All though 2 people (or a million) experience existence in a different way they are still in existence. Any thing that exists is in existence (earth sky,spirit,etc.) or it does not exist. Their experiences may differ but that is all. Either someone or something exists or it doesn’t.
Monavis
Uh huh. Either something is posted or it isn’t. Therefore, all posts are the same.
The boundary must come first just as the hole must come before the puddle.
That’s all very Zen, but I disagree - for one, you’ve switched from boundary to container there. For another, answer me this - can you have a shore before you have the sea?
That strikes me as a misrepresentation of what he said - a better analogy, as I see it, would be “therefore all posts are posted” - he (I think), like me, sees existance as a binary property (either true or not), not, as you seem to be insisting without further argument, a synonym for something more.
Two things can both be brown without having to be the same. Similarly, two things can both have the property of existence without them having to be the same. You seem to be saying, at least to me, that existence is a statement about the essence of the subject of existence. I still don’t see how you make that leap. How can you say “existence is a predicate” (a predicate is just a statement-part about the truth of a property of the predicate’s subject, like the “is a man” part of the sterotypica; “Socrates is a man” statement, unless I’m woefully misreading the definitions) and insist it’s also something more is beyond me.
But why do you count only the circumference and disregard the whole volume? Do you individuate a person solely by his epidermis?
Without further argument? I’ve linked to whole books of argument, and summarized it myself three times. I can’t write a book here, and besides, people like Miller already have. And binary property? Everything’s a binary property then — Socrates is wise or he isn’t. If that’s his only point, then it has nothing to do with existence as a predicate. What does predication have to do with bivalence?
But they can be different shades of brown; and they can have different experiences and attributes that define their existence.
Well, you’re a man too, but not the same man as Socrates. Before we go further, at least read the links. If what you want to do is understand Miller’s point of view, then your desire is easily remedied. But if you just want to parry and match wits, then carry on without researching anything. I mean, I had to read it to learn about it. It won’t harm you or anything.
In a way, yes, I do - the skin is what separates the me from the not-me. This is not to say that I am just my skin, is it?
But Socrates can be “wiser than” or “less wise than”. I argue that you can’s say “has more existence” or “has less existence”.
But is any shade of brown “more brown” than any other?
I think you are using existence here where I would use essence. To me, existence isd the fact of a subject’s reality, essence is the nature of its attributes.
But not being Socrates doesn’t make me not a man.
I read the Standford link on existence you posted. Haven’t read the book you cited the review of (which I also read) in the same post, but me getting hold of books is not so easy.
Don’t assume I haven’t read the links. I have, but I do not agree with the underlying assumptions in them, sometimes. Such as, it seems, in Miller’s work, that observable properties are instances of universals rather than complete in-and-of-themselves. I don’t think existence is a property that derives from a universal “existence”, but rather a shorthand for the reality of a subject. I disagree with that Stanford article on existence you linked, where it says that “X exists” is not the same as “X is real”, for instance. To me, those are equivalent statements, because I think implicit in “X exists” is “x exists NOW”, which negates, i believe, their fundamental problem with exists = real. Also, the statement there that you can’t refer to a non-existent “Tom” is just ridiculous on the face of it - or we’d be knee-deep in IPUs and FSMs.
I think you do yourself a disservice if you assume that because it’s in a linked article, and you agree with the argument, it doesn’t even need mentioning in this thread.
I want to understand your position, believe me, but it is in my nature to question the underlying, unstated assumptions of a worldview just as much as the stated beliefs.
I also don’t hesitate to state the underlying assumptions of my own worldview - I believe I’ve done so in this thread already, such as “Perfection is inherently contradictory”. Another would be "Existence and Essence arise together " or - “how can you have a boundary to a nonexistant thing?”
In a way, yes, I do - the skin is what separates the me from the not-me. This is not to say that I am just my skin, is it?
But Socrates can be “wiser than” or “less wise than”. I argue that you can’s say “has more existence” or “has less existence”.
But is any shade of brown “more brown” than any other?
I think you are using existence here where I would use essence. To me, existence isd the fact of a subject’s reality, essence is the nature of its attributes.
But not being Socrates doesn’t make me not a man.
I read the Standford link on existence you posted. Haven’t read the book you cited the review of (which I also read) in the same post, but me getting hold of books is not so easy.
