From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org] Sent: Monday, July 29, 2002 9:23 PM To: Alt.Atheism.Moderated Subject: Re: Science & atheism are cultures. "Jesse Nowells" wrote: > > the lexemes 'actuality' and 'possibility' are lexicographically > > equivalent for other worlds, because no speaker of English is able to > > identify a difference between them. > > That in itself doesn't confer any reality to other worlds. If you think that I'm claiming that there is some sense of "reality" -- other than mere possibility -- that I "confer" to other worlds, then you simply haven't been paying attention. > that other worlds could exist in ways other than what existence > means for the actual world it doesn't make it necessarily the case that > such worlds do in fact exist. In this sentence, the word 'exist' either 1) has a definition (other than mere possibility) for other worlds, or 2) it doesn't. If (1), then you should be able to state such a definition. You have repeatedly shown that you are incapable of doing so. If (2), then you may as well have said "that other worlds could fleem in ways other than what existence means for the actual world doesn't make it necessarily the case that such worlds do in fact fleem". If you're going to argue that other worlds could fleem, I'm not going to argue that they in fact could not fleem; rather, I'm just going to point out that you literally don't know what you're talking about -- i.e., you're using a word for which (in this context) you have no definition. > > You are incorrectly assuming that 'actuality' for universes has some > > well-defined criteria and that I'm just relying on the fact that we > > don't or can't know whether a given other universe satisfies those > > criteria. That's not my position at all. Rather, I'm saying that no > > such criteria have been identified. > > Presuming that other universes may exist by other criteria [..] I presume no such thing. Can't you read? You apparently have no inkling what I meant when I wrote: You are incorrectly assuming that 'actuality' for universes has some well-defined criteria and that I'm just relying on the fact that we don't or can't know whether a given other universe satisfies those criteria. > claiming an equivalence between such worlds' actuality & possibility > is an argument from ignorance. You apparently cannot read. I explicitly said that I'm not relying on our ignorance about whether other universes satisfy the criteria of 'existing'. Rather, I'm saying that no such criteria have been identified. I can cut and paste this argument as many times as you can ignore it. > > You still show utterly no sign of even beginning to grasp the distinction > > I'm making here. I just paraphrased your argument; I defy you to try > > to paraphrase mine. I don't think you can. > > The distinction being made is trivial & irrelevant. In the absence of even the faintest sign that you comprehend the distinction in question, your opinions about it aren't worth very much. > how does the premise, if it's even necessarily true for English, > apply to other languages? Concepts are language-independent. If any language had a non-question- begging definition of existence for other universes, it could easily be translated into English. > The syn.(s) for actual are "geniuine", "authentic", "veritable". Again, these are excluder predicates. As I told you before: What you're probably trying to do is define 'existent' as an "excluder" predicate that means not fictional, not illusory, not mind-dependent, etc. The problem with this approach is that it's incomplete: it doesn't say precisely what it means for something -- especially something like a universe -- to come into existence. Before a universe X comes into existence, it could be the case that none of the excluding properties (fictional, illusory, mind-dependent, etc.) actually applied to it. The only excluding property one could say must have applied is that of "not more than possible", but that simply begs the question of what is the difference for universes between existent and merely possible. -- brian@holtz.org http://humanknowledge.net