In philosophical logic, the concept of an impossible world (sometimes non-normal world) is used to model certain phenomena that cannot be adequately handled using ordinary possible worlds. An impossible world, w, is the same sort of thing as a possible world (whatever that may be), except that it is in some sense "impossible." Depending on the context, this may mean that some contradictions are true at w, that the normal laws of logic or of metaphysics fail to hold at w, or both.
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Famous quotes containing the words impossible and/or world:
“The pretty fellows you speak of, I own entertain me sometimes, but is it impossible to be diverted with what one despises? I can laugh at a puppet show, at the same time I know there is nothing in it worth my attention or regard.”
—Mary Wortley, Lady Montagu (1689–1762)
“The popularity of disaster movies ... expresses a collective perception of a world threatened by irresistible and unforeseen forces which nevertheless are thwarted at the last moment. Their thinly veiled symbolic meaning might be translated thus: We are innocent of wrongdoing. We are attacked by unforeseeable forces come to harm us. We are, thus, innocent even of negligence. Though those forces are insuperable, chance will come to our aid and we shall emerge victorious.”
—David Mamet (b. 1947)