Chapter 3
I. POSSIBILITY
I see the tentacles of purple flame in the distance. A group of young men and women bid me to stand and fight in their circle:
“Join us, we can defeat It,” they say.
“No you can’t,” I reply. “You’re methods will not harm It. This I know. It will consume you and your friends. Your efforts like this are wasted.”
They do not agree with me. I run for a building and watch as the men and women circle the beast and begin launching their weapons. Arrows and bullets and lasers pass through the tentacles, bounce off, or simply miss. Through a window I see the young ones picked up and consumed. I hear screaming and rumbling then my shelter begins to fall apart. The beast is outside breaking in.
At one time I thought that I understood the nature of the Good. I had a terribly simply formula—we ought to act as to maximize the 'connected possibility' that emanates forth from our actions. I imagined that from each action I take, that action determines or conditions the set of possible subsequent events in the world. Picture this set as a bundle of twisting and turning paths that burst forth like the burning trails of light from a fireworks explosion—the explosion is our action, an actual event, while the trails of light are potential paths into the future. The light paths of possibility, unlike the explosion, may branch off again and again into an infinite tree. We might call this type of possibility local conditional connected possibility...as if that clears matters up for most readers. Anyway, it is a type of possibility that flows forth given a local action or event occurs, a possibility in our world alone.
However we act, that action conditions how the future may be; and since we do not know precisely how that future will be, the best we can do is to envision the collection of possible futures paths that may be, and perhaps assign probabilities to each of those possible paths given what action we choose. For each action, we can calculate the total possibility (mathematical entropy) of that collection of future paths. The moral action, the right action then becomes the action that maximizes local conditional connected possibility.
This possibility applies not only to humans, and not only to organisms in general, but to all objects in the universe; and for this reason, maximizing local possibility is one of the few positive moral approaches that lets all objects participate in the Good equally. Electrons and protons may be subject to moral matters just as men and women. For morality to be anything more than arbitrary human convention, it would almost seen necessary for morality to apply this way.
The possibility I speak of is not the freedom from constraint. The absence of all constraint has the same quantity of possibility as the presence of total constraint—zero. Without constraint the world would be perfect noise with everything happening at every conceivable spacetime location and scale. Imagine the absence of constraint as applied to sound, such as hearing a white noise emanating randomly from every location in space, although even this example has structure in that the frequency spectrum of white noise over a period of time will be flat. Now instead of sound, apply the concept of noise to objects in space. Here we create a picture of the universe in complete chaos where events happen in a maelstrom of randomness. Particles jump in and out of every location at differing rates and form arbitrary clusters that constantly vary and never stabilize. Opposed to this maelstrom, in our world, instead of this chaos, the constraints imposed by the fundamental forces structure the universe in particular ways giving us galaxies and nebula and planets and lakes and so on. The possibility that exists in our world arises between the bounds of order and chaos, structure and randomness, stability and change, love and strife. I have said nothing new here other than to point out that meaningful possibility in our world is not synonymous with freedom from constraint, nor does it mean the freedom to act.
All possibility, the possibility that matters, carries within it constraint or structure. When I use the expression connected possibility I am simply trying to make that claim explicit, using the word ‘connected’ to reign in the meaning of possibility which has gotten loose. I have no stake in the existence of natural laws, but I ask: what sort of possibility exists that is not connected, in some way, to how our world is? If there is a type of possibility that arises within our world, but has no connection to our world, then our thinking and theorizing about it cannot be, or at least expresses a contradiction. Possibility that we cannot access is no possibility at all. Possibility is precisely that which can possibly (by some means connected to this world) become an actuality for us—all possibility is constrained by this regressive property.
Two abominations of possibility, both embraced by many physicists and philosophers in our day, exist exactly by ignoring this fact. This first deals with so-called possible worlds or multiple universes. These topologically distinct worlds make no physical connection to our own, yet somehow we confidently talk about these worlds with knowledge about their possibility. I do not care that possible worlds help our logicians to express modal logic, or that enumerating multiple universes helps some physicists explain the so-called ‘fine-tuning’ problem of the universe. Made-up entities bring comfort to many people; I have no quarrel with that, but at least people who believe in ghosts and spirits imagine that these creatures manifest-in and influence our world through some channels, albeit unknown. Believers in possible worlds claim, without embarrassment no less, that ghostly worlds exist outside of our own, but that these spirit realms are completely inaccessible and do not influence our world in anyway. And these same people often ridicule believers in Heaven and Hell!
We have no knowledge of possible worlds, and by the common definition of these worlds, we can have no connection to them on theoretical (stipulated) grounds. There is no path by which these worlds can become actual for us, or influence us, nor even a path by which we can gain knowledge about the structure of these worlds as possibilities. We ought not call such things possible or possibilities, rather, let us call them fantasies or imaginative situations so as not to confuse them with the meaning of possibility. I have no qualm if you base your modal logic on fantasy world semantics; at least this way the philosopher may not confuse statements of possibility with fanciful thinking. To presume that all of our fantasies can actualize reflects not thoughtful ontology but only the pathology of our time.
