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stands who is the original character. Let me add that this character can also discover that, while traveling backward, 17 is no longer a prime number. Apparently, worlds where necessary truths do not hold can be imagined and are intuitively possible.
However, this is not true. Such a world is in fact quoted, but it is not constructed, orif you wantextensionally mentioned, but not intensionally analyzed.
To say that 17 is no longer a prime number does not say so much if one does not give the rule to divide it by a number other than itself, displaying the result. And if the principle of identity were denied, the story could not be told, since the author could not name and designate any of the objects of his story, including the two-one individuals.
In fact, such a novel takes for granted a background W0, with all its logical truths (if any), and simply introduces in its W1 (accessible to W0) an individual (a fantastic machine, a spatiotemporal whirl) which has the property of suspending (transitorily) the principle of identity or the principles of mathematics. This property is an exception operator like the Magic Donor in fairy tales or God in the theological explanation of miracles.
Although it would be impossible to compare two worlds relying on different logical systems of world construction (since our metasemiotic instrument would be seriously affected), it is not impossible to introduce into a narrative world the still unanalyzed property of being able to suspend a logical law; as a consequence, the science-fiction world W1 will be one in which two variants of the same prototype in W0 (or two tokens of the same supernumerary in W1) are introduced. This affects transworld identity, but does not affect the possibility of constructing such a world by transformation of the world structure W0.
As a matter of fact, the proper effect of such narrative constructions (be they science-fiction novels or avant-garde texts in which the very notion of self-identity is challenged) is just that of producing a sense of logical uneasiness and of narrative discomfort. So they arouse a sense of suspicion in respect to our common beliefs and affect our disposition to trust the most credited laws of the world of our encyclopedia. They undermine the world of our encyclopedia rather than build up another self-sustaining world.
8.7. Fabula and Possible Worlds
8.7.1. The Worlds of the Fabula
Now we can apply the previous theoretical assumption to our notion of fabula as the selected aspect of narrative structures-in-process.
Insofar as the fabula is carried on by the discursive structure as if

 
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