Is The Possible Ontologically Real?
by Stuart Kauffman
I adduce four lines of evidence for a radical claim: Perhaps the "possible" is ontologically real and the world consists of two realms, "Possibles" and "Actuals."
Empedocles, in ancient Greece, claimed that what was real in the universe was what was Actual. Aristotle flirted with "potentia." Alfred North Whitehead in Process and Reality proposed that Possibles gave rise to Actuals which in turn gave rise to Possibles: P -> A -> P -> A. Few take Whitehead's proposal seriously. Yet maybe he is right.
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