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Topic: Nomological possibility

	Subjunctive possibility - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Subjunctive possibilities are the sorts of possibilities we consider when we conceive of counterfactual situations; subjunctive modalities are modalities that bear on whether a statement might have been or could be true--such as might, could, must, possibly, necessarily, contingently, essentially, accidentally, and so on.
		The contrast with epistemic possibility is especially important to draw, since in ordinary language the same phrases ("it's possible," "it can't be", "it must be") are often used to express either sort of possibility.
		Nomological possibility is possibility under the actual laws of nature.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Subjunctive_possibility (774 words)

	[No title]
		If so, possible worlds could differ physically in ways that have no effect on the physical states of certain parts of them, and hence there could well be a physically different world with a physically indistinguishable duplicate of me in it.
		To assert that zombies are nomologically possible would be to assert that in some world that shares all of its laws with the actual world there is a being identical to some actual or genuinely possible human being who is utterly lacking in consciousness.
		Kirk proceeds by reductio, assuming that a zombie is possible and from that deriving a contradiction.
	www.scar.utoronto.ca /~seager/zombie.html (8089 words)

	Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia
		The mere logical or metaphysical possibility of absent qualia is compatible with the claim that in the actual world, whenever the appropriate functional organization is realized, conscious experience is present.
		It is the claim about empirical possibility that is relevant to settling the issue at hand, which concerns a possible lawful relation between organization and experience.
		It follows that the possibility of Fading Qualia requires either a bizarre relationship between belief contents and physical states, or the possibility of beings that are massively mistaken about their own conscious experiences despite being fully rational.
	consc.net /papers/qualia.html (9137 words)

	THE METAPHYSICAL NECESSITY OF NATURAL LAWS
		Restricted possibility, such as nomological possibility is alleged to be,is defined in terms of relative possibility or accessibility.
		The fact that “nomologically” appears both before and after the biconditional suggests one form the problem will take for the universals theory, namely, that the definition of nomological necessity will be viciously circular or the notion is indefinable but useless to demarcate laws from accidental generalizations.
		If it is possible that some Fs are not Os, it remains unclear why a law and the premise that this x is F should jointly entail that this x is also G. The problem of counterfactual inference is solved on the metaphysical theory of natural laws.
	www.qsmithwmu.com /the_metaphysical_necessity_of_natural_laws.htm (6889 words)

	iqexpand.com (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
		Philosophers generally consider logical possibility to be the broadest sort of subjunctive possibility in modal logic.
		While it is logically possible for the sky to be green, it is not logically possible for the sky to be both green and not green at the same time and in the same respect.
		Many philosophers, then, have held that these scenarios are logically possible but nomologically impossible, i.e., impossible under the actual laws of nature.
	logically_possible.iqexpand.com (324 words)

	[No title]
		Another possibility is that philosophers paid little attention to metaphysical implications and notions of weak and global supervenience were simply natural ways, given the language of Ôpossible worldsÕ or of ÔnecessityÕ and ÔpossibilityÕ, to disambiguate the claim that things alike physically must be alike mentally.
		If mental properties are nomologically a function of physical properties but metaphysically independent of them, then at worlds where there are no laws the mental need not be a function of the physical, precluding weak and global supervenience.
		However, their argument assumes that, e.g., the property of having a mind is in some way an intrinsic property; either it is an intrisic property of the person in question or there is some intrinsic property of some larger portion of the world which entails that this very part (the preson) has a mind.
	www.uvm.edu /~mmmoyer/papers/sv_long.doc (7796 words)

	Ontological Argument [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy] (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
		For, it is possible to conceive of a being which cannot be conceived not to exist; and this is greater than one which can be conceived not to exist.
		Since there are only two possibilities with respect to W and one entails the impossibility of an unlimited being and the other entails the necessity of an unlimited being, it follows that the existence of an unlimited being is either logically necessary or logically impossible.
		Thus, maximal greatness entails existence in every possible world: since a being that is maximally great at W is omnipotent at every possible world and non-existent beings can't be omnipotent, it follows that a maximally great being exists in every logically possible world.
	www.iep.utm.edu /o/ont-arg.htm (6211 words)

