I boarded an airplane in San Francisco. That airplane took off and flew west for a long time and when it landed and I debarked, the people who met me all said “Welcome to China.” Those people looked to be Chinese and they spoke a language I couldn’t begin to understand, but which I took to be Chinese. It certainly wasn’t English. As I was being driven from the airport to my hotel, I saw quite a few signs referencing Beijing, which I understand is in China, if it actually exists. A day or so later, I was driven to a city some miles south of Beijing and I saw water buffalo being used to plow fields and I saw large areas of land planted to rice. Still later, I boarded another airplane that took off and flew east for a long time. When it landed and I debarked, I was again in San Francisco. I’m sure I went somewhere and returned whence I came. I am convinced I actually visited China and that it does exist. Of course, I understand that it all could have been a dream. If so, I would really like to repeat that dream again and again.
The representation of China in the UN doesn’t prove the existance of China any more than the existance of churches proves the existance of God.
Isn’t doubt fun? 
Start with Rene Descartes, and work from there.
We have a wealth of evidence that China exists, which is good reason to accept the proposition tentatively until such time as we see sufficient reason to reject its existance. And unlike some fictional constructs, the existance of China is testable.
Of course China doesn’t exist. The Republic of China certainly does, though. And the Nationalist still own it, and we’re gonna kick out those mean old communists someday. Yeah. :rolleyes:
(I was born in Taiwan, so I couldn’t resist the obligatory joke.)
So, mswas, you’re proposing that China doesn’t exist. What alternative explanation do you offer me?
Because I’ve seen a lot of documentation of China’s existence, in many different forms. More importantly, you’ve seen a lot of documentation of China’s existence, in many different forms. That documentation is overwhelmingly consistent: it’s not as if half of it claims China is a country in Asia, and the other half claims that China is a country in South America. It’s not as if lots of people claim that Spanish is the country’s national language. It’s not as if there’s a popular theory that China is governed by giant porcupines.
How do you account for this overwhelmingly consistent portrait of China, if it doesn’t exist?
Note that this consistency is a major difference between China and God. While there are billions of people telling me that God exists, there are tremendous inconsistencies in the details of this God–not just in the “different parts of an elephant” sense, but actual contradictions in descriptions.
Daniel
Does China really exist?
Not since Bush signed the recent legislation.
The bombing starts in five minutes.
Jesus God Almighty I wish Philosophy courses were limited to graduate students and above. 
It’s pretty simple.
It would be quite impossible for a conspiracy to be maintained on the scale necessary to produce the abundance of “anecdotal” evidence, as you call it, for the existence of China.
Try looking at the issue from another point of view. Begin with your choices – China exists, or China doesn’t exist.
Then ask yourself what would have to be true for each of these alternatives to be real.
It is abundantly obvious that the “China doesn’t exist” option is an absurdity. And you don’t have to go about the laborious and pointless task of calculating some sort of anecdotal mass.
No, extraordinary claims require extraodinary evidence. A claim can be extraordinary based on common experience. For example, if I claimed that I could walk through walls, that would be an extraordinary claim by pretty much anyone’s standard. People would be disinclined to believe me without seeing evidence. But for mundane claims, like “it’s raining outside” or “there is a country called China”, people wouldn’t be as likely to doubt.
Why does every discussion here have to end up being about God?
I don’t believe that just because something happened to you personally, that it is invalid evidence. It depends on the context of the discussion. For example, if Joe says “There are no green Chevrolets”, and Fred says, “I saw one yesterday”, his evidence is not anecdotal, and tends to disprove what Joe said. We’d have to know exactly how the discussion went to know if your evidence was valid.
Doing a ping* and a whois:
Server Used: [ whois.cnnic.net.cn ]
www.china.org.cn = [ 202.130.245.33 ] Domain Name: china.org.cn
ROID: 20021209s10051s00002118-cn
Domain Status: ok
Registrant Organization: <>
Registrant Name:
Administrative Email: infornew@public.bta.net.cn
Sponsoring Registrar:
Name Server: ns1.china.org.cn
Name Server: ns1.china-online.com.cn
Registration Date: 1997-04-22 00: 00
Expiration Date: 2009-07-01 00: 00
Well, at least for the web, it does exist from 1997 on… 
*had a problem finding the ping to china since the search got so many guys named Ping! 
Because that’s what the OP is really getting at. Why else would he have posted such a question unless he intended it to eventually turn into a discussion about the existence of God?
Or, she…
We know China exists because the claim ‘China exists’ could be disproven - someone could ask this person claiming the existance of China ‘Where is China?’, then go to where they say China is, and see if it really is there or not. Since nobody has disproven to me that China exists, I accept that it does.
I don’t buy this logic:
Consider this little twist on it: “We know Elbonia exists because the claim ‘Elbonia exists’ could be disproven - someone could ask this person claiming the existance of Elbonia ‘Where is Elbonia?’, then go to where they say Elbonia is, and see if it really is there or not. Since nobody has disproven to me that Elbonia exists, I accept that it does.”
You seem to be claiming that because a claim could potentially be disproven, you’re willing to accept that it’s true until and unless it is actually disproven.
Again, I think the OP is going about it backward by attempting to reach some critical mass of direct evidence. It makes more sense to ask how likely it is that the proposition “China exists” is either true or false.
Once you do this – begin with your choices and compare their likelihoods – it’s obvious that the proposition “China doesn’t exist” is not tenable.
Actually I believe that both China and God exist. I am more certain of God than I am of China in all honesty. Every debate about God is a semantic debate IMO, as god has no concrete properties other than the concrete properties of everything. Whereas China has more finite and definable concrete properties as being specific to just China. So lets say I am 100% certain of God and 99.99999% certain of China, as I experience god in the totality of every moment, and China only sometimes.
More or less I was just trying to get at people’s feelings about evidence, and chose a ridiculous example for both comedic value, and because it is something that obviously exists though I have no personal ‘proof’ that it exists, but quite a lot of evidence to support it’s existence.
I’m pretty happy with the responses overall. It didn’t totally satisfy my query, but it’s helped.
Erek
mswas, are you being serious when you say you have even a shred of doubt that China exists? Have you seriously considered the level of conspiracy that would be necessary for that to be true? Have you asked yourself how many people would have to be involved in this, why they would do it, how they would maintain it, and who in the world they would be attempting to fool?
The probability that China exists is 100%, no less.
I like this board. It’s the only board I belong to, and the only one I’ve ever cared to belong to. But the one thing that consistenly grinds my nerves is the willingness of a large proportion of its members to argue from theory rather than reality.
Leprechaunism rears its ugly head yet again.
If someone told me that Elbonia exists, I would accept it if I didn’t have any evidence to the otherwise. If I didn’t know as much geography as I do, I’d have no reason to dispute the existence of Elbonia until the person made claims about this country that made me suspicious of their truth.
As it is, I know there is no country named Elbonia, probably ask the person if they meant Albania, and if they insisted there was an Elbonia, I would ask for some kind of proof. But otherwise, I’d have no reason to suspect the claim because I know I could find out if it is true or not.
Now, if someone told me that the universe is a computer simulation that is 100% indistinguishable from reality by the intelligences that inhabit it, I’m never going to believe it - there is no way to disprove that kind of statement, any reasons the person may have for believing that have to be internal.
Ok. We simply have irreconcilable philosophical viewpoints, which is 
with me. Personally, I don’t know how you manage to survive with that philosophy, but then again, I’m an admittedly suspicious and sometimes paranoid person.
Does China really exist?
The same question vexed mankind about Challenger Deep in the Mariana’s Trench, until it was visited. Just once. In 1960. For 20 minutes.