What is impossible?

What Does impossible Mean

From the Latin impossibilis , impossible is that which is not possible or which is very difficult to fulfill . To understand the notion of impossible, it is essential to know the definition of possible .

The possible is what can be, happen or exist . The concept is associated with the real or the plausible : it is possible that a dog barks at night or that tomorrow it will rain on a Caribbean island. The impossible, on the other hand, has no chance of being realized or, at least, it is more than difficult. Thus it can be said that it is impossible for a cat to bark or for it to snow tomorrow on a Caribbean island.
What is impossible can change over time . In prehistoric times , it was impossible to think that a human being could fly, something that became possible after the invention of the airplane. Today it is impossible to think that people can travel in time but, perhaps, in the future such action will be achieved through some technological innovation.

Sometimes the impossible is associated with known conditions or existing evidence . Thus, some may affirm that it is impossible for the Yeti to exist although, in reality, for others it could be the possibility that such a creature inhabits lands unexplored by man . In this way there is an opposition between the impossible (there is no possibility that the Yeti exists) and the possible (there are minimal probabilities that said being lives on Earth and has not yet been found).
In colloquial language, the adjective impossible is used to name something difficult to achieve : “Cristiano Ronaldo scored an impossible goal by avoiding five rivals and kicking at goal from a very uncomfortable position” , “The Canadian runner won an impossible race: he started in last position and managed to overtake a competitor every two laps ” .
The terms impossible and improbable, as well as their opposites, possible and probability , are often confused . However, if we refer to the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, their meanings are sufficiently different: impossible is a situation that has no power or means to succeed or become; improbable, on the other hand, is an implausible thing that has no basis in prudent reason.
In other words, something improbable can happen, although a rational analysis cannot guarantee it or points out that we should not expect it to happen. This concept can be applied to a variety of cases, from sports matches to the sale of a property to job search: "My favorite team is unlikely to win, but I am not losing hope" , "Given the economic situation, it is unlikely that this house is sold " , " With this curriculum it is very unlikely that they will give me the position .

For the situations just outlined to be considered impossible, there should be force majeure factors that impede their success by all means: that the team is prohibited from playing, that the house has been in ruins due to an earthquake and that the person applying for the job has a significant criminal history and know that the company will come up with that information before making its decision.
As mentioned in previous paragraphs, the limits of the possible and, therefore, of the impossible are often given by historical and cultural issues , therefore they are not considered rigid. Just as the technological advances of the last three decades have given us communication devices and networks that seemed impossible half a century ago, also at an ideological and cultural level, changes have been achieved that many believed unattainable, although in these cases growth is much slower .

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