	Zombies: Entry (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
		Another reason for allowing the whole-world formulation is that denying the possibility of physically identical zombies is supposed to be a benchmark for materialism; it ought not be the case that any obviously materialist theory is grouped with non-materialist theories due to a technicality in how the zombie question is put.
		Dennett denies the natural possibility of any sort of zombies because of his dedication to a loose behavioral functionalism and his wariness of the notion of consciousness that might be needed by the friend of zombies (1991, 1995).
		If it is naturally possible that there be two creatures that are behaviorally identical to one another but differ in that one is conscious and the other is not, then it must also be metaphysically and logically possible.
	host.uniroma3.it /progetti/kant/field/zombies.htm (6474 words)

	Tachyons, Time Travel, and Divine Omniscience
		The assertion that such experiments cannot be carried out is, therefore, "brazen," since the experiments involve "only operations which we know to be possible in our world."{15} Since such devices as are required for these experiments are apparently nomologically possible, it follows that tachyons are nomologically impossible and therefore do not exist.
		Given the nomological possibility of such machines, then, timelike loops must be nomologically impossible if the contradiction is to be avoided.
		In such a case the closest possible worlds to the actual world are not those in which the past is preserved inviolate, but in which some feature of the past is other than in the actual world in order that some overriding feature of the actual world might be preserved as much as possible.
	www.leaderu.com /offices/billcraig/docs/tachyons.html (6496 words)

	TACHYONS
		Now, it is not the existence of tachyons as such, admits Earman, that entails the possibility of a logically pernicious self-inhibitor; rather it is the whole situation which is impossible, and this includes assumptions concerning the possibility of controlling tachyon beams, of detecting them, and so forth.
		Hence, the conclusion of the foregoing analysis would seem to be that, given the nomological possibility of tachyon emitters and detectors, one cannot avoid the paradoxes by denying assumptions concerning such devices, but is led instead to denying the possibility of the existence of tachyons.
		Although this reasoning has, to my knowledge, gone unchallenged in the tachyon literature, there is, within the body of literature on the possibility of time travel, a significant challenge to the modal validity of inferring that tachyons are impossible from the nomological possibility of such devices, a challenge akin to the argument against theological fatalism.
	makemillions.bizland.com /tachyons.htm (2477 words)

	Naturalistic Inquiry
		A nomological impossibility is something that contradicts the way things work in reality, that is, something that is contrary to the natural order of things.
		If we define 'possible' in terms of logical possibility, anything is possible, but then logical possibility isn't very interesting.
		This is an important sense of possibility, particularly for engineers; if it is nomologically impossible for a structure to stand, no matter how good it might look on paper, it won't work.
	www.infidels.org /library/modern/peter_kirby/naturalistic_inquiry.html (4156 words)

	Psychologism and Behaviorism
		Putnam (1975b) argued in convincing detail, it is possible to imagine a community of perfect actors (Putnam's super-super-spartans) who, in virtue of lawlike regularities, lack the behavioral dispositions envisioned by the behaviorists to be associated with pain, even though they do in fact have pain.
		But if my machine does not contravene laws of human psychology--if it exists in a possible world in which the laws of human psychology are the same as they are here--then the neo-Turing Test conception of intelligence is false in a world where the laws of human psychology are the same as they are here.
		It is logically and perhaps nomologically possible for a man-sized string-searching machine to contain creatures of everdecreasing size who work away making the tapes longer and longer without bound.
	www.nyu.edu /gsas/dept/philo/faculty/block/papers/Psychologism.htm (12817 words)

	Music Education and Student Self-Concept:
		It is possible that this is a reflection of the societal viewpoint that it is more acceptable for female students to excel in music.
		Other possibilities are that behavioral changes that occur over relatively short periods of time are precursors of eventual self-concept changes not detected by traditional self-concept measurement instruments until much later.
		It is possible that social factors involved in the music experience are responsible for much of the perceived gains in self-concept.
	music.arts.usf.edu /rpme/rpmereyn.htm (6771 words)