It is a categorical mistake to claim that logical possibilities are a type of possibility—they are not. A proposition that does not express a contradiction (which is the essence of logical possibility) does not immediately entail that the proposition expresses a possible situation. Are we to believe that our language, as wonderful as it is, conceals within it the power to generate potential actualities of worlds unknown simply by stringing words together that do not happen to be contradictory to present-day readers? When we take a non-contradictory proposition as a full-blooded possibility, we convert a benign statement of language into a token of mythology. The statement becomes reified as a mysterious possibility of nature. And when philosophers and physicists use these token mythologies as tools to explain aspects of nature, it reminds me of how ancient Greeks used the Homeric Gods to explain natural phenomena like lightening and earthquakes. Homeric Gods were (are) logical possibilities—there is nothing contradictory in stating Zeus dwells high above on Mount Olympus, and it was comforting to be able to explain how lighting arises even if that explanation was a fantasy. Logical possibility and multiverses serve a similar role in our day. They are abstract mythologies of a new sort. Rather than anthropormophized mythical Gods, we now have neutered mythical worlds of possibility, and future generations may as well look upon our multiverse as a trite yet culturally informative superstition.
The enlightened skeptics of today who ridicule gods and ghosts have little difficulty positing fantastical entities of logical possibility. The same person who knows with certainty that God is a remnant of evolutionary baggage sees no problem believing in infinite worlds inhabited by infinite versions of himself! He believes in a material world where humans are, in the end, no more than cosmic dust, yet imagines that he has, in his multiverse, lives every conceivable life, explores every mystery of the universe, and takes on every challenge at least in some world. He is at the same time a meaningless aggregate of particles and a god-like navigator of the universal expanse.
Fool’s gold is not gold, and logical possibility is not possibility, even though we have placed those two words together in a manner that would suggest otherwise. All possibility is a matter of science and nature in the broadest sense. With possibility we are always talking about potential actualities. We come to know specific possibilities by careful examination, critical thought, creativity, intuition, experimentation and skepticism; just as we come to know actualities of nature. We do not create actualities by simply placing words together. I may write ‘there is an apple on the table’, and you may agree that sentence does not create an actuality in the world, yet we easily imagine that this same sentence, by itself, creates a true possibility because it does not contradict itself. Surely it seems possible for the apple to be on the table, but that possibility only has life because I have the relevant knowledge or have judged there to be an apple on the table in the past. Through inductive reasoning I may claim that it is possible there is an apple on the table, and as inductive, this statement of possibility, as weak as it may be, can turn out to be a false possibility.
A philosopher and servant are talking with each other.
The philosopher said bluntly, “It is possible that pigs can fly.”
“In what sense?” asked the servant. “If I throw the pig into the air, or drop it from a plane, it may be said to fly. Is that what you mean?”
“No,” responded the philosopher. “I mean that it is possible for the pig to fly on its own doing. Perhaps not now on planet Earth, but on another world, or in millions of years it may.”
“Do you mean the same kind of pig that we see now, today, on our farms on planet Earth? Do you mean that pigs just like that could possibly fly?” said the servant. “If they are just like these pigs, then surely what you say is not possible. Perhaps you do not mean that they are the same?”
“I am speaking of the same kind of pig. I am stating a simple logical possibility. There is no contradiction in claiming that pigs can fly, thus it is possible that pigs can fly. It just so happens, as a matter of accident, that they do not fly here on Earth now,” said the philosopher.
“How do you know it is possible for pigs to fly?” asked the servant. “By what mechanism would these pigs be able to fly, or what would the environment around these pigs be so that it was conducive to pig flying? Then I might grasp what you mean by possible.”
The philosopher became slightly annoyed. “I do not need to tell you how pigs fly in this possibility, or what these alternative worlds might be like. How could I know these things? Anyway, those facts have no bearing on the matter. I just know that it is possible for pigs to fly. It is a simple matter of logic.”
The servant responded. “I know nothing in logic that dictates the possibilities of this world or any other. Possibilities are a matter of content; they are the meaningful objects and activities that surround us...not the formal, lifeless grammar of logic. When you say pigs can fly, that is not a possibility in itself. It is a contrived proposition, an artificial creation that need not have any bearing on what is possible.”
The philosopher said, “Child, you are confusing epistemic issues with metaphysics. How we know possibilities is one thing, and the blunt existence of them is another. Many philosophers have researched the epistemic status of possibilities far more rigorously than you. It is an important question in philosophy, but it is separate from the metaphysics of possibility. Further, Kant used logic to ground the conditions of possibility, contrary to what you say.”
“I understand you better. I admit, I do have difficulty separating the metaphysics from how we come to know the metaphysics,” said the servant. “Anyway, let us talk about the metaphysics of possibility. For me, possibility is part of this world, the largest part of the world by far, whereas actuality is but a small part. You could say that actuality is the tip of the iceberg, while the part of the iceberg underwater is possibility. Or perhaps this analogy suites you--the visible matter of our universe is actuality, and the unobservable dark matter and energy that make up about 95% of the universe is possibility. That analogy seems right on track. There is far more unknown than known in this world. The question that intrigues me most is: does this dark possibility influence actuality, or does it simply lie around, waiting to become actualized, impotent to do anything in itself?”
