Possibilities only apply to choices we make moving forward in duration (real time). The past is memory which is changing as we apply choices. It is a cohesive, indivisible whole. The world we live in is the result of all choices being made.

What accounts for this possible world being actual instead of one of the others? That is, why is this particular possible world concrete, as opposed to one of the other possible worlds? Is it just by chance? — Brayarb

There's a good reason why this, our own, possibility-world is the one that is actual for usl, and why the others are not actual for us.:

It's because we're part of this possility-world. This possibility-world is the setting for our hypothetical life-experience possibility-stories. That's why this possibility world is actual, for us.

There's intrinsically, inherently, no reason for our possibility-world to be more actual, real, or existent than the other ones. Any claim otherwise would be pre-Copernican.

But, for us, ours is actual because it's the one that we're part of. ...because it's the setting for our life-experience possibility-stories.

Michael Ossipoff

Under multi-verse conceptions of the universe, that ours is one of many that are, have been, and will be, chance seems to be the answer. And to be sure, we're creatures of this one, which gives us a point of view that's skewed only insofar as we think we're more special than the circumstance allows.

You could additionally ask:

"But why am I in this possibility-world? In fact, why am I me, this particular person? Is that by chance?"

A life-experience possibility-story has a Protagonist. Otherwise it wouldn't be a life-experience story. There are, of course, infinitely-many life-experience possibility-stories, and this particular story has you as its Protagonist.

Asking why you're that particular person implies an assumption that you're also something other than just the person, the body. But there's no evidence to support such an assumption. So, because you're nothing other than your body, then of course you're the person that you are, because that's the only "you" that there is.

Why should any of this be so at all? Because (as I've been saying in other topics), it couldn't have been otherwise, because the systems (of which our possibility-world is one) of inter-referring hypothetical facts, including physical-laws, which are hypothetical facts about hypothetical quantity-values (which can be regarded as part of those facs), and various if-then facts regarding those values, laws, and their consequences, and various other abstract hypothetical facts, such as mathematical theorems and abstract logical facts such as syllogisms and truth-tables, etc.

There couldn't have not been those things, for the reason that i've been saying in other topics: Their relevance and meaning is, and need be, only among eachother, in reference to eachother. I don't claim that any of this exists, or is real in any other context, nor need it be.

It's real in the context of your life, and that's good enough.

Michael Ossipoff

Why is there this multiverse?

Michael Osspoff

Why is there this multiverse? — Michael Ossipoff

Perhaps because if everything is possible then it must exist. Once its apparent existential arbitrariness has been thus removed, it is a simple step to accept that someone might inhabit it.

"Why is there this multiverse?" — Michael Ossipoff


Perhaps because if everything is possible then it must exist. Once its apparent existential arbitrariness has been thus removed, it is a simple step to accept that someone might inhabit it. — Jake Tarragon

...along with everything else that could conceivably exixt. So Reality doesn't consist of this multiverse, if it's just one of infinitely-many possibility-worlds..

There could be various multiverses, as different possibility-worlds. But some claim that there might be just one infinite, eternal multiverse that includes every conceivable universe as a subuniverse. So, according to that hypothesis, there'd be only one possibility-world, that infinite, eternal multiverse.. I've answered that latter suggestion by saying that that would be something for physics to someday determine or decide, if it's possible for physics to ever do so.I've suggested that it's pointless to propose the possibility until such time as physics gives some support to it.

In any case, it wouldn't importantly matter. It would just be a matter of whether there's one, or infinitely-many, possibility-worlds.Nothing would be different other than that number.

Your suggestion might be consistent with, and not substantively in disagreement with Skepticism, the metaphysics that I've proposed here. I don't know.

The "possibility" of one or many material multiverses seems to call for a bit of explanation.

I'm suggesting that the possibility-worlds exist because hypothetical abstract facts, and separate self-contained inter-referring systems of them, undeniably exist.

Obvious and undeniable.

The material multiverse or multiverses that are there because there could be matter--That seems to be asking for a bit more from possibility, making possibility a bit more complicated, extending it unnecessarily to more arbitrary possibilities.