Don’t assume I haven’t read the links. I have, but I do not agree with the underlying assumptions in them, sometimes. Such as, it seems, in Miller’s work, that observable properties are instances of universals rather than complete in-and-of-themselves. I don’t think existence is a property that derives from a universal “existence”, but rather a shorthand for the reality of a subject. I disagree with that Stanford article on existence you linked, where it says that “X exists” is not the same as “X is real”, for instance. To me, those are equivalent statements, because I think implicit in “X exists” is “x exists NOW”, which negates, i believe, their fundamental problem with exists = real. Also, the statement there that you can’t refer to a non-existent “Tom” is just ridiculous on the face of it - or we’d be knee-deep in IPUs and FSMs.
I think you do yourself a disservice if you assume that because it’s in a linked article, and you agree with the argument, it doesn’t even need mentioning in this thread.
I want to understand your position, believe me, but it is in my nature to question the underlying, unstated assumptions of a worldview just as much as the stated beliefs.
I also don’t hesitate to state the underlying assumptions of my own worldview - I believe I’ve done so in this thread already, such as “Perfection is inherently contradictory”. Another would be "Existence and Essence arise together " or - “how can you have a boundary to a nonexistant thing?”
But that’s my point. It isn’t just your skin that individuates your body from mine; it’s the whole of your body. And it isn’t just the “shoreline” of your existence that individuates it from mine, but the whole of your existence. I was careful to define the bounds of existence in such a way that it included the whole of your attributes and experiences. Somehow, that disconnected into a sort of ring-around-the collar by the time you’d read it. Everything about our existence — every single detail — is utterly unique, however slightly, again owing to the nature of electromagnetism. We each exist in a singular, insulated, and subjective world. Even what we observe is not the outside world itself, but the processes of our brains from our own sensory stimulation.
Right. And moreover, Socrates and Aristotle can… well, not only can, but *must * have different kinds of wisdom, if wisdom has anything to do with experience.
I don’t see why not. I think an infant who died at childbirth had less existence than a great-grandmother who is still alive at 103. In fact, now that he’s dead, her existence is infinitely greater than his. I also think it’s as meaningful qualitatively as it is quantitatively. A comatose man with lifelong severe retardation has less existence than a man who travels the world as a head of state. That is not to say that one individual is morally worth more than another, but that their ontological manifestations are unique.
That depends on how you define brown. If it is exactly equal parts red light and green light, then deviations are less brown. I think that if existence is defined carelessly, we end up with there being no difference between your existence and that of a virtual particle. And that’s setting aside the sticky business of such things as unicorns and whether thoughts exist.
Like Miller, I think that Kant stripped existence of all meaning. To help illustrate what I mean, instead of “brown”, let’s use a verb: “tan”. And let’s say that Socrates tans and Aristotle tans. Even though there are unstated predicates, there are predications. The two men will tan differently unless every particular about them is identical, including their skin pigment and the angle of sun. Even allowing that their skin pigment is miraculously the same by some astonishing quantum accident, they still have not merged into one being and received identical rays of sun.
Our usages are not that different. I would say that existence is the fact of a subject’s physical emergence (which I would argue isn’t real, but that’s beside the point here), but I would say the same as you about essence (though I would include experiences in the attributes).
Who said otherwise? You brought up the classic “Socrates is a man” to illustrate predication. And I was making the point that is central to Miller’s argument, that you are no more individuated by that statement about Socrates than you are by the statement “Socrates exists”. Recall that the whole point of Kant’s treatment of predication was that it must *individuate * one subject from another. All we have to do to predicate existence linguistically is to express “exists” as a copula (which some languages do anyway). Thus, “Socrates exists as Socrates”, which has a formal predicate (predicate nominative) and individuates Socrates from every thing else ever in existence.
My apologies, then, for that misunderstanding. It was coming across to me more like you didn’t understand, what with dismissals about Zen metaphors and observations that I seemed to be saying this or that, when I believe I’ve stated my case as plainly as anyone can. I was dumbfounded because, speaking for myself, I first have to understand something before I can say whether I disagree with it. But that doesn’t necessarily hold for everyone.
Again, it seems to me that you are equating existence with the experience that arises from it. I say “seems to me” just so you understand that I don’t want you thinking I’m saying this is what you are saying, but as an invitation for clarity, you understand?
Agreed
I’d disagree. Well, other thanb “nothing” is less than “something”, but “less than” implies a continuum.
well, some heads of state ;).
Seriously, though, I don’t agree. That’s not how I use “existence” at all.
If all you’re saying is that everything that exists, exists uniquely, you’ll get no arguement from me, and we can move on. Errm, I mean I’ll go back to sitting next to SM. It was that “Boundaries of existence” phrase that made me raise my hand, but if by that you mean each individual is its own individual, I don’t fault that, it fits right in with my worldview.
