Possibilism

According to possibilism, anything is possible. There are no necessary truths. There are no limits on how things could have been. Possibilism has been defended by Chris Mortensen (in his article "Anything is Possible") and Robert Nozick (in his book "Invariances").

0:00 - Intro
0:22 - Absolute possibility
4:37 - The explanation argument
12:02 - A pessimistic induction
17:28 - "Nothing is red and green all over"
22:22 - "There are no square circles"
28:11 - Logic and mathematics
37:47 - Meaning variance
49:26 - Relativisation
52:27 - Evolutionary debunking

[smqmiye]

Kevin Garnett is the most famous advocate for possibilism

[guitarizard]

Kane B. (Can Be) speaks on possibilism 💀

[reclawyxhush]

In terms of quantum mechanics LNC is just another way of saying that we may observe only one possibility of measurement at a time and not the other. Great lecture, thx

[al-kimiya]

You're one of my favourite philosophy channels even though I barely agree with your opinions.

[guppy]

"Does metaphysical necessity merely record a decision to use words a particular way?"
Yes, of course?

[QuiVeutUneMerguez]

You can visualize in your mind's eye an object that is both red and green all over? I wonder how common that is.

[zen_hayate]

I would just accept necessitarianism over possiblism (thereby dialetheism), but I think both the positions are equally plausible, where as anti possiblism or limited possiblism seems arbitrary to me because supposing the there is a necessary foundation that grounds all other facts either this grounding relation between P the necessary fact and Q is such that whenever P fully grounds Q P necessitates Q, if that principle holds Necessitarianism would follow if not then we have room for arguing in favour of possiblism but what the anti possiblist seems to do is accept the principle “if P fully grounds Q P necessitates Q” only with respect to some facts and not all which is arbitrary as I am not sure how one can justify accepting such a thing for some facts say laws of logic and not other contingent facts. It just seems way more easier to reject the ‘full grounds necessitate their grounds’ rule entirely

[TSBoncompte]

I think I was a possibilist, but didn't have the words.

[howtoappearincompletely]

"More of me — for a fee." is a great slogan. 😀

[adenjones]

Is it possible for possiblism to be not true under possiblism? If yes then there could be some nessesity. If no then there must be some sort of nessesity preventing nessesity which is a contradiction. Even if contradictions were possible in this domain, it would entail. Both its possibility and its impossibility.

[radicalfishstickstm]

Any argument for existence is ultimately circular. But this also maintains its locality, which prevents universal truths

[guitarizard]

So I haven't been fighting reason with reason. I've been fighting possibility with probability.

[anthonyspencer]

I'm not tracking with the "if linguistic convention, then no metaphysical significance" inference. I don't plan to try to make one now, but intuitively, it seems like we could defend the match between language and world in a number of different ways. I am pretty loathe to take the route that many did in the last century and give a certain swampy priority to language. (Thanks for the video, Kane. Another good one.)

[guitarizard]

If we can reliably predict how often a given system will function in a particular way, we can calculate a probability. Some things require a more specific analysis but interest (scrutiny) decreases with higher probabilities.

[philosophicalmixedmedia]

Ontological Possibllism tends to be anchored in Real numbers because being the ones with as many decimal places as you like, aren’t quantum, therefore forming a continuum and endless possibilities.
However integers are quantum. There can’t be an integer between 1 and 2.

[philcava]

I don't think the universe could be other than way it is, regardless of perspectives, in the same way god, after creation of the world, cannot then change these same laws without contradiction to his essential perfection.

[vincentestrella]

really informative video, thank you for this

[CognitiveOffense]

Parmenides declared non-being impossible. Everything after that is a bit more of a tricky widget.

[nUrnxvmhTEuU]

If circle is a set of points equidistant from a reference point, and being square means being made out of four line segments of equal length, then the circle in the taxicab geometry is square. Afaik it's not possible to measure angles in taxicab.

[whycantiremainanonymous]

14:00 Actually, that's already the case in Special Relativity