"To seem as if...."

As Leigh so astutely shows, "as if" is an equivalent. "As though" or "as if" is a speculative. It proposes that we consider a specific possibility. The specific possibility would be the circumstance which would serve to show the truth or falsity of a circumstance as illustrative of some principle. In logic, it would be referred to as the Principle of Reductio Ad Absurdum, which is carrying any proposition out to they most extended circumstance to see if the proposition would still be true (or factual or practical). For example. If we propose that nothing exists but Matter, Energy, Space and Time, could we conclude reasonably that some "Transcendent" conception exists as reality? Let's see. It would be AS THOUGH Good and Evil did not exist, because Good and Evil consist of neither Matter, or Energy, or Space or Time. So carrying our proposition (or question out to its extreme, we see that it may be true that Good and Evil do not Objectively Exist; but it is AS THOUGH they do exist when any sovereign nature passes laws as to criminality, because those presume the existence of Social Good and Social Evil. Also, we could say that when you asked a simple question about grammar or a part of speech, Bruce wrote AS THOUGH you had asked a complex philosophical question. Did you? No, of course not. Bruce answered AS THOUGH you had asked a complex philosophical question, to show you a good example of a speculation, carried out to some complex extreme, to show you the AS IF or the AS THOUGH and its expression.