	The Place Of Theory In Applied Sociology: A Reflection
		In this case, it is possible that sociologists—certified or self-proclaimed as the case may be—have developed and effectively used theories.
		As students of the pragmatist (or as James preferred “pragmaticist”) movement are aware, this theory of knowledge was developed in conscious opposition to the idealist underpinnings of the nomological model.
		While granting that the ultimate test of our beliefs is in their application to real-world situations, one might still hold that the purpose of such testing is to establish which beliefs deserve to be maintained and which need to be revised.
	theoryandscience.icaap.org /content/vol001.001/01weinstein_revised.html (12543 words)

	New Page 1 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
		The notion of possibility in the definition of a valid argument: See p.
		Practical possibility; technical possibility; nomological possibility; absolute possibility.
		Showing that an argument is invalid: that it is possible that (the premises be true and the conclusion false).
	www.chass.utoronto.ca /~ekremer/PHL100Y/sept30.html (40 words)

	Peter Marton
		Some may be led to deny the possibility in order to make some theory come out right, but the justification of such theories should ride on the question of possibility, rather than the other way around.
		The source of his failure is that he lowered, on the one hand, the standard of what counts as a real possibility, and he raised, on the other, the requirement (by demanding logical necessity) for materialism.
		The scope of nomological necessity (in contrast with the physical necessity) is narrowed down to those worlds which share with the actual world not only the fundamental (micro-physical) laws, but also the higher-level, and bridge-laws.
	www.brown.edu /Departments/Philosophy/zombie.html (3128 words)

	Dickinson Electronic Archives: "Because the Plunge from the Front Overturned Us: The Dickinson Electronic Archives ...
		This assumption discounts the possibility that form is constitutive of authorial poetics and that Emily Dickinson may have intended different poetic techniques in her arrangements of the same set of words; and this assumption contends that material facts of presentation are extra-literary, or non-literary.
		In order to produce these electronic archives of Dickinson's writings outside the fascicles or manuscript books--work sent to contemporary audiences, and her drafts, scraps, fragments, and notes, or work apparently not sent to anyone--I have assembled and/or am working with teams of editors, coders, scanners, advisors.
		Emily Dickinson asked Thomas Higginson if her literary work breathed, not if it was orderly, celebrated Possibility, and believed that words begin to live, not die, when shared (JP 1212; FP 278).
	www.emilydickinson.org /plunge1.html (5242 words)

	Classics in the History of Psychology -- Cronbach & Meehl (1955)
		The task is to state as definitely as possible the degree of validity the test is presumed to have.
		An enrichment of the net such as adding a construct or a relation to theory is justified if it generates nomologicals that are confirmed by observation or if it reduces the number of nomologicals required to predict the same observations.
		Unless substantially the same nomological net is accepted by the several users of the construct, public validation is impossible.
	psychclassics.yorku.ca /Cronbach/construct.htm (10550 words)

	Indexicals
		Some have argued (Kratzer 1977, Lewis 1979b) that modal expressions, such as ‘necessarily’ and ‘possibly’, are indexical, because they vary in the type of modality they express from context to context (for example, nomological possibility in one context, metaphysical possibility in another).
		When Kaplan claims that indexicals are rigid designators, he means (roughly) that, once a referent for an indexical is determined by a context, that same object is the one that is relevant for determining the truth value of a sentence containing that indexical at all worlds.
		But he backs away from identifying the linguistic meanings of ‘he’ and ‘she’ with the linguistic meanings of variables (with appropriately restricted ranges); he even entertains the possibility that there are two homonymous expressions ‘he’, one of which is a demonstrative and the other of which is a variable.
	plato.stanford.edu /entries/indexicals (10076 words)

