John wrote: "That leads to my preferred way of talking: replace every
occurrence of the term 'possible world' with 'how the world would be if
...'.
This has a good sense; for the "possible world" is messed up, and has little
of real ontology/substance now.
"How the world would be if..." implies its specific principles,
standards, approaches, methods, techniques, and mechanisms. Any
of global or large-scale projects, programs or policies, social, political,
economic, technological, or cultural, is a big or small effort to change the
world, globally, nationally or locally. Institutions assess the need,
cost/benefit, impact/effects/outcomes, implementation mechanisms, and, of
course, the logic/model/theory/design how to develop the planned state of
affairs. So any program/project evaluation is about prediciting healthy
changes in the world, more rational, more logical, more intelligent, more
reasonable future, what could be defined as a smart and sustainable
world.
The ultimate reason/motivation of multiple ideologies, philosophies,
ontologies, policies, religions is not only describing world, its order or
chaos, but also to foreknow/envision how our world would be if certain theories
or teachings or models had been adopted as a global plan of development or a
national social policy. And as "the world-would-be" methods, it is
used all sorts of quantitative and qualitative techniques: assessment,
benchmarking, cost-benefit analysis, metrics, opinion polling, policy analysis,
project management, change management, and strategic planning.
So 'how the world would be if ...' looks a big science, political techniques
and policies, which could do more level-headed forcasts, predictions,
projections, and anticipations while applying real ontological principles
and rules.
Nowadays our best prognostication is the weather forecasting.
Azamat Abdoullaev
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2011 11:32
AM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] intangibles
(was RE: Why most classifications are fuzzy)
Azamat,
Indeed. Counterfactual statements are a method of talking about
possible ways that our real world could be. That does involve some
logical questions, but they can be resolved without assuming an ontology of
possible worlds.
As this thread has shown, the amount of confusion caused by talk about
possible worlds is enormous. As I said before, they might be useful in
the same sense as Gedanken experiments in physics -- i.e., as ways of
stimulating the imagination.
But any conclusion derivable from talk about possible worlds can be derived
more simply and directly from whatever incantations were made to conjure up
those worlds.
John
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