In philosophy, possible worlds are the ways the world could have been. Philosophers make reference to these others worlds all the time, but for a long time only considered them figments of speech or imagination. In the 80s, this view began to shift when David Lewis made his argument that possible worlds are actual, physical entities that are out there somewhere. Today, both philosophers and scientists take a variety of versions of this idea very seriously. But an emerging class of philosopher thinks that this idea may not go far enough. They bring into the fold impossible worlds, the ways the world could not have been. Are these real too? On this episode, we discuss possibility and impossibility as we explore what might lie outside our universe and the ultimate nature of who and what we are.
Music (in order of appearance):
1. Benjamin Banger - "Bobby Drake" (Creative Commons 4.0)
Soundcloud:@benjamin-banger
Instagram: @benjaminbanger
2. Nctrnm - "Rider" (Creative Commons 4.0)
3. Daniel Birch - "Deep in Peace" (Creative Commons 4.0 NonCommercial)
4. Nctrnm - "Secretary" (Creative Commons 4.0)
5. Glass Boy - "My Pretty Looking Clothes" (Creative Commons 3.0)
6. Chris Zabriskie - "Another Version of You" (Creative Commons 4.0)
Soundcloud: @chriszabriskie
7. Pipe Choir - "Exit Exit" (Creative Commons 4.0)
Soundcloud: @pipe-choir-2
8. Nctrnm - "Anthony" (Creative Commons 4.0)
9. Chris Zabriskie - "Land on The Golden Gate" (Creative Commons 4.0)
10. Music For Your Plants - "Tour Peru" (Creative Commons 2.5 NonCommercial)
11. Daniel Birch - "Set Adrift" (Creative Commons 4.0 NonCommercial)
Works Cited:
1. Ballarin, R. (2011). The perils of primitivism: Takashi Yagisawa’s worlds and individuals, possible and otherwise. Analytic Philosophy. 52(4). 272-282.
2. Benovsky, J. (2006). Four-dimensionalism and model perdurants. In Valore, P. (ed.) Topics on general and formal ontology. Monza, Italy: Polimetrica.
3. Berto, F. (2018). Conceivability and possibility: problems for Humeans. Synthese. 195(6). 2697-2715.
4. Berto, F. and Plebani, M. (2015). Ontology and metaontology: a contemporary guide. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
5. Berto, F. and Jago, M. (2019). Impossible worlds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
6. Cordova, V. (2007). How it is: the Native American philosophy of V.F. Cordova. Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press.
7. Ellis, G. (2006). The multiverse proposal and the anthropic principle. Presented at the Claremont Cosmology Conference, 2006.
8. Gendler, T. and Hawthorne, J. (2002). Introduction: conceivability and possibility. In Gendler, T. and Hawthorne, J. (eds.) Conceivability and possibility. New York: Oxford University Press. 1-70.
9. Graham, A. (2015). From four- to five-dimensionalism. Ratio. 28(1). 14-28.
10. Greene, B. (2011). The hidden reality: parallel universes and the deep laws of the cosmos.
11. Kaku, M. (2008). Physics of the impossible: a scientific exploration into the world of phasers, force fields, teleportation and time travel. New York: Doubleday Publishing.
12. Lewis, D. (1986). On the plurality of worlds. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
13. Priest, G. (2016). Thinking the impossible. Philosophical Studies. 173(10). 2649-2662.
14. Tegmark, M. (2014). Our mathematical universe: my quest for the ultimate nature of reality. New York: Knopf.
15. Yagisawa, T. (2010). Worlds and individuals, possible and otherwise. New York: Oxford University Press.
16. Yagisawa, T. (2017). S4 to 5D. Argumenta. 2(2). 241-261.
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