tags:philosophy
NOTE
I discovered this paper. There seems to be some Anti-Dates energy, but on further reflection is a bit too self centered. If you are going for a trans-world relationship, you should balance it better.
You should never foolishly desire to get precisely what you desire to get, as an intended ultimate state. Your belief of wanting what you want. You fall in love. It’s pleasure is in understanding and strangeness. It exists outside of you.
Fun, but big nope.
if David Lewis’ modal realism is true, modal realists from different possible worlds can fall in love with each other.
NOTE
Modal Realism is the doctrine that, besides the actual world one lives in, there exists other possible worldsislands
possible worlds exist
possible worlds are not different in kind from the actual world
possible worlds are irreducible entities
the term actual world is indexical, i.e. any subject can declare their world to be the actual one.
possible worlds are causally isolated from each other.
In short: the actual world is regarded as merely one among an infinite set of logically possible worlds, some “nearer” to the actual world and some more remote. A proposition is necessary if it is true in all possible worlds, and possible if it is true in at least one.
Impossible worlds, such as a world where I write this line and do not write this line at once. This is where the possible worlds might collide! Two possibles makes impossible?
I argue that we can stand in the right kinds of relations to merely possible people to be in love with them and that ending a trans-world relationship to start a relationship with an actual person isn’t cruel to one’s otherworldly lover.
The ability to causally interact with your partner is important to many aspects of happy romantic relationships, but not to all of them.
I pray the anti-dates aren’t this pleading, and me-me-me
Given that every possible world is real, I shouldn’t feel lonely. Some worlds hold legions of girls who desire a boy from a world other than theirs, and who fits exactly my description.
Don’t get involved with trans-world relations:
There is a problem with this proposal, though. Not only is the space of possible worlds filled with girls like her who want boys like me, it’s filled with my counterparts who match her preferences. I’m not going to be the only one who fits the description that she has in mind. I may have to share her affections with some counterpart of mine in another possible world, and that’s not something I want to do. It’s not that I’ll feel upset about my counterpart getting in on the action – I like him well enough, and I hope he finds his own girlfriend. I just want somebody who’ll be in a one-to-one trans-world relationship with me.
NOTE
The perfect girl will be found always saving the drowning child:
As Mark Heller points out, if you rescue a drowning child instead of standing idly on the beach, it will still be the case that somebody in the pluriverse stands idly on the beach just as you would have
NOTE
This is falling in love with yourself, the opposite of an anti-date
There is a way to get love letters from your possible girlfriend.5 Of course, you can’t see the paper that she’s writing on, since worlds are causally isolated. Still, you can know what she’s writing to you. The way to do this is to include an extra stipulation when you choose your possible girlfriend. Stipulate that you want a girl who will write to you exactly those words which you write in a particular notebook. Then, when you want to hear from her, use the notebook to write the words that you want to hear from her
Impossible girls might be preferred:
Impossible girls have some appealing features. In an impossible girl’s world, it can be true (and false) that she kissed me. In any possible girl’s world, and in my world, it is merely false that she kissed me. A modal realist interested in otherworldly kisses (and willing, unlike Lewis, to tolerate concrete impossibilia) might find what he wants in a relationship with an impossible girl
Under a paraconsistent logic, the presence of an inconsistency in the world – say, the fact that my possible girlfriend was kissed by me, even though she wasn’t – won’t imply the truth and falsity of everything – for example, that she has and does not have tentacles. If you’re depressed by the fact that no possible girls are being kissed by you, and you’d be happy for some contradictory otherworldly kissing, impossible girls might be the way to go
He talks about how virtuous dispositions, as traditionally conceived, concern only actual people.
She knew everything I was saying and doing. I felt more motivated to act like a worthy man. My posture straightened. I came to believe that she was happy about my writing this paper, so I wrote more of it. From a functionalist perspective, it would have been reasonable to attribute a belief to me – the belief that someone merely possible but real who loved me was aware of what I was doing. In allowing for merely possible individuals who are as real as me, this belief presupposed modal realism, and marked me as someone who had been seduced to Lewis’ theory