Thursday, April 30, 2009

Possible worlds exist – they are just as real as our world

Modal realism is the view, notably propounded by David Lewis, that all possible worlds are as real as the actual world. It is based on the following tenets: possible worlds exist; possible worlds are not different in kind from the actual world; possible worlds are irreducible entities; the term actual in actual world is indexical

Main tenets of modal realism

At the heart of David Lewis's modal realism are six central doctrines about possible worlds:

  1. Possible worlds exist – they are just as real as our world;
  2. Possible worlds are the same sort of things as our world – they differ in content, not in kind;
  3. Possible worlds cannot be reduced to something more basic – they are irreducible entities in their own right.
  4. Actuality is indexical. When we distinguish our world from other possible worlds by claiming that it alone is actual, we mean only that it is our world.
  5. Possible worlds are unified by the spatiotemporal interrelations of their parts; every world is spatiotemporally isolated from every other world.
  6. Possible worlds are causally isolated from each other.

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