Posted by agent858 on March 12, 2006, at 2:56:34
In reply to Re: z... talk to me..., posted by agent858 on March 12, 2006, at 2:45:31
and i might be getting a bit confused with the metaphysical / epistemic distinction.
metaphysical possibility...
the thought is that there are a number (maybe an indefinate number) of different possible worlds.
they are concrete (made of matter).
they are causally and spatiotemporally isolated from our world (which is why we can't see them etc) so our only evidence for them... comes from conceptual analysis (sounds strange to me)
"plurality of worlds" if you are interested...
epistemic possibility...
is supposed to be a description that is not contradictory. a complete description of a world. so... twin earth is just like earth except that the stuff that fills the lakes etc is made of xyz instead of h2o. there seem to be more non-contradictory descriptions (epistemic possibilities) than there are metaphysically possible worlds. so some epistemic possibilities (or described scenarios) seem to map on to worlds... while others do not.
sounds pretty strange huh.
poster:agent858
thread:618106
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20060125/msgs/619212.html