-ey8mj4tv2p True. 🏔️⛰️🏞️🗻
when a philosopher tries acid for the first time
If the universe operates with deterministic laws of physics, then when any object moves, it is entirely determined by the physical laws that be. In other words, there is only one route that determines how everything stays in motion. If this is true, there is no room for ontological "possible worlds", however, we still use the concept of possible worlds from our perspective of human ignorance, having a constant rift between us and the future, we use hypothetical possible worlds to speculate how things might be and how things would have been better had we made different actions, nonetheless, there is a possibility that these are ultimately figures of speech.
@Samuel Foston Yes, every empirically observed effect has a cause.
Unless the other possible worlds had slightly different initial conditions
possible different worlds ? ......... Where the figures in this vid ready do look like this lol
The debate about possible worlds must be one of the biggest fails of philosophy. All comes from the imagination, but because they dont like that, they just invented things. It is beyond ridiculous.
Yeah dude, I mean numbers are imaginary and the reasoning behind contingency, necessity is also just made up. Heck even the language I'm utilizing is also made up, pack it up, this douche has it all figured out.
Possible Worlds and Modal Realism is like the Many Worlds/Multiverse interpretation of QM and it is also pure nonsense and unscientific.
ofcourse it’s unscientific, it’s a metaphysical theory, we can’t empirically verify if they exist… so idk why you would point that out
The incredulous stare
@@eapooda Exactly, most philosophical ideas cannot be proven scientifically, as in physically or tangibly. People do not realize that most of what they believe, even secular ideas, are not physically provable.
It's not like the Many Worlds/Multiverse interpretation of QM precisely because QM is *physics* whereas Possible Worlds is *metaphysics* and therefore does not purport to describe physical reality like QM does. However, you're right in pointing out that the Multiverse theory is pseudoscience.
@@mugsofmirth8101 The QM is physics but The Many Worlds/Multiverse interpretation of QM is metaphysics is a speculative philosophy. The Many Worlds/Multiverse and the Possible Worlds interpretations are Branch of speculative philosophy of metaphysics, and there is nothing really wrong with metaphysical speculative philosophy, we need philosophy to interpret and make sense and understand what the raw scientific data is telling us, which itself is devoid of any meaning. But the right metaphysical speculative philosophy of interpretation of scientific data must be subject to Ockham’s Razor and falsifiability principles, and also the evidence, rationality and intuition. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics is the most rational philosophical interpretation to my mind. The Many Worlds/Multiverse and the Possible Worlds interpretations are religions of Mambo Jumbo of the imagination, and you can imagine anything but that doesn't make it true.