Other community representatives said they had discussed with redevelopment officials a list of what-if possibilities.
They did not have to replay any glum what-if possibilities because of eight seconds of precision, of fundamental beauty, that added texture and nuance to what otherwise would seem just another overpowering victory.
While Mr. Washington wonders what difference it might have made if he had hit another black player instead of Mr. Tomjanovich, who is white, "The Punch" also inflates itself with other what-if possibilities.
It frees you to innovate, to begin to take risks in service of that genius, because you aren't shackled by the status quo and because you can now see "what if" possibilities where there were once only obstacles.
When you're surrounded by the world's leading social innovators, it's impossible not to be inspired by the energy and the "what if" possibilities all around us.
Your mind becomes a cluster of possibilities and what ifs.
I began to wonder about life again -- to ask "What if?" about possibilities I had never dared to consider before.
People are still talking about what-ifs and the possibility of war, because even after the referendum, some very thorny issues need to be carefully handled before the south can peacefully break off.
The twists and turns along the way were both absurd and numerous — shots hit under trees, clutch putts made from all angles, a fan picking up a wayward drive and a four-hole playoff to decide it all — but at the end of a week filled with what-if scenarios and if-then possibilities, McIlroy made the calculus of the P.G.A. Tour season's final event remarkably simple: He won everything.
One possibility: What if basketball analytics could, rather than merely provide a statistical evaluation of player or team performance, help to define a player's position?
But the intractability of the arguments has caused some thinkers, such as Colin McGinn, to raise an intriguing if ultimately defeatist possibility: what if we're just constitutionally incapable of ever solving the Hard Problem?