But we are not, or at least I am not, we define a range of shades, and anything within that set is brown. Anything outside is not. One brown may be more red-brown than another, or darker-brown than another, but they are all equally brown. At least, that’s how I see it.
There is no difference as I see it between my existence and the existence of anything else in the material world, as existence. I don’t know what you mean by a “virtual” particle, unless you’re misunderstanding current ideas on subatomic physics, but I’m pretty sure that’s been discussed with youfairly recently, so I don’t think that’s it, and perhaps you could clarify?Unicorns do not exist. The idea of unicorns exists. Thoughts exist.
That is all, of course, my worldview. What is your view on the existence of thoughts?
I think that’s a case of shoehorning a word into a role where another would do. There is a difference between existence and experience, IMO. The one necessitates the other, but they are not identical.
You seem to me to be saying experience is the domain of essence, not existence, here.
But Socrates is individuated from everything not-him. Which would, to me, be more in line with Kant’s point.
I would say that was implicit in any reading of “Socrates Exists”, even the English one. But note, I am not a Kantian,
Hey, now, that’s a little acid, no?
Anyway, I think you are making the jump from “did not agree” to “did not understand” too quickly there. I do grasp the concept of “bounds”, but don’t agree with the idea that it is the essence that bounds the existence. I’m more inclined to say it is the other way around - it is my existence as individual that constrains all my experiences. The fact that I cannot experience what you experience forces me to be different from you, like you said. But that fact arises from the material circumstances of my existence, not from my essence. In fact, my essence arises solely from my interactions with those bounds and my internal structure.
Again, that’s as I see it, which is of course, not as you do.
I think we’re getting close here. Yes, I agree that we all exist uniquely, but there is an implication that goes along with that: namely, that there is something about our existence that individuates us. That makes the individuation ontological in nature, and therefore makes existence something that is predicated on something. It so happens that the somethings are the same: Socrates <- exists -> as Socrates, which makes it a tautology, which makes it universally and necessarily true. (A tautology is proved by every assertion.)
Maybe that ties together what you had perceived as a “leap”; at least, I hope so. And now, we can, as you say, move on. Now that loose ends are tied up, I can make the point I’ve been wanting to make.
A corollary to the implication is that essence is included in existence. Looking at both, we’d say that essence is a subset of existence. Looking at it that way, the question becomes whether the subset preceded the larger set or vice-versa. If we answer that they emerged together, then what is it that they describe? How is it that my existence and essence emerged together, and so did yours, and yet there is nothing about our existence to differentiate us? Same same if existence emerged first. Wouldn’t it mean that our existence, containing our essence — i.e., existence emerged and then our essence was added to it — is differentiated by what it contains (what with my essence being different from yours)? And finally, if essence emerged before existence, then existence is not predicative at all. One is the same as another, meaning nothing more than physical manifestation without qualification or quantification. And so, it is the existentialist who must reason that existence is a predicate, while the essentialist has no such burden. In fact, existence becomes relatively insignificant.
MrDibble, if I may butt in uninvited…
Since “Existence precedes essence”, it follows that a thing can exist but have no essence.
Let’s say you exist, but you have no essence. You did say, however, that you have skin. If you exist without essence and have skin, that means your skin has no essence either; there is, literally, no essential difference between your skin and any skin.
Without Essence, there’s no way to distinguish between what MrDibble is and what MrDibble is not.
Sorry to have largely disappeared from the debate, but all this “essence precedes existence” type discussion is a bit alien to me, capable of making sense only in a manner far removed from how I would normally use those words. (As I understand it, the whole discussion about whether existence or essence came first sprang from Sartre, who felt that existence came first, but saw the reverse view in Plato. But to me, it all seems something of a pseudoquestion, surrounded in a lot of obfuscatory lather and blather. When I read up on it, it becomes rather clear that of the author and I, at least one is deeply confused. But this happens to me with much of continental philosophy, and, to a lesser extent, the ancient (Greek) kind as well.)
So the last page seems rather angels on pins to me. But, undoubtedly, many feel that way about much of what I say as well, and feel that way about my particular style and areas of philosophy. At any rate, could you perhaps clear one thing up for me? (Naturally, you’ve been trying to clear things up for everyone all along, of course…) When you speak of “precede” in “essence precedes existence”, what does that mean, exactly? Surely that isn’t meant in a temporal sense, but in what sense is it meant?
