“Another Earth” and the Humphrey Objection, Modal Realism Part 2 – Philosophy Tube

Model realism seems rather stupid. To claim that all model statements are correct in other worlds is bordering on defamation

Hi just found this video. Very good explanation. Would you explain Extended modal realism?

You point out in the comment response to Beau W that the statement "I could have travelled to another possible world" is not just false, but necessarily false, due to contradicting the definition of "possible world". But I posit that ALL false modal statements are necessarily false–and for that matter, all true modal statements are necessarily true! After all, there is nothing about the statement in question that refers to the actual world, specifically–its truth requires the existence of a possible world where the statement the modal has scope over is true, and that world's existence is entirely independent of what world the statement is being made in.

Of course, statements that contain both modal and non-modal elements are not included in my assertion that all modal truth values are necessarily what they are. The statement "I could have been born with blue eyes" is necessarily true, but the statement "I was not born with blue eyes, but I could have been" is contingently true. Counterfactual statements like the former example are often interpreted as implying statements equivalent to the latter example.

I think the argument against the Humphrey Objection fails because the two Earths are part of the same possible world.

One of the most under-rated movies ever.

We cannot know if possible worlds which are totally isolated exists, by the definition of them being totally isolated.
But there are some worlds which are not totally isolated, but partially, and we know that exists because we actually interact with them or just observe them, because there a specific way that some interactions are possible:
Computer worlds: Virtual reality worlds, like games and 3D scenarios, the game of life, etc.
Non computer worlds: The mind itself!

It seems simpler to me to say that modal statements just… aren't true. If you were to flip a coin and get tails, then claim that it could have been heads, well… "could have been" statements about the past can't be true, because they don't have truthmakers. If you were to say that a coin you are about to flip might be heads or tails, then I would argue that that statement is neither true nor false. Once you make the flip, the statement becomes false because it didn't land on one of those two sides, barring edge cases like it landing on its side, getting hit by a bullet or snatched by a bird before landing, or turning into a snail and crawling away, and therefore that particular flip could not have been either heads or tails. It was determined by how you flipped it, the conditions around you at the time, what side was up immediately before the flip… whatever the case, that specific flip could only have been one of those two possibilities, if either of them. But most of that was just waffle; TLDR, the question is wrong.

I'm arguing that the question, "do these parallel worlds exist" is based on the assumption that modal statements are true, which hasn't been conclusively proven to me. Occam's Razor would suggest that "possible worlds exist with a number of discrete qualifiers, thus making modal statements true" is more complex than "modal statements are not true," to me at least.

I think you are an ape making a bunch of funny noises with your mouth/throat parts. And you ascribe some of those grunts a true grunt or a false grunt. I think that all of these grunts are equally grunt. Modality problems solved.

Sarcasm aside, the Wittgenstein objection which I think holds a lot of water here would be that all of this talk and ascribing of True or False values to statements is just a game we're playing with language where some of the rules that we wrote for the game suddenly don't make sense on this board. He would probably find the idea that we're theorizing the real, independent existence of other gameboards we can't see making certain moves valid is a bunch of silly nonsense (and would probably not be able to articulate this very well, poor Ludwig).

Most arguments go along these lines: "if p then q, p, therefore q QED" Why can't we just say that modal statements exist outside of bounds and that if we want to play there we have to write new laws, like make a new Truth-value called Moot. In that case we could just make arguments like "given p and !q, if !p then q ¯_(ツ)_/¯" the only logically valid statement to make after given p and !q is "if !p then q or !q" but this a form of mootility rather than validity. MOOOOOOOOOOO

HURRAH! for the discussion of "abstract" of title! What does abstract mean in a real estate transaction?

While admiring the boldness of Lewis, it all seems like smoke and mirrors.  Its alleged explanatory value relies on the idea that we can make sense of a counterfactual which begins, "If everything were exactly the same except (this one thing), then such-and-such would be the case."  If Lincoln had not been shot at Ford's Theatre, but everything else were unchanged, then…  Then what?  He was carried across the street with a hole in his head anyway?  Oh, no of course not; he did not have a gunshot wound.  So no wound, but he died anyway?  No, of course not.  No death, but they buried him anyway?  And so on, without end.  I see no problem with positing similar situations as heuristic devices, or whatever, but they can be taken to have the same status as abstract objects, like theories or models, without any loss of value; i.e. I see nothing gained by positing concrete realism in the way Lewis does.

Not a counter argument because as far as I'm concerned modal realism is ultimately pointing out the fact that this situation isn't possible and will never happen, ever ever ever.

'Counterpart' vs 'really me' sounds like a lot of semantics to me!

thank you!
please do a video on lewis M.R. snd kant's cpr! lewis a continuation or variation on a theme?