“A thoughtful question,” said the philosopher. “If possibility could influence actuality, it could not be through causality. Causality only occurs between actual objects, although I’m sure I could find you many philosophers who disagrees with that statement. They may say that causes—which are actualities--raise the probability of their effects, such that causes cause probabilities to be what they are; but even these philosophers would not say that possibility itself influences actuality.”
“My gut tells me that possibility creates actuality, although in a different way than actuality creates possibility,” said the servant. “It seems unlikely that possibility exists impotently—if this were the case, then possibility would serve no purpose at all and we ought rid ourselves of the concept. To be consistent, philosophers who are determinist ought eliminate the concept of possibility from their language. What sort of real possibility exists in a world that is fully determined? For determinists the past and future may be unknown, but an unknown future does not imply that different futures are possible—to say this is a metaphysical contradiction under determinism, for only one future is possible; the rest are impossible.”
The servant continued, “Even those philosophers who believe in so-called possible worlds are misleading themselves if they simultaneously subscribe to determinism in all possible worlds. If determinism holds in all possible worlds, and those worlds are concrete but disconnected from our own, then there is no possibility at all just the same.”
The philosopher looked at the servant sadly and responded, “You are missing the point. To those philosophers possible means, technically, that something is true in at least one possible world. They have defined it that way, thus your criticism applies to a wholly different conception of possibility. You must criticize their definition on its own merits, not only against your beliefs.”
“Very well,” said the servant. He saw an opening and moved fast. “The entire use of possible worlds simple begs the question of the meaning of possibility. Conceiving of the existence of any possible worlds apart from our own seems to invoke a sort possibility from the onset. For example, let us try to use possible worlds semantics to answer the following question: is it possible that any possible worlds exist apart from our own? But the believer in possible worlds does not need to use his semantic theory to answer this question because he creates additional possible worlds by definition. He does this by using a concept of possibility that comes before his reductive ‘true in at least one possible world’ sense of possible. It is possible that possible worlds exists—if they do, then you can continue on using possible worlds as you do. If they don’t, then you have no business talking about them. Either way you must acknowledge that possible worlds exist as a possibility, not as an actuality. Here is another way to put it. As soon as you attempt to ask if a possible world manifests such-and-such a thing, you have already assumed the existence of a possible world other than our own.”
“There is some merit in what you say, but the argument will sway few over to your side,” said the philosopher. “You leave too many holes. They will cover this argument in doubt and judge you an amateur. Rightly so I dare add.”
“No matter. Fair enough,” said the servant. “But I have thought more about the positive side of my argument. For now, I have decided that possibility reflects the degree of existence of something. Something with no existence is impossible, something with full existence is actual, and something in between no and full existence is possible. Then I imagine a blob of things with full and partial existence, all cohabitating together in some way, where the degree of existence of these things can change. The blob is mostly composed of partial-existence, save for small portions of actuality. Again, it is mostly a scientific matter as to what has partial existence, and not a matter of logic or semantics, although those tools play a role.”
“Again interesting but poorly developed,” said the philospoher. “Work it out further and perhaps we may talk.”
“I doubt I will. Really, who cares about raw possibility, anyway?” said the servant. “This conversation will not help my cause. People are suffering.”
“So they are,” agreed the philosopher.
Possibility in our time, at least as it is commonly talked about, is often reduced to a state of having alleged 'options'. I dislike 'options' because this concept ignores the possible paths that must be traversed to arrive at the fulfillment of each option—as if we can grasp all futures ready-made. Yes, options do exist as constructed scenarios with near machine-like certainty within well-defined structures. The items on a restaurant's menu form these sort of options. The restaurant is set up such that when you say a particular menu item to the server, or click the menu item online, this action triggers a sequence of events that culminate in bringing the food item to you. Each option ends similarly. Possibility does not, in general, emanate forth from this set of options; rather, the options are built within a fixed system designed to eliminate all extraneous possibility, to only allow possibility of a particular type within the machine. Morality does not play a role in these sorts of choices primarily because the possibility—the possibility of the sort I am referring to—of each menu choice is roughly equivalent. The food comes to your table, whatever you ordered, and you eat it and go home.
To arrive at an option we must follow a path to that option. Events must transpire. The concept of an option is meaningless without coupling it to the path to that option. I sit here now. Options are before me only to the extent that events can connect me to that option, which is why an option is never just a static place or object in the future but a path of events where the option happens to be an event along that path. An option is approximately a possible future now beginning from the present. Options that cannot be reached by following a path beginning in the present are not options at all—these things are called fantasies, fictions, impossibilities, lies... And how can I know if a particular option exists along a path from the present? I can't know it for certain, but neither can I know that it does not exist along a path.
When options are prebuilt into a machine-like selection system, then we can approximately ignore the physical paths to those options; but for all other scenarios, the situations which still constitute our lived world, the path to an option is more relevant than the isolated option. A focus upon options creates an illusory meta