"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. — Fafner

My answer to the question was certainly a tautology, in view of what "actual" means to me.

But of course the asking of a question implies saying, "I don't understand this--Does someone understand it and can someone explain it?" Sure the question was the result of confusiion about the matter--and a request for someone to sort that confusion out.

When you consider our educational system and our media system, etc. it's very understandable that a lot of people haven't heard any introduction to these matters.

For me, it was hearing about Vedanta that led me to my conclusions about these matters. Then I found out that Michael Faraday, Frank Tippler, and Max Tegmark had spoken of the physical world consisting only of structure, inter-relation among hypothetical mathematical and logical facts.. (Then people here mentioned a few modern Western academic philosophers who (if I understood the posts correctly) likewise suggested that metaphysical reality consists of logical facts--a brief summary of what I've been suggesting..)

Anyway, for me, Vedanta was the introduction to the answer to the metaphysical confusion that is so widespread, due to routine mis-education in schools and media..

One Internet article referred to Tegmark's Mathematical universe Hypothesis (MUH) as Ontic Structural Realism. That would make it different from my proposal, because I disagree with Realism. What I'd read by Tegmark seemed to not share my emphasis on an individual story, of a particular Protagonist, with that Protagonist as central and primary to that story...its necessary component..

Also, the existence of those hypothetical facts, logical facts, isn't a "hypothesis". They're there, and couldn't have not been. What's unprovable and un-test-able is the matter of whether that's all there is. A more elaborate metaphysics, with the assumption of an additional unnecessary metaphyisical substance, is possible, and probably not disprovable.

Though what I first read by Tippler sounded much like the basis for my metaphysics, I disagree with Tippler where he said that a computer-simulation could create a world. His statement about that indicates a very different metaphysics from the one that I propose.

Michael Ossipoff
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My contention was that it must be chance — Brayarb

I don't see how that can be right.

If you're an abstractionist, you think the concretists have explained away actuality with a semantic trick: "actual" is just an indexical exactly analogous to "here" and "now." That has the, some would say great, advantage of simplifying a lot of semantics. (Everything is done relative to <world, time, place> triples.) But it gives away actuality. Abstractionists want to get the semantic framework without giving up the more or less pre-philosophical sense of "actual." Or so it seems to me.

If you're holding onto that sense of "actual," then my sense is you want to hold onto the ordinary sense of why one thing happens rather than another, why one state-of-affairs obtains rather than another, and so your explanations are the usual ones. You may explain everything by chance, but you needn't. As an abstractionist, you still look at the actual world however you looked at it before, or at least you will try to. For instance, the world that obtains now includes this post. Whatever explanation you like for that is the explanation for why the world is the way it is.

Talk of possible worlds is just a semantic framework, on my understanding. It is not meant to, expected, or perhaps even capable of settling metaphysical issues. It's only meant to clarify them.

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? — Brayarb

That's just what makes that possibilitty-world the possibility-world that it is.

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. — Brayarb

But the fact that those two possibility-worlds have different states of affairs--isn't that what defines them, and makes them two different possibility-worlds?

The possibility-world to which you refer couldn't have a different state-of-affairs, because, if it did, then it wouldn't be that possibility-world. It would be a different one. Both exist. Infinitely-many exist.

Among the infinity of possibility-worlds, of course there's one with any self-consistent state of affairs.

So I don't find a question there.

Michael Ossipoff

I'm having a little bit of difficulty understanding your response, I think. It seems like I agree with your post, yet you're denying my contention of chance. Why would you say that S1 obtained over S2? Are you saying that that question doesn't really make sense, or would you say that more information is needed to answer it?

I understand what you're saying, I think. You are saying that if S1 obtains at possible world w1, then a world where S2 obtains instead of S1 is obviously not w1, and I agree with this. However, because S1 obtained contingently, nothing about/in w1 necessitated that S1 obtained. Does that make sense? It just so happened that S1 obtained there instead of S2, even though, after S1 obtained, so to speak, we identify that world as w1.

I don't understand. You said:

Nothing about/in w1 necessitated that S1 obtained. — Brayarb

But w1 is just a word for the world in which obtains S1. And S1 is just a word for how it is in w1.

They're the same thing.

It just so happened that S1 obtained there instead of S2 — Brayarb

Isn't it by definition that S1 obtains in w1? Not by chance, but by definition. That's what w1 is.