	Introduction (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
		Because the argument for the possibility of zombies is challenged so early on, I will not spend much time discussing this argument.
		When philosophers argue about the possibility of zombies, they are not usually arguing about whether zombies are possible in our world (``nomological possibility'').
		That is, zombies are considered to be possible if there exists at least one possible world in which there is at least one zombie.
	space.mit.edu /home/nessus/philosophy/zombies/node1.html (860 words)

	[No title]
		The joint pedagogical significance of radical evil and the possibility of moral revolution; relation to the moral significance of eschatology; the theme of good works in moral religion; an argument for the 'eschatological requirement' of the possibility of revolution in ultimate moral character.
		Moreover, even the range of future possibilities for one's being are determined existentially, or in time, both by what the individual contingently inherits from the past and by their own response to these conditions.
		On my approach, however, the possibility of such a reductio of P's transitivity does not arise, because I have shown that Molinism implies the existence of a priority relation which can be used univocally throughout the argument, without needing to specify it.
	www.fordham.edu /philosophy/davenport/texts/existmol.htm (18005 words)

	Difficulties for N-relation Accounts of Natural Laws: A Supplement to Properties
		On this account light could have had the phenomenal properties of molasses, photons the mass of the solar system, and two quite different kinds of elementary particles could retain their identities while swapping all their quantum numbers.
		The reason why modality is a problem for such N-relation theorists is that you cannot infer a genuine nomological must from an is (although you may be able to contrive some sort of ersatz must).
		We might do this by holding that the N- relation links the same properties in every nomologically possible world, but without an independent characterization of nomological possibility this doesn't illuminate the nature of laws.
	plato.stanford.edu /entries/properties/supplement2.html (574 words)

	[No title]
		(b) it is logically and nomologically possible that a rock dropped from a tall building could rise at a given moment in time, but it is nomohistorically impossible because it was dropped
		it was possible for the agent to do A if, had she preferred A, she would have succeeded in doing it
		(b) the compatibilist asserts that it was actionally possible for you to choose A2 (attend class), that is that you had the power to render A1 false (choose to not skip class)
	www.psy.vanderbilt.edu /courses/psy216/Brain_Volition.htm (1133 words)

	Online Papers
		Abstract: The basic idea of counterfactual theories of causation is that the meaning of a singular causal claim of the form "Event c caused event e" can be explained in terms of counterfactual conditionals of the form "If c had not occurred, e would not have occurred".
		Analyses along these lines have become popular in the last quarter of the twentieth century, especially since the development in the 1970’s of possible world semantics for counterfactuals.
		Recognition of this fact opens up the possibility of seeing that there can be different levels of causation: there may be a level at which mental states cause behaviour by way of distinctive psychological pathways and a different level at which brain states cause behaviour by way of distinctive neural pathways.
	www.phil.mq.edu.au /staff/pmenzies/OnlinePapers.html (757 words)

	Courses available 2005-06: Undergraduate degree in Philosophy
		The Tripos consists of three separate Parts, and it is possible for students to read the subject for one, two, or three years, and also either before or after reading another subject.
		It is not necessary for students to have done any work in philosophy before reading the subject at Cambridge and Part IA of the Tripos is taught on the assumption that they have not.
		Variants of classical logic: elements of modal logic; the uses and nature of possible worlds; intuitionistic logic and its relationship with S4; problems with intensional contexts; quantum logic.
	www.cam.ac.uk /cambuniv/guide/ugcourses/philosophy.html (2846 words)

	Dan Ryder's home page
		Finally, I'm undecided between two possible solutions to the problem of mental causation: a souped-up, less behaviouristic version of Dretske's theory, or one that makes reference to accuracy of isomorphism.
		Metaphysically speaking, there is one kind of possibility, which is closest to so-called "nomological possibility", and it can form the basis for a weak form of essentialism.
		It shows what is right about the deductive nomological, statistical relevance, causal mechanical, and unificationist models of explanation, suggesting some underlying principles by which to unify them.
	homepage.mac.com /ancientportraits/drsite (828 words)

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