1 8 S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 5 - 1 S p r i n g 2 0 1 9 Let us examine the concept of possibilities in a more philosophical way. What does this concept probably (e.g. given most plausible formulation of it) imply? In order for possibilities to be real, they should be. But where are they? We are not able to empirically perceive or touch any of them. Is this not suspicious? Would it not be much more reasonable, and also in accord with Ockham’s razor, that they are in fact only the product of our thinking, without any real grounding in reality? Introduction of possibilities to ontology presents a significant problem. What is the nature of their being? If they somehow exist, we should probably posit a new kind of being: to so called actual existence we should add potential existence. But the concept of the actual seems to exist for marking which one of potential states of the world is actually real: it serves for marking what exist: the existent is actual. But if what is potential also exists, many questions arise: What does it mean that something is actual and something only potential? Why one – and only one – state of the world is actual? Is it not strange that from the fixed set of possibilities, which exist in some other way than that which is, every moment one is chosen as actual and then instantly discarded in order to be replaced by another? What is the purpose of this peculiar mechanism? And what decides which of these possibilities will become actual? Does this deciding principle exists yet in another, third way? If we look at this whole clockwork mechanism, dynamic part of which works over something like the world of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, or over something like the universes postulated by various logics (like for example propositional or predicate logic), it seems rather like our own tool, part of the equipment of our cognitive apparatus – not as a part of the world itself. It resembles rather our own construct, which is practical for us to use. But the idea of possibilities is very strange both from empirical and philosophical perspective. We should note that in quantum physics there is something in some sense similar to possibilities: superposition of quantum states. But this is different from our ordinary idea of possibilities in various respects. Superpositions disappear after observation, not after decision. Since observations can take place many times in the universe, superposed possibilities are constantly reduced. On the other hand, they constantly arise due to nodes of possible histories of quantum world. And, after the event of observation, indeterminacy does not disappear altogether, but is only reduced. This idea of possibility, based on real investigation of the world, is nonetheless very interesting: real possibility, as we can find it in quantum physics, seems to be different than we expected. The real world is usually – or always? – different from what we conceived in our mind by thinking previous to observation and experience, and even from what we constructed only based on our unaided senses. Pure thinking (reason without senses) in particular does not seem to reveal the reality, but rather breeds our own constructs, which have very limited use and mirror the reality very poorly, but most of the time not at all. We look at these constructs, products of our own mind, when thinking without experience and observation, and not at reality itself. In cognitive linguistics, there arisen an interesting outlook on possibilities. Although it is interested primarily in language, metaphysical (ontological) question enters the problem also, although not as a primary issue. Croft and Cruse introduce this approach through introduction of these metaphysical questions: “In a truth-conditional semantics, the standard way of representing the status of situations is as possible worlds: there is the real world, and then there are worlds with situations that are possible but not (necessarily) actual. Possible worlds are then identified with a person’s beliefs or wishes or some other mental attitude. Possible worlds pose metaphysical problems for many people, however. Do possible worlds exist? If so – or especially if not – where are they?” (Croft and Cruise 2012, 33). In the words of Croft and Cruse, cognitive linguist Gilles Fauconnier “proposes an alternative model of representing the status of knowledge that is metaphysically more attractive and allows for elegant solutions to a number of problems in semantic and pragmatic analysis. Fauconnier replaces the notion of a possible world with that of a mental space, and argues that the mental space is a cognitive structure. That is, the allocation of a situation to ‘Gina’s desire,’ ‘Paolo’s belief’ or ‘The hypothetical situation’ is done in the mind of the speaker (and hearer), not in some as yet unclear metaphysical location.” (Croft nd Cruise 2012, 33) [1]. The main advantages of the Fauconnier’s approach do not lie in the solution of the metaphysical problem of possibilities (he in fact argues that cognitive structures postulated by him are even more useful as constructs – in ordinary thinking outside of science – than full possible worlds), but, nonetheless, his solution seems much more reasonable also from the point of view of ontology. We see that the difficulty of postulating possibilities as existing outside of our mind is felt by many. Maybe, in living in the world of possibilities, we do not live in reality, but in illusion. Maybe what is, “have to be” like it is. Maybe it could have not been otherwise: what is, just is.
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