..., even though, after S1 obtained, so to speak, we identify that world as w1

But of course each possibility-world has always timelesslly been there, as a hypothetical system, each with its special attributes and distinctions, different physical laws and constants, etc.

What is a possibiity-world if not its state of affairs? It's not as if a possibiity-world were some special "space" that could have these or those hypothetical facts.

The system's inter-referring hypothetical logical facts, including various if-thens, don't need to exist in any "medium" or space, or at any place. ...just as they don't need to "be" in any context other than that of eachother, to which they refer.

There are infinitely-many systems like that, and we call them possibility-worlds. Such a system doesn't exist in a possibility-world. It is a possibility-world.

(Maybe systems of inter-referring hypothetical or logical facts that don't include physical laws should still be called "possibility-worlds", as maybe could physical possibility-worlds whose physical laws don't allow for inhabitants. Of course that's just a naming-issue, not a factual issue.)

It seems to me that a (at-first seemingly) harder question is, "Why am I in this[/u] possibility-world?"

I'd say, "Because you and your world are defined in terms of eachother. You're part of this possibility-world. A life-experience story needs a Protagonist, and you must be someone about whom there can be a life-experience possibility-story, and, in particular, someone consistent with the story's other components..

There are some obvious causal relations between your attributes and those of your world. Obviously you're likely to be somewhat like your ancestors, and therefore somewhat like the rest of your species.

If someone knew something about one, he could guess something about the other.

Of course we were all born in the Land of the Lost.

Michael Ossipoff

I pretty much agree with everything you're saying. So, when the abstractionist says that w1 obtains but the others don't, what do you take that to mean, Michael? You might be a concretist and reject it, but do you know what the abstractionist is meaning?

I pretty much agree with everything you're saying. So, when the abstractionist says that w1 obtains but the others don't, what do you take that to mean, Michael? You might be a concretist and reject it, but do you know what the abstractionist is meaning? — Brayarb

I don't know for certain. It sounds as if he's saying what most people believe, and that, like most people, he's taking this physical world's local actual-ness (for us), to mean that it's all that there is.
...to mean that this world has something that none of the others have, because we can stub our toe in it. Isn't that special-ness illusory?

Admittedly the other possibility-worlds don't look very real from our standpoint here.

But why should this possibility be believed to obtain more than the infinitely-many other Possibility-worlds do? Why should it be intrinsically any more real, existent or actual? Aren't they all equally actual for their own inhabitants (...the ones that have inhabitants)?

I like the saying that "the actual world" means "this world".

(Sorry about all the accidental italics at the end of my previous post. I must either carefully check the tags, or else use the Preview option.)

Michael Ossipoff

I've got you. I'm not really sure which position I find more convincing. All that being said, the point of the thread was to assume abstractionism, and so to assume that this possible world obtained instead of all of the others, and to inquire as to what could possibly account for this one obtaining instead of the others.

I have to admit that I wouldn't be able to explain or account for such a thing.

If this physical universe is what its simplest, neatest, most parsimonious explanation suggests, then there must be infinitely-many more like it, with none being more real than the others (except as seen by their inhabitants).

Michael Ossipoff

Why would you say that S1 obtained over S2? Are you saying that that question doesn't really make sense, or would you say that more information is needed to answer it? — Brayarb

I don't understand why you assume there would be a general answer to that.

The concretists give something that counts as a general answer, but only by definition.

I guess I don't see why one wouldn't say it was just by chance. But that's why I started the thread, because I wasn't sure.

Well, the concretist would say all possible worlds obtain, and so S1 obtains in at least one and S2 obtains in at least one other. So the question of 'why does one possible world (or state of affairs) obtain instead of the other possible ones' wouldn't really apply to a concretist. Unless I'm misunderstanding you.

I guess I don't see why one wouldn't say it was just by chance. — Brayarb

We're talking about semantics, so S1 is distinguished from S2 by some proposition P being true in S1 and false in S2, something like that. What make P true is what makes S1 obtain. I guess.

This is all easier for concretists because truth is just satisfaction -- possible worlds are just maximal models. I guess the abstractionist needs a metaphysical account of truth -- truth-makers, that sort of thing. (Again, really not my area, so I could be way wrong.)

Yea, I've got you. I'm not too knowledgeable in that area either, so we can leave it there. Thanks for your input.

