This was the case I was trying to distinguish:
(1) In our world, at some time prior to 1887, at 1 Bush Villas, Elm Grove, SouthSea, Portsmouth, England, Arthur Conan Doyle conceived of the fictional character "Sherlock Holmes".
MW: Arthur Conan Doyle identified a possible world in which these things are true.
(2) Before 1887 the character "Sherlock Holmes" did not exist as something to which the conception of could be attributed.
MW: Before 1887 there was no representation of this possible world in our world.
(3) In our world, the fictional character of Holmes was partially inspired by the actual person Joseph Bell, who was a Doctor.
MW: There is a similarity link between the Joseph Bell of this world and Sherlock Holmes in his possible world.
(4) In our world, the BBC commissioned a number of films featuring modern reinterpretations of the Conan Doyle stories, featuring a Holmes who in the worlds of those movies differed in some respects from the original source. [Written by Stephen Moffat, who isn't a Doctor, but writes one on TV]
MW: The films are representations of possible worlds that are similar to varying degrees to the possible world of Conan Doyle.
(5) In the fictional world in which our Conan Doyle conceived, Holmes was a detective, who resided at 221B Baker St.
MW: Just some facts that are true in Conan Doyle’s (and possibly some of the other Sherlock Holmes variations) worlds.
(6) In a possible real world, that Conan Doyle may have conceived of a fictional world in which Holmes was a baker, who lived at 221B Detective St.
MW: Just another possible world. Your possible real world is as fictional as Conan Doyle’s world of Sherlock Holmes.
(7) In yet another possible world, Bell may have been partially inspired by Conan Doyle to conceive of a Holmes and write fictional stories featuring that character word-for-word identical with the ones in our Conan Doyle wrote.
MW: That is interesting, but no reason why people in two different possible worlds should not create a representation of another possible world.
Is the fictional character in (1) the same fictional character as in (4)?
MW: They might share some temporal parts (if you take possible worlds to be branching) but they are not the same for the whole of their lives.
Is the fictional character in (5) the same fictional character as in (6)?
MW: No.
Is the fictional character in (1) the same fictional character as in (7)?
MW: Yes.
In our world could two people in the year 1700 discuss the character Sherlock Holmes?
MW: Only if they made a representation of him first (no reason why they should not, just like Bell in the other possible world, just incredibly unlikely).
In our world, could two people in 2013 discuss real properties of the character Sherlock Holmes (e.g. the street address where the character was conceived).
MW: Of course. This is the place where the first (as far as we know) representation of that possible world was written down.
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Matthew West
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