You'd be asking infinite possibility for the possibility of a different metaphysical substance, as opposed to just if-then relations among abstract hypothetical facts.

Sure, if everything is possible. But what if it isn't necessary to suppose that different metaphysical substance (matter)?

So, if your theory differs from Skepticism, doesn't it seem more, and unnecessarily, complicated?

Michael Osspoff

Perhaps because if everything is possible then it must exist. — Jake Tarragon

That conflicts with the meaning of possible. If it must exist, it is necessary, not just possible.

I am reviewing my prior thread since this came up a lot. Studying up on my modal logic since the field seems indispensable for these sorts of questions.

As to chance and why this world:
The question should be viewed in objective terms. So no "why is this world actual?", but "what would be the experience of something actual in this world?" It seems that the experience would be that of a world where experience is possible. No surprise that we're in such an improbable one then.

Perhaps because if everything is possible then it must exist. — Jake Tarragon

↪Jake Tarragon
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I noticed your other posting, at a another topic. I don’t know which was posted first, but this was the first one that I saw, and so I’ll reply to this one now, at least partly, and then reply to the other one tomorrow (Friday, July 14) morning.
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I’d asked:
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"Why is there this multiverse?" — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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Perhaps because if everything is possible then it must exist.

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That answer isn’t so easy to answer.
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My first try is:

That posits an additional metaphysical substance--matter, and the rest of what makes up an independently existing, fundamentally-existent, metaphysically-primary physical world, such that it's what reality consists of.

One convincing interpretation of Ockham's Principle of Parsimony is that the metaphysics that posits fewer metaphysical substances is the winner of a comparison between two metaphysicses.

And in each of those domains of Possibility where Physicalism (or some other metaphysics having various several metaphysical substances) obtains, those other metaphysicses need assumptions and posit brute-facts. The idea of everything possible being somwhere in Possibility--would that mean
unparsimony in much of Possibility?

Wouldn't it be unparsimonious, even for infinite Possibility, itself, for it to include more metaphysical substances than necessary? .
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My 2nd try is these other suggestions:

(It's late, so this might not be as well-organized as it could be)
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So you’re suggesting that all of the not-self-contradictory metaphysicses obtain, in different domains of Possibility. But, if Physicalism and Skepticism are indistinguishable to us, and if therefore no metaphysics can be proved, then which one would we say it is, in any possibility-world? The one that needs an additional metaphysical substance—matter, and the rest of the fundamentally existent, metaphyisically-primary physical world, such that reality consists of it? …or the one that only needs hypothetical abstract facts, and doesn’t need any assumptions or brute-facts.
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So wouldn’t Skepticism trump Physicalism in any and every possibility-world? Especially since they’re indistinguishable, and it’s just a matter of comparing their merits?
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I don’t know about the suggestion of all of the not-self-contradictory metaphysicses each obtaining in some subset of Possibility.
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If there are some in which there’s the additional metaphysical substance of “stuff”, then is there one with phlogiston, and one with ectoplasm? …one in which Harry Potter magic occurs?
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Having, in some domain of Possibility, possibility-worlds in which there’s an additional metaphysical substance, seems to open the door to all sorts of other metaphysical substances in worlds throughout Possibility.
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Those are my first answers about that.
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I’ll reply to your other post, in the other topic tomorrow (Friday, July 14) morning
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Michael Ossipoff

What accounts for this possible world being actual instead of one of the others? That is, why is this particular possible world concrete, as opposed to one of the other possible worlds? Is it just by chance? — Brayarb

I don't even know what it would mean for one possible world to be "concrete" and another "abstract".

You could additionally ask:

"But why am I in this possibility-world? In fact, why am I me, this particular person? Is that by chance?" — Michael Ossipoff

It's like asking why number two is number two and not number three. What would it even mean?

I'd said:

You could additionally ask:

"But why am I in this possibility-world? In fact, why am I me, this particular person? Is that by chance?" — Michael Ossipoff

You asked:

It's like asking why number two is number two and not number three.

Yes.

