ABSTRACT
Different states of affairs, "alternative realities" can certainly be brought within the realm of contemplation by thought experiments. But any such resort to nonexistents poses special problems because unreal things and states of affairs function in ways substantially different from actual one. Accordingly, while thought experiments can contemplate alternative, nonexistent states of affairs, they cannot successfully bring alternative nonexistent objects upon the stage of consideration. Only fictional objects have finite descriptions. The cognitive depth of fiction is always finite because fiction is the finite product of a finite mind. And unlike the real world, the realm of fiction is bounded by the limits of existing thought and language. In point of the complexity of its things and states of affairs, reality is to fiction as chess is to tic-tac-toe. Stipulation is epistemically impotent. Stipulation cannot create novel modal knowledge by literally creating new possibilities. The boundaries of physical and even of ontological possibilities can certainly be altered by stipulative suppositions.
