 Anne is working at her desk. While she is directly aware only of her  immediate situation — her being seated in front of her  computer, the music playing in the background, the sound of her  husband's voice on the phone in the next room, and so on — she  is quite certain that this situation is only part of a series of  increasingly more inclusive, albeit less immediate, situations: the  situation in her house as a whole, the one in her neighborhood, the  city she lives in, the state, the North American continent, the  Earth, the solar system, the galaxy, and so on. On the face of it,  anyway, it seems quite reasonable to believe that this series has a  limit, that is, that there is a maximally inclusive  situation encompassing all others: things, as a whole or,  more succinctly, the actual world. 