Possible Students
I sometimes think of all the close possible worlds in which I am still teaching–all those happy students! Sorry (actual) chaps (and chapesses), it wasn’t my idea to deprive you. But at least I have a counterpart who is still teaching. The actual world is just one possible world in which I don’t teach, but I teach in plenty of other worlds. Ah, the consolations of metaphysics.
The universities are much better in those worlds too.
perhaps inspired by the TV series “Counterpart”?
i bet each world has unhappiness in their own way.
I don’t know about that series. I was alluding to David Lewis’s counterpart theory. Some worlds are happier than this one. In some worlds there is no NRA, for example.
Relatedly (sort of) this is rather funny:
http://existentialcomics.com/comic/156
Hah, very relevant.
(I once told my nephew-in-law, who was about to go to college, “No matter what they tell you, truth is not relative”. His mother thought I said “Truth is not relevant”.)