Helmut, As an example of a real possibility that does not happen to exist at the moment, consider the quality of having exactly the same genes as any historical person -- say Julius Caesar, George Washington, or your great-grandmother. There are so many genes and so many options for each gene that it is extremely unlikely that any other human will ever have exactly the same genome. But the fact that some human did have that quality at one time means that it's not impossible for someone to have that quality again. Since it's not absolutely impossible, it is a real possibility. But the probability is so low that we can safely say that nobody with exactly those genes happens to exist right now. You can construct an open-ended variety of such examples. Consider what you ate for lunch yesterday. You might have a very similar meal on many occasions, but no two of them will be absolutely identical. You could describe that meal in a short paragraph that would be true of many, many similar meals. But that is only because your description is vague. John
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