🚀 go-pugleaf

holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes) writes:
>|> No, my view is that there is only one universe, and this includes all
>|> of the "possible worlds", _all_ of which are actual.  I am a possible

and sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill) replies:
>But certainly there *is* a distinguished world (which we normally refer
>to as the "actual" one).  You may say that *all* of the possible worlds
>are actual (or real, or whatever), but if you wish to retain a distinction
>between what *is* and what *might be*, then *some* distinction must be
>made.  No?  If not, I don't see how to distinguish between fact and fiction.

Imagine I live in a suburban neighborhood containing lots of nearly
indistinguishable houses (in fact, to avoid being able to say "the house
at the northwest corner," let's suppose this suburb extends infinitely
in at least one dimension.  God, how depressing!)  I can still refer to
"the house," and everyone who hears me will understand that I mean
"the one I'm in."  If somebody else, living in a different house, says
"the house", she means the one's SHE's in.  The statement "A cat lives
in the house" may be fact in one and fiction in another.

This entire "neighborhood" of possible physical worlds is a subset of
The Logical Universe (comprising "things that could be").

Of course, I could be wrong :-)
-- 
					Stephen Bloch
				sbloch@silver.cs.umanitoba.ca