(May 4, 2025 at 8:53 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:(May 4, 2025 at 8:06 pm)Belacqua Wrote: To go a little further down the scale, suppose one of my crazy neighbors told me that there's a colony of wild hippopotami in the neighborhood. I would reject this claim as impossible, because I know that certain conditions would be required to support such a colony, and those conditions don't exist. So the boar example is more about true or false, the hippo example is more about possible or impossible.
Hmm what do you mean by conditions in this scenario? I would say there's a difference in possibility between the herd being in the neighborhood, and being in your closet, for example. It wouldn't be possible in the closet because of the inconcistency between the size of your closet and the size of the herd.
So I would argue that there is a possibility of the herd being in the neighborhood, even though the probability is zero.
Well I'm no expert on hippos, so I wouldn't want to get too focussed on my example.
I'm pretty sure hippos need a certain kind of environment, and we don't have that here. The local river is pretty shallow, for example, and probably doesn't have a lot of whatever it is hippos eat. I don't think it's possible for them to live sustainably -- but you are certainly right that if I'd imagined them in my closet instead the example would be clearer.
My closet is really full already.