Also, I guess this whole particular discussion goes back to your reply to my last comment, Liberal, which I’m still trying to understand. In that reply, you mentioned that you weren’t exploring the question “Does God exist?” with the modal argument, but, rather, “What is the nature of God’s existence?”. But do you feel that the modal argument actually establishes God’s existence? If so, I suppose I still am forced to wonder, in counter to the acceptability of the premises of the modal argument, why it is metaphysically untenable to posit a world in which nothing exists. I’m afraid I haven’t clearly grasped your objection to this; I thought at first (because of this post) that it was because you felt that propositions, the accessibility relation itself, etc., had to be taken as existent objects, but that turned out to apparently not be the case. So your objection (to my objection to the premises) is still unclear to me; I gather the discussion about the relation between existence and essence may have something to do with that, but I’m not sure, that may be a sidetrack. Some sort of summary or outline or just plain re-wording of your objection (and/or the current state of the discussion in general) would be very helpful.
You have me confused with Sartre - I said no such thing - I said (as Lib seems to get) that existence and essence arise simultaneously. In other words, as soon as something exists, it has essence. You can not, IMO, exist without having essence.
I don’t equate “is necessitated by” to “is a subset of” in the way you seem to.
To me, the combination of my existence and my essence(my interactions with the not-Me) is “me”.
I don’t understand the problem. It is the fact of our existence that differentiates us, as we have agreed, each thing that exists, exists uniquely. There need be no further attributes needed to fulfill that differentiation, to me. Existence is complete in itself to describe us as unique, because the uniqueness of our (or anything’s) existence in the framework of space and time renders our corresponding experiences and attributes unique - our uniqueness derives from our interaction with the World from the instant of our instantiation, if you will. If there was no World, we would not be unique. But we would not be said to exist without a World to exist in, either.
As soon as something exists, it has essence - there is no gap where a thing exists but has no essence.
I would argue that it is the existence that does have a qualification - that qualification is the implicit “NOW” in “I exist”. I’d argue that it is the constraints of space and time that necessitate the uniqueness of our existence, and that from the instant of our existence, our essence arises and changes with the interaction with those constraints. In other words, the World of all-that-is-not-you serves to individuate you from the moment you exist. or - It is not you-in-yourself that makes you unique, it is your context.
Other-wise! 
Great to hear from you again!
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In the sense of a prerequisite.
It does, but as I explained before, it’s only because we do not stop at the penultimate inference, where we get G. It is on that step that we have done what we set out to do: establish the ontological nature of God. In other words, we discover that the nature of His existence is supreme (necessary). And as I said before, it is only a serendipitous twist of fortune that we may then, by modus ponens, deduce that His existence in the actual world is established, where we get G. And yes, I understand your objection to the premise, and I respect it. But I disagree with it for the reasons already given.
I think that’s the crux of our disagreement, and I doubt whether either of us will be moved because we view the world so much differently. The reason there is no gap, in my view, is because existence is merely the physical emergence of what was already essential and real. Existence is trivial.
But as to existentialism versus essentialism in general, the idea always precedes the execution, just like when you write a post. You don’t just tap out random symbols and then try to find meaning in them. They don’t emerge together either — even if it seems like you’re typing as fast as you can think, your fingers are slightly behind your mind for the simple reason that your mind is telling them what keys to press.
And let me save us some time by pointing out alleged flaw X in the above analogy, accompanied by rationale Y, both of which I take exception to. 
Seriously though, I wish you all the best in your endeavors to understand pre-existentialist viewpoints, but you need a person more competent than I to take you there. I’ve said nothing that I wouldn’t simply be repeating or paraphrasing, and my time in the next couple of weeks is going to be more limited. In discussions like this, it can take me an hour or more to write one post in this kind of thread because I like to give it as much thought and precision as I can. It would be unfair to you for me to cheat you out of the attentive effort you deserve.
Well, then, we do disagree and that’s that. fair enough. But you can see why the MOP holds no value for me, then.
That is not the issue,it doesn"t make every thing or posts the same they exist in a different form but they are in existance or they would not be.
Monavis
I can indeed. Like Plantinga, I’m under no delusion that the MOP will convince anyone of anything. I’m just glad that I don’t have to defend the positions that reject it — or those that reject essentialism, for that matter. As the old quaker said, “Better thee than me.”
So (A Or Not A) is true. I think we can agree on that, but what does it have to do with anything? Something exists or it doesn’t. Socrates is wise or he isn’t. So what? The Law of Excluded Middle says nothing about what kind of existence something has or how the wisdom of Socrates might differ from the wisdom of Aristotle.
It seems to me that you are talking about the existence of a thing,I am talking about the totality of existence, like a drop of water in the ocean it is water but it is not the total ocean, perhaps my anology is not the best.
monavis