I like to think about probability as if it were just another dimension. It helps to think that way when dealing with quantum properties of the particles, for example. Probability definitely is much more "real" and "physical" than we intuitively think, so possible worlds theory is a natural extension of this train of thought. So, when we say "the chair might have been in the corner of the room", all we're saying is that the chair is in that corner, just shifted in the probability field somewhat, and we can make a mental model of that shift to talk about it. And it is the same chair, too, not a copy of it, the actual chair is a probabilistic blur of space and time coordinates. It opens lots of cool sci-fi daydreaming opportunities!

I think that both the Humphrey objection and the argument against it are invalid as they rely on people's feelings which depend on the person

oke so in the view of a modal realist what are movies or any form of stories really ?
Are story's just really elaborate modal statements ?
And if that's the case, if lets say Frank Herbert's dune is actually the description of a world and a set of events in said world that actually exists in the exact way as depicted on a possible world, then what is a book?
Is it a portal to that reality or is it the means trough which the reality is created?
In other words are these possible worlds invented or discovered?
Are they just as real before we come across the modal statement describing them as they are afterwards ?
And how does all this affect the isolation of possible worlds from our own ?
Those are a lot of questions sorry about that.

Aren't modal statements a product of language? A tool to make imaginary scenarios seem real? I could have been born ginger is then true, because it is a conclusion of underlying assumptions that are true.

A There are humans that are born ginger – true (differently phrased: It is not impossible for a born human to be ginger)
B I am human – true
C I could have been born ginger. – true

A and B are true so C is true. However A and B are common knowledge, we don't have to mention it every time to others. Therefore it is more efficient to just say C. A and B are implied in the statement.

However to say all these things takes time, therefore we invented words like might have and could have to improve efficient communication. Therefore, in order to break down whether a modal statement is true depends on the implied underlying assumptions which both the communicator and the receiver already understand.

Your videos are good. By the way, i think you conflate "modal statements" with "counterfactuals" in this video. i dont know if there is any material difference, but lewis discusses them separately.

Philosophical crit:
You say, in both this video the previous one, that counterfactual statements aren't about how this world is; they are about how this world isn't. I beg to differ. I think that is a simple mistake. However, the statement "If I had dropped an elephant on my desk, it would have broken" is about the way this world is. The reason that we make conterfactual statements and reason conditionally is to help us with decission making here in this (actual) world.

(dont know where these thoughts are going… btw im a modal fictionalist)

So if we assume that modal realism is legitimate, and that the infinite possibility of modal statements suggests the infinite possibility of other earths, is there an earth on which modal realism is false? And would that not be an inherent contradiction in the theory?

So basically you are saying that you believe there exists an infinite amount of counterpart earths that physically exist without appealing to the multiverse theory because of an emotional decision made by a fictional character? Look if you are saying that you may have been ginger but ginger you is not really you, then you cannot say that you were born ginger. Ginger you was, different person. Possible worlds are epistemic. Simple.

Olly — I have usually enjoyed your philosophy videos but I think you really dropped the ball on this one. Although you give an accurate "part two" account of Lewis' PW conjecture and Kripke's objection, this stupid movie really has almost nothing to do with the underlying issues here. You referred to the movie a few times as offering a "good argument" in this context, but this is silly. It's just a movie and offers NO argument at all, much less a good one. I have been interested in PW ever since I got my Ph.D. and M.A. in analytic philosophy at Ohio State, over thirty years ago, and I'm still intrigued by Lewis' outrageous theory, but focusing your "part two" video on this movie really did nothing to illuminate the issue. I hope you can attempt a "PW: Part Three" at some point, and get back to the actual debate.

About the film as a counterargument: Just because somebody cares for her counterpart, doesn´t mean that everyone would in that situation. Everyone cares – in one way or another – about their own lives, yes. But I bet, there are lots of people, who wouldn´t feel as much empathy for their counterparts, as the character of the film. Just like some people are more emphatic than others – and it probably even applies for identical twins – in the actual world.

Philosophy Tube  In modal realism, worlds are causally (not just spatiotemporally) isolated. Therefore how can we KNOW things like "If I hadn't fallen, I wouldn't have a scrape". Lewis claims that his theory explains modal statements, but I point out that it certainly doesn't explain modal knowledge: how could I possibly know about something that is causally isolated from me? The only escape would seem to me either saying that modality somehow is a feature of the actual world, or to have a theistic reliabilism about modal knowledge.

Based solely on what you explained in your videos (I have not encountered modal realism before), I see a discontinuity. You were adamant that "possible worlds" are concrete (in Lewis' mind) but that we could never go there and their events could never affect ours. They are, in effect, parallel realities with no connection to ours other except that we can think about them. However, the character in Another Earth was deeply affected by the reality of the other Earth only because it was tangible, observable, and in fact she could travel there. So, does that really get around the Humphrey's objection or is this not really a "possible world" but rather an actual, extant world? Also, the premise is that there is a mirror Earth in our universe, not another universe with a mirror world in it (modulo some differences). Is what is meant by "possible worlds" more akin to "possible universes" or "possible planets like Earth which could, in principle, exist in our universe and we could, in principle, interact with?"

Great videos, by the way!