You're referring to the 2nd part of the question. Someone had, in fact, asked that same question, in bot of its parts, in one of these topic recently.

You quoted the 2nd question, but not my answer. My answer was really saying the same thing as your answer.

What would it even mean?

It would mean that the asker regarded himself as other than the person and the body.

Michael Ossipoff

Because (to paraphrase Sidney Morgenbesser), even if our world weren't the actual world, you'd still be complaining.

(what I mean is that the question doesn't make sense)

↪Brayarb
Because (to paraphrase Sidney Morgenbesser), even if our world weren't the actual world, you'd still be complaining.

(what I mean is that the question doesn't make sense) — Fafner

Question: Why is there something instead of nothing?

Answer: If there were nothing, you'd still be complaining.

Of course that isn't an answer, and the question isn't nonsense.

(But it's been answered here.)

But it's a good joke. Thanks for sharing it.

Michael Ossipoff

But there is a sense in which a sentence such as "this world is the actual world" expresses a tautology, since you would be saying something true by that sentence no matter what world you are in.

And yes I know, "this world" is an idexical expression, and perhaps it could be used to pick out just one unique world, but it is not clear to me how exactly you are supposed to do that.

I think the point of the question -- which I'm not competent to answer, so I haven't -- is that "actual" is an indexical to concretists like Lewis, but not for abstractionists. I don't know what they say about the OP's questions.

What accounts for this possible world being actual instead of one of the others? That is, why is this particular possible world concrete, as opposed to one of the other possible worlds? Is it just by chance? — Brayarb

Well...

There's no reason to think other possible worlds don't exist. It's like travelling in a car to work. You being you and the car being your world. It'd be a constricted view indeed if you thought yours was the only car on the road. There'll be others travelling by car, bus, taxi, or even walking. Likewise other possible worlds may be as real and concrete as this in which we live. We're just not in it.

As I mentioned in the OP, I'm asking for what the answer would be IF the abstractionists' position was to be correct. I figure that it has to be chance, which is entailed by contingency, but I was checking to see if I'd failed to consider or understand something.

What accounts for this possible world being actual instead of one of the others? — Brayarb

I believe this is an incorrect assumption. All the possible worlds are possible. There is nothing to distinguish one from the others as the actual world, because this would render others as impossible. If you choose to name one of the possible worlds the "actual" world, this is just a random choice, and it means nothing other than that you decided to call this possible world by that name.

Not one abstractionist in this community, huh? Feels like no one is even willing to wear the hat.

I just don't know enough really, but my sense from skimming through SEP was that the answer might be immanent to the actual world. That is, concretists say the world is this one of many in exactly the sense that it's the one I happen to be in; abstractionists say this world is the way it is because of what happens to have happened in this one, i.e., because a particular possible states-of-affairs has been realized.

If it would be legitimate to define a possible state-of-affairs as "everything going on exactly as it is, except I accidentally end this sentence I'm writing with a comma instead of period," then by the time I finish we'll know which possible state-of-affairs has been realized. Now we do. As it happens, I chose to do that, but who knows what might have happened by the time I got there. (Another thing I don't know is whether that's even a legitimate world definition to an abstractionist.)

Does that sound at all right? I'm guessing you know more about this than I do.

That conflicts with the meaning of possible. If it must exist, it is necessary, not just possible. — noAxioms

All possibilities are necessary :)

As I mentioned in the OP, I'm asking for what the answer would be IF the abstractionists' position was to be correct. I figure that it has to be chance, which is entailed by contingency, but I was checking to see if I'd failed to consider or understand something. — Brayarb

What do you mean by chance? Is it any different than contingency?

Yea, I think we're on the same page. All my knowledge of this pretty much comes from the SEP Possible Worlds entry as well. After thinking about it and seeing the responses, I may have been better off coming at this from a states of affairs angle (e.g., ultimately, why did this possible state of affairs obtain instead of some other possible one), as it might be less likely to prompt an answer that both obtained, just at different worlds.

