Possibility theory

In the essay “Possible Worlds: Why do Children Pretend?” by Alison Gopnik she explains her theory of counterfactual thinking and the result of that being possible worlds. Gopnik suggests that counterfactuals are the possibilities of what could have occurred in life. These counterfactuals are the cause, and the effect is the creation of possible worlds. Gopnik defines possible worlds as “the productions of hope and imagination” (163). Possible worlds are seen as the result of a counterfactual; they are the possibilities of what could have happened. Alison Gopnik also speaks on how knowledge and imagination coincide to form these possible worlds. According to Gopnik causal knowledge is knowing that because two things are connected you can figure…

experience, including his own, without providing a substitute. Up to a point, then, Parmenides’ argument is sound and strong. What-is-not cannot exist; thus what-is cannot have been created from what-is-not. It is here that his argument first wavers. It does not follow from the idea that the world was not created that it is changeless. Is it not possible for the world to have been changing continuously, even if there was no starting point? Neither does change imply the existence of…

carried away with the “imaginative assent” of it all, which lead her to marrying the prince and choosing communal stability. Jack Zipes’ analysis on women in fairy tales supports my hypothesis of the women always being owned by someone and choosing to be belonged by someone as they see it being the best of both possible worlds, when being independent should be the best of both possible worlds because women shouldn’t have to feel that they should always belong to someone, but that they can do…

EGH318: Assessment 2: Impossible and Unnatural Text Worlds in The Five People You Meet in Heaven’ In order to understand and conceptualise all language we encounter, we construct mental representations. These representations; known as text worlds, may be shaped differently depending on the individual, but are a part of how all linguistically adequate people process language. It is these text worlds and how humans make sense of them that is the underlying focus of what has been coined; Text World…

Therefore, we must define omnipotence in a manner of which saves the power of the almighty. Omnipotence could be defined as that of being able to do anything logically possible that a perfect being would do. This is clearly an improvement of prior attempts to define what it means to be omnipotent, as it removes the possibility of weakness and replaces it with “correct” actions that appeal to a moral compass to steer this omnipotent being into the light of goodness. This addition to the…

Every day many people sit and think on how people in the different countries figure out how products such as various good and service and how the money it been divide between good and services. Production possibility frontier is graphical representation of combinations of amounts of two goods or services that an economy can produce by transferring resources from one good or services to another and it also referred as the production possibilities curve (Production Possibilities Frontier). The…

where they believe it is based on facts and evidence and religion is not. These two possibility of worlds of religion and science are related to Alison Gopnik’s essay, “Possible Worlds: Why Do Children Pretend?” Gopnik speaks of the possible worlds people create with their own mind and counterfactual thoughts. She studied children can think counterfactually of the past or future can create a possible world. Gopnik also notices that using causal knowledge is an attribution to creating possible…

Uncertainty about the workings of the natural world has driven people for centuries into making new discoveries and theories about the way things work. Doubt from other people has driven people to challenge these discoveries and either prove them wrong and continue the search for the right answers, or ultimately, to prove them right when more experiments fail to prove the theory wrong. It seems humans in general hold an insatiable curiosity about the way things work and how things are but want…

Something new that I learned while reading was a better explanation of what the term “theory” means, then I came across with the term “core explanatory theories” which had no idea what it meant what so ever. So, I was able to learn that core explanatory theories are theories that are firmly established through accumulation of a substantial body of supporting evidence and have no competitors such as cell theory, periodic law, etc. In other words, I learned that the term theory can mean and…

their respective schools of thought as the ultimate authority, and not religion and science itself. Perhaps the most fundamental contradiction between religion and science is brought forth by the conflicting theories of creation and evolution. Sober’s definition of creationism “maintains that each species was separately created by an intelligent designer” whereas evolution asserts the validity that “mindless evolutionary process are responsible for complex adaptations”.(pg 69) The problem…