I'll know more soon, as I expect you will too. We'll talk again in a month.

I guess I don't see why one wouldn't say it was just by chance. — Brayarb

Why couldn't world-x be actual because I made it so (as opposed to by accident)?

Well the idea is that if world-X obtained (or was actual in the way that the abstractionist uses the term) contingently, then your making it so would also be contingent. In other words, when you get to the root of why one possible state of affairs obtained over the others, you should arrive at chance (one just obtained over the others and there wasn't anything that necessitated that that be the case).

What about free choice? Can't that necessitate one possible state of affairs over another?

Well the idea is that if world-X obtained (or was actual in the way that the abstractionist uses the term) contingently, then your making it so would also be contingent. In other words, when you get to the root of why one possible state of affairs obtained over the others, you should arrive at chance (one just obtained over the others and there wasn't anything that necessitated that that be the case). — Brayarb

World-x would still be actual by my choice and not by chance.

Yes, I'd say a choice could necessitate a state of affairs to obtain, but, again, if the state of affairs contingently obtained, then so did the choice. So, at some point, as we get to the root, we should arrive at chance.

Yea. The way I put it is that world-X ultimatelyobtained by chance. As I just mentioned to MU, if we trace back to the root, we should arrive at chance, IFF the state of affairs obtained contingently.

Why would we not arrive at a free will choice made by God, at the root, instead of chance?

I think that that is just what contingency entails. It seems that if God has a free (in the libertarian sense) choice, then we have something like the following two possible states of affairs, for instance: 'God choosing X' and 'God choosing -X.' Let's say that 'God choosing X' obtained. Since it obtained contingently, 'God choosing -X' could've obtained but simply failed to, by chance, I would say.

The way I put it is that world-X ultimatelyobtained by chance. As I just mentioned to MU, if we trace back to the root, we should arrive at chance, IFF the state of affairs obtained contingently. — Brayarb

I'm guessing that by "root" and "ultimate" you're talking about the origin point of a causal chain, which would have to be an uncaused event, right?

Since by chance modifies a cause, and the root is uncaused, I don't think it's appropriate to call it "chance." Are you familiar with Aristotle on this kind of issue?

I think that that is just what contingency entails. It seems that if God has a free (in the libertarian sense) choice, then we have something like the following two possible states of affairs, for instance: 'God choosing X' and 'God choosing -X.' Let's say that 'God choosing X' obtained. Since it obtained contingently, 'God choosing -X' could've obtained but simply failed to, by chance, I would say. — Brayarb

If God's free will choice is describable as a chance occurrence, then aren't all free will choices chance occurrences? Doesn't that misrepresent what a free will choice actually is?

I think we may be employing chance differently here. I'm not really suggesting that chance modifies a cause, as if chance was something doing this or that. Chance would almost be like a space in the sense that a cause is just inherently capable of causing this or that. That is, I wouldn't say, as you point out, that chance is something impacting/changing on uncaused cause; instead, chance is just an opening/capability/space that allows for alternate outcomes.

I know that explanation is rough and probably doesn't employ terminology that professional philosophers would use, but I'm just trying to convey what I'm meaning by chance.

Yes, chance would be present in any libertarian free choice. I don't think it misrepresents a free will choice. Libertarian free choices are contingent, so it's just a categorical thing in that way. If there was no chance/contingency involved, then the choices would be necessitated.

chance is just an opening/capability/space that allows for alternate outcomes — Brayarb

Maybe you could expand on why you think in terms of this opening. If the abstractionist deems the actual world to be one of many that could have existed, then why do we need another word for it? All the propositions about the state of the actual world are contingently true. Right?

I would suspect that there might be some propositions about the state of the actual world that are necessarily true, no? I suspect most theists would say that God existing (or 'God exists') is necessarily true, for example. But, I think most people would probably say there is no shortage of contingent truths.

Well, I don't really see it or use it as another word for contingency. I generally say that contingency entails chance, so they're closely related, but I don't use the terms interchangeably, usually.

Well, I don't really see it or use it as another word for contingency. I generally say that contingency entails chance, so they're closely related, but I don't use the terms interchangeably, usually. — Brayarb

OK. Just note that your usage of "chance" is idiosyncratic, and it's not at all clear how you're using the term. You're laying the groundwork for equivocation.