Possible Worlds (Again)

Possible Worlds (Again)

There are many worlds: the human world, the chimp world, the dance world, the philosophical world, etc. We can quantify over them.[1] There are also possible such worlds, such as non-actual human worlds or Martian dance worlds. There is the actual human world and various possible human worlds, e.g., worlds in which physics developed earlier or later than it actually did; and there could be Martians who love to dance. But are there any whole worlds—the actual whole world, or various possible whole worlds? Can we quantify over them? We can form the phrase, but does it denote anything—do we denote anything by it? There are planets, galaxies, cultures, and countries—but are there such things as entire worlds? What would they include—do they include fictional objects? Are they mental or physical or both? Are they themselves fictional? How many are there? I include the so-called actual world here: does it really exist? What kind of thing is it? If another world is just like it except in some minute respect, is that a different world, or the actual world differing slightly? If the actual world is a concrete particular of some sort, how can it lose its identity by changing in some tiny contingent respect? Can there be two worlds that are qualitatively the same and yet numerically different? Are such worlds in space and time? Are they sets of facts? If so, they are not concrete particulars. Are they fictions, like unicorns, whose identity conditions are ill-defined? Possibilities are real enough, but possible (entire) worlds? It isn’t that the actual world exists, but merely possible worlds don’t; the actual world doesn’t exist either (like Meinong’s objects). The phrase is a piece of runaway philosophical language rooted in the perfectly acceptable phrase “the human world” and the like. The phrase only seems to have meaning because we already believe in possible worlds, but it has no meaning outside of that context. It is a term of art not a piece of ordinary language; we need to be told what it signifies. It trips off the tongue, but is it a trip into Wonderland? What would Alice say? Is the actual world like the Cheshire cat?[2]

Logically, the situation is like the concept of God. People used to believe in many gods with one of them placed at the top of the pile. But how well defined is the concept—does it allow for counting? Isn’t it really derived from the concept of ordinary human beings but stripped of what gives that concept sense? This is why we have such trouble answering the question of whether two tribes worship the same god. What is the criterion of identity for gods? Is there a determinate number of gods independent of language and thought? Are there ever twin gods existing outside of space? Then what individuates them?  Suppose I said that there is one actual god but many other similar possible gods: would those other gods really not be the original god with different attributes? It would be different if anyone had ever seen a possible world, but no one has. Is it true that I see and touch the actual world? I can see and touch a part of it perhaps, but can I be said to see an entire possible world if that world is actual? If I cannot, the reason isn’t that it’s too large, but that it isn’t an existing object at all. The concept of a whole world, actual or possible, is deeply problematic, not to say nonsensical. This is one of those rare cases in which a philosophical theory literally doesn’t make any sense—which is not to say it has no heuristic uses. But we must not elevate these uses into robust ontology.[3]

[1] For background see my “Against Possible Worlds” and “Counting Worlds”. Also: Logical Properties, chapter 4, and other works of mine on necessity.

[2] Was Davd Lewis a clever mad hatter? Was Saul Kripke an ingenious sorcerer?

[3] In this short paper I am trying to pithily recover a sense of absurdity about a putative concept we have been brainwashed into accepting. We know how to talk the possible worlds talk, but do we know what it means? Isn’t it a rampant case of hypostatization? The whole idea apparently began in the seventeenth century with Leibniz, possibly prompted by discoveries of foreign lands. Does it have a solid foundation? One wants to say bunkum and skip all the scholasticism. It isn’t so much the incredulous stare as the outraged eyebrow-raise. What the devil are you talking about—literally?! That is the honest reaction.