Although, as I said, I think contingency entails chance, as I'm using the word, I think I can make a distinction between the two. I employ "chance" when a matter is settled by nothing (I.e., when a matter is settled, but it is not settled by anything at all). So, if a contingent state of affairs obtained and we look at why, we should always arrive, if not immediately, then ultimately, at an instance of the matter being settled by chance (settling one way or another with nothing to point to explain why this instead of that).

That's probably the best I can do in illustrating how I'm using the term.

Michael Ossipoff
But there is a sense in which a sentence such as "this world is the actual world" expresses a tautology, since you would be saying something true by that sentence no matter what world you are in. — Fafner

,.

Yes, you could explicitly define "the actual world" as "this particular possibility-world." In fact, how I mean "actual" when I say that this world is actual to us because we're in it. And so that is a tautology when I say it.

But though that's maybe the most useful metaphysical definition of "actual" maybe it's misleading, because doesn't it, by the sound of it, encourage people to believe that this possibility-world is inherently, intrinsically the different from, and special from, all the others--the only real one?

I expect that most people, including all the Physicalists ("Naturalists") believe that this physical world is the only "actual" world, by some meaning of "actual"that they don't clarify very well.. Well, Physicalism is sometimes defined as the belief that reality consists only of this physical universe. I've noticed that Physicalists tend to use Reality to mean "this physical universe".

By the way, what is an Abstractionist? Looking it up, in dictionaries and online, the only definition that I could find was "Someone who produces abstract art".

Well, one Internet source said that "Abstractionist" can mean "Idealist". Is "Abstractionist" another word for "metaphysical Idealist"? If so, wouldn't it be better to just use the more familiar and widely used word, "Idealist"?

Anyway, as I was saying before, any suggestion that this possibility world is intrinsically, inherently, more "actual", real, or existent than all the infinitely-many other ones, would be pre-Copernican.

I don't argue with people who say that their desk and chair are "actual", and the other possibility-worlds aren't--because I take "actual (to us) world" to mean "this world". But obviously the other possibility worlds are "actual" too, for their inhabitants. (referring to the ones that have inhabitants).

Michael Ossipoff

There is a section on abstractionism in the "Possible Worlds" entry on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) website.

OK, that makes sense.

Yes, you could explicitly define "the actual world" as "this particular possibility-world." In fact, how I mean "actual" when I say that this world is actual to us because we're in it. And so that is a tautology when I say it. — Michael Ossipoff

So if it is a tautology, then there's nothing to explain, and that means that OP's question is confused.

The question is not confused, you're just not approaching it from the abstractionist position, which is what I've asked for in the OP.

Maybe try this: take the world that we're at (or any one of the possible worlds, for that matter). Let's say that a certain state of affairs S1 obtains contingently in that world. Now, for the sake of simplicity, let's say that if S1 had failed to obtain, then, necessarily, S2 would've obtained (which means there is a close possible world where S2 did obtain). That is to say that one or the other necessarily obtained in the particular world, but which obtained was contingent. Essentially I'm asking in the OP and here: what settled the matter that S1 obtained in this particular world instead of S2 when S2 was a state of affairs that this world could've included (was compatible with up until S1 obtained), alternatively? So far, you're answering by saying something akin to "because S1 is what obtains in the particular world we're discussing," but that's not the answer to the question. That fact is already imbedded in the question. To elaborate, let's say that S3 obtains necessarily (there is no possible world in which S3 doesn't obtain). If I asked you "why does S3 obtain in this world," you wouldn't and shouldn't answer with "because S3 obtains in that world." That's already established. You should instead answer by saying "because S3 necessarily obtains" or "because S3 can't fail to obtain."

Now, back to where S1 obtains contingently instead of S2, I'm asking why S1 obtained over S2. Unlike the answer to the question I asked when S3 necessarily obtained, it would be strange to say that "S1 obtained in this world because it contingently obtains" or "S1 obtained in this world because it could've obtained." But that is all that contingency implies. So what settled the matter in the way that necessity settles that S3 obtains? My contention was that it must be chance as far as I can tell, which, as I mentioned to SophistiCat, just means that it just settled this way instead of that and there's nothing to point to that could account for why.