Claim: Every imaginable proposition is true ... in some possible world.
Every imaginable proposition is true ... in some possible world. — Agent Smith
Yes, but how do you mesh modal realism with Godel's Incompleteness Theorems? — Shawn
You should read Max Tegmark's Multiverse theory.
It resonates strongly here. — Shawn
...allows contradictions.Every imaginable proposition... — Agent Smith
Danke — Agent Smith
everything exists (in some possible world). — Agent Smith
If what Leibniz and Descartes presented are apologies of sorts, are you seeking for something else? — Paine
Meinong proposed that some things, such as abstract objects like numbers, can exist in some sense even though they are not physical objects. He argued that we can have meaningful thoughts and statements about these kinds of objects, even though they do not have a physical presence.
A kinda modal realism begins to take shape ... everything exists (in some possible world). — Agent Smith
Numbers are not tangible, tangible meaning 'able to be touched'. What makes them the subject of direct experience is that anyone can count, and practically everyone learns arithmetic. — Wayfarer
At its root, the new idea holds that the common conception of “reality” is too limited. By expanding the definition of reality, the quantum’s mysteries disappear. In particular, “real” should not be restricted to “actual” objects or events in spacetime. Reality ought also be assigned to certain possibilities, or “potential” realities, that have not yet become “actual.” These potential realities do not exist in spacetime, but nevertheless are “ontological” — that is, real components of existence.
“This new ontological picture requires that we expand our concept of ‘what is real’ to include an extraspatiotemporal domain of quantum possibility,” write Ruth Kastner, Stuart Kauffman and Michael Epperson.
Considering potential things to be real is not exactly a new idea, as it was a central aspect of the philosophy of Aristotle, 24 centuries ago. An acorn has the potential to become a tree; a tree has the potential to become a wooden table. Even applying this idea to quantum physics isn’t new. Werner Heisenberg, the quantum pioneer famous for his uncertainty principle, considered his quantum math to describe potential outcomes of measurements of which one would become the actual result. The quantum concept of a “probability wave,” describing the likelihood of different possible outcomes of a measurement, was a quantitative version of Aristotle’s potential, Heisenberg wrote in his well-known 1958 book Physics and Philosophy. “It introduced something standing in the middle between the idea of an event and the actual event, a strange kind of physical reality just in the middle between possibility and reality.”
And don't get me wrong, modal realism is certainly an interesting position... just not a particularly widely held one (as far as I can tell, at any rate). — deletedmemberbcc
Aristotle, as per a podcast I'm listening to, invented the notions of potential and actual to harmonize Parmenides (no change) and Hercalitus (all change). — Agent Smith
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.