Right, I wouldn’t presume to instruct you on the matter, I was just trying to answer the question.

A Lewisian price for Anselmian theology? My first reaction would be: if that’s the price, adios to Anselmian theology! But maybe we could talk about this at some future date.

Scott - I think you’re only willing to count as “possible” some state of affairs which is consistent with the history of the world so far - you’re insisting that this is the most relevant kind of possibility. Metaphysicians nowadays assume a Leibnizian method - talking about self-consistent total histories of everything (or in Mike’s case - consistent histories of everything in a particular space-time) - the thought being that each of these is eternally/timelessly and equally within God’s power to actualize. Your view fits better, in my opinion, with God in time, A-theory, “flowing” time.

For those not well read on modal metaphysics - three good starting places: Loux’s Metaphysics, Lowe’s Metaphysics, and two chapters in the Blackwell Guide to Metaphysics.

I can see how all this is a way to say that, I could’ve done otherwise at time T–but to speak about a whole world to explain this non-actualized possibility in our world, this seems a bit baroque to my ears.

Perhaps I am playing the role here of those ignorant churchmen who fought against Copernicus. You possible-world theorists are saying, ‘there are other possible worlds out there’, and I’m saying, ‘nope, our world is actual and it has possibilities-but there are not other worlds with their own possibilities’. But, I’d certainly be happy to say that God could create other worlds than ours, other universes. But to my ears, I’d like a little positive confirmation–a good old demonstration, if you will. But you might say, that sort of proof is not the right sort of proof for defending possible worlds metaphysics. At which point we have an aporia.

It isn’t like these possible worlds get taxation without representation by the King of England. The point is, I’ve never met a person who can actually think an indexical of W9. King George certainly knew about the Colonies and had to deal with them. But we’ve still to meet these W9 creatures … (so yeah; a Lewis-style possible world metaphysics is my target here).

I confess I am not as well read as I ought to be on modal systems, so there could be things out there I just need to read to correct my Aristotelian intuitions.

I wonder if it sticks in Scott’s craw when Mike uses language like this: “It is actual in world w9 that Dale speaks Chinese.” (Obviously, w9 isn’t the actual world.) This, it seems to me, commits one to the reality of (merely) possible worlds - they must be there for anything to be actual at them. This suggests that possible-worlds-talk is more than just talk, more than a way of discussion what could have been but ain’t

No, of course they are real (in the sense that they are not parts of the actual world). On the other hand, I don’t hold that they are fictional. But their being real does not commit anyone to genuine modal realism, or to their having the same ontological status as our world. Plantinga is a realist too. But his view is consistent with saying that possible worlds just are ways the world could have been, but aren’t.

I don’t know what Mike’s views are on the ontology of possible worlds, but Plantinga happily accepts their existence. Indeed, for him, all possible worlds are real in this actual world, although only as non-obtaining states of affairs - as abstract objects.

I don’t know what you mean by ‘real’. But it is true for Plantinga that all possible worlds exist in every world. They exist but, of course, are not actual in every world–that is, they do not obtain in every world. I’m closer to a Lewisian on worlds. I claim that possible objects exist in the same way that actual ones do. I don’t distinguish existence from actual existence. My reasons are mainly that genuine modal realism solves several otherwise intractable problems for Anselmian theists.

Besides, can’t every world be contingent? Suppose God creates n number of worlds, each of which is actual in itself. Can’t each of these be contingent?

then all possibilities are necessarily actual in some world’

but I meant

‘then every possibility is necessarily actual in some world’.

if (i) all possible worlds are ‘real in the Lewisian sense, such that ‘actual’ and ‘possible’ are indexicals that indicate which world for some x, and if (ii) there is a possible world for every possible state of affairs, then all possibilities are necesarily actual in some world. Therefore, all worlds are necessary. Therefore, creation is not contingent.

Sorry, but I can’t make out what your proposal means. But then, I don’t understand Aquinas’ Fourth Way.

Mike and Scott:

I wonder if it sticks in Scott’s craw when Mike uses language like this: “It is actual in world w9 that Dale speaks Chinese.” (Obviously, w9 isn’t the actual world.) This, it seems to me, commits one to the reality of (merely) possible worlds - they must be there for anything to be actual at them. This suggests that possible-worlds-talk is more than just talk, more than a way of discussion what could have been but ain’t. I don’t know what Mike’s views are on the ontology of possible worlds, but Plantinga happily accepts their existence. Indeed, for him, all possible worlds are real in this actual world, although only as non-obtaining states of affairs - as abstract objects.

