forum 3: week of 23 Jan - Lewis II

Fragment of a discussion from Course talk:Phil440A

I'm actually unclear on Lewis's method of ruling out possibility with experience; is he saying that even false experiences can rule out possibilities, so long as those possibilities conflict with the content of that experience? For example, say John bought a lottery ticket, and watched the program, where all the numbers matched the ones on his ticket. So John goes in to cash in his ticket, and it turns out that he watched a rerun of the show from last week, so his ticket is no longer the winning one. So the subject's experience at the moment of watching the rerun is that of winning the lottery; however, the possibility of him accidentally watching a rerun as opposed to the current show eliminates the fact of his victory. But subject's experience DOES eliminate the possibility of not winning the lottery before he realizes that the show was a rerun. Can it be said then that John won the lottery, because his experience at the time eliminates the possibility that the show he's watching is an old one?

Olsy08:50, 23 January 2012