Scott confesses “Aristotelian” intuitions about modality - I wonder if he’s thinking more along the lines of another theory of modality recently explored by Alexander Pruss?

Mike,

This is a big topic, but my short answer: it’s a bad idea to trust scientists of any sort on the question of broadly logical or metaphysical possibility. The fact that they take a thesis seriously does nothing to dislodge intuitions that something is impossible. I already mentioned one reason for my aversion - the view that any time must be temporally related to all other times.

But to posit that these contingent sets of affairs are contingent/possible in our world, but actual in another world that is inaccessible to us, then that is where I disagree.

If these things are possible, then yes, they are actual in another world. This is more or less why I’ve been the PossP entails PossActP urging for the last few posts.

I do admit that these inferences might break down for Lewis where there are things that exist but are not possible or actual. But this is a different story entirely.

Still, what does ‘actual’ add in the second clause? If I take it out, what do I lose?

Here’s what you might lose. You might not notice that each world is actual at itself, quite independently of whether you happen to be a genuine modal realist. It is sometimes forgotten that, even for realists of the sort Plantinga happens to be, it is true at each world w that w is actual. This does not entail that every world is on an ontological par. Partly, this is because (for Plantinga, and many share his intuitions on this) it is also true that only one world is actual simpliciter and it not true here, at our world, that any other possible world w is actual. Some find it hard to keep in mind that the claims in bold type are consistent with each world being actual at itself. But they are.

_if it is possible that you got out of bed, then it is possibly actual that you got out of bed._

Still, what does ‘actual’ add in the second clause? If I take it out, what do I lose?

My guess is that it has something to do with something like a proximate (= immediate) possibility or remote (=mediate) possibility? Where a ‘proximate possibility’ = ‘possibly actual’; and a ‘remote possibility’ = ‘possibly possible’.

So, my ‘possibly getting out of bed at 7am’ is one that was ‘immediate to me’; but my ‘possibly flying through the sky with a jet pack at 7am’ requires some mediating steps (e.g. the invention of a jet pack, etc.).

So, again, what does ‘possibly ACTUAL’ conceptually add to the second clause?

I see no confusion. I said what is possible is possibly actual. This point is true on any modal metaphysics you like. So, if it is possible that you got out of bed, then it is possibly actual that you got out of bed. There is nothing to be confused about here. I did NOT say if it is possible you get out of bed, then it is actual that you get out of bed or that the possibility that you got out of bed is actualized. These are completely different claims from what I asserted.

This is a basic break down into conceptual confusion, no? It is one thing to say at 10pm, ‘I could have got out of bed at 7am this morning’, it is another to say, ‘my possibility of getting out of bed at 7am this morning is actual’. If we start saying that ‘possible’ just means ‘actual’, then what does it mean to say something is ‘actual’? If we conflate this distinction, then I fear we destroy my ability to pre-philosophically say, ‘I could have gotten out of bed at 7am this morning, but I didn’t; I actually got out of bed at 7am this morning’.

Or, we can just equivocate and use the concept ‘actual’ in different ways.

My guess is that the concern is that there is some sort of ‘objective basis’ in it being true that “I could have gotten out of bed at 7am this morning but I didn’t.” If we want to say this is true, then we need to say the possibility was ‘real or actual’. But we need to indicate ‘the possibility was actual*’, where ‘actual*’ means something different than in the sentence, ‘I actually got out of bed at 8am this morning’.

So long as we keep these distinct meanings/uses for ‘actual’ clear, then we’re on safe(r) footing, I think. Otherwise, what may follow is that God necessarily creates whatever God can create; as a Christian, I disagree with such a claim. And in fact, this motivates me to hurry up and redo the post I had up about the Trinity and the Contingency of Creation…. urghh–nothing motivates like things you disagree with.

But it is true on any modal metaphysics, that what is possible is possbily actual. So all possible worlds are actual at themselves. I don’t know what it could mean to say that a world is not actual at itself.

Ah, ok. Yeah, if we take ‘possible world’ to indicate a contingent set of affairs (on a global scale), then that’s fine with me. But to posit that these contingent sets of affairs are contingent/possible in our world, but actual in another world that is inaccessible to us, then that is where I disagree. I just happen to have an Aristotelian empirical intuition about these things (and along quasi-Scotist lines).

I’m not sure why you’re epistemically averse to multiverses. It is common among cosmologists–those doing cosmology in physics, that is–to take seriously the idea that our world is a multiverse. The question is not whether they are possible, in their discussion, but whether they are actual. The possiblity of multiverses is taken as settled.