if not, not if so… grr
Not really. We can limit our inquiry to the set of those things that are real (which is to say they interact with us or those things that interact with us). The nature of these things, and whether any particular concept of part of the set, cannot be determined through logic. Doing so would require a system more complex than the system we’re referring to.
**I can say that lots of things exist, but what matters is whether I can demonstrate this. My inductive reasoning, of course, could always be mistaken. What do I mean by mistaken? Reasoning’s results don’t necessarily match my observations. Then again, I could say that about anything.
Can I, ahead of time, state whether any particular thing actually exists? Not really. No one can ever really say that, can they?
It’s not that they don’t exist. It’s that the interactions determine what we mean by existence, so they can’t be considered to possess or lack the property. It’s rather like asking for the color of electrons. On that level of analysis, the concept of ‘color’ doesn’t apply.
I do disagree with that. Since the properties are interactions that involve us or things that interact with us, they exist.
Are neutrons real? If I hit you with a beam of them, you’d start noticing their effects, but the particles themselves don’t lend themselves to sensory stimuli. You’d notice the nausea and subcutaneous bleeding and cancer and death… and it would seem more than a little odd if you attributed these effects to the supernatural merely because you couldn’t detect their cause.
What is “real”? This sounds like another word for “exists” in which case it is just a tautology of two steps. Unless there are real things that don’t exist.
I’m sorry, but I don’t see how this answers the objection. The objection is that in order to determine if something exists, it would presumably have to meet some sort of criteria for “what counts as an existent” lest we, as you seem to disparage, get to say anything we want. The criteria is what says “this counts as evidence”. The criteria themselves, however: do they exist?
Interaction between what? Between things that do or do not exist?
If you hit me with a beam of neutrons I would notice an effect that we call “being hit with a beam of neutrons.”
** Again, “real” is the word used to denote that something exists relative to us. Unreal things can be said to exist relative to each other (or certain subsets of each other), but they’re not “real” to us.
** The criterion for existence is whether a given thing interacts with us. These interactions, considered by themselves, neither exist nor don’t exist. The concept doesn’t apply to them.
What things?
Consider the following: In elementary school science classes, the forces between atoms in molecules are often compared to springs. This provides an adequate metaphor for considering their movements. However, the behavior of springs is a direct result of the way interatomic forces act, so this metaphor uses a thing to explain itself.
What, then, is the nature of interatomic forces and springs?
You wouldn’t perceive the neutrons directly through your senses, though.
Here is your use of “possible” that you wanted.
So existence is not a property?
Well I just wonder why you choose the word “interaction” if there aren’t things to interact. I assume you are trying to say that you exist, and you sense. And that is all that can be said?
I don’t see the significance of the spring example.
I don’t know what you mean. I would sense something; we call this something “a beam of neutrons”. If I would not sense something, then I would not sense something and there is no phenomenal existent.
It’s a relative property. Asking whether something exists without specifying a frame of reference invalidates the question. Without a context, it has no meaning.
What do you mean, I exist? Exist relative to what?
We understand the interatomic forces by comparing them to springs, but the behavior of springs is determined by the interatomic forces. What, then, do we understand?
So you think that if your senses don’t register something, it can’t interact with you? :dubious: I don’t understand. Do you think the universe vanishes if you close your eyes?
Do frames of reference exist? I’m just trying to get to the bottom here. And if they do not, then what are they? Are they even emprical?
I’m not quite sure how to address this question. Do you mean, relative to what frame that may or may not exist (because I don’t know yet what you will say)? How would I go about declaring this frame? What would I need to specify for your satisfaction?
I understand the relevance of this example in a more general context of scientific theories’ dog-wagging tails. I do not understand how it applies to the discussion at hand.
I think I use my senses to determine what phenomenally exists. I use logic, inference, arguments from authority, intuition, and any number of other things to determine what psychologically exist; that is, what exists conceptually but not phenomenally.
When I close my eyes I no longer experience part of a sensory world. If that were all that was ever available to me, then it would cease to phenomenally exist at all, sure. What “underlying” causation I had conceptually attributed to my experiences of sensation would not change per se.
** I’m sorry. I don’t know any ways of explaining this besides those I’ve already used.
To answer your question, ask yourself if we interact with a frame of reference. Is a frame of reference a way of talking about what we see, or is it what we see?
The frame doesn’t need to be declared. Whether you or I are satisfied is irrelevant.
Do you and I interact with each other? It seems clear that we do. Our shared frame of reference contains everything that interacts with either of us. What’s in this reference frame? I don’t know – that’s an empirical question. To find out, we’ll have to look.
** What exists non-phenomenally?
Forget about what you think the world is. What about the underlying causation that’s actually responsible for what you perceived?
But if we don’t see things the same way WRT existence I don’t see what introspection is supposed to accomplish other than me telling myself that I see things the way I do. Sometimes a useful exercize to be sure, but not here I don’t think.
It is entirely relevant to this discussion. You say something only exists WRT a frame. What is a frame? Do frames exist? How do I refer to them? If I refer to them, doesn’t that mean they exist? I must be able to refer to them if I am to say anything exists at all, from what I gather from you, so its declaration is paramount. I asked if something exists before, and you said “relative to what” which is apparently a request for a frame. So now are you suggesting your own request was irrelevant?
While I don’t want to deny this statement’s apparent truth, I do want to question whether, then, you or I exist. If we form a frame, does that frame exist?
Causality. A distinct self. Meaning.
“Actually” responsible? You mean the underlying causes… that exist?
** Of course: as concepts. Ideas exist.
** Not at all. But not specifying a relationship makes the question irrelevant. “Do I exist relative to myself?” is not an askable question.
That’s a meaningless question.
Since the underlying causes result in the interactions with us, of course they exist.
I think we’re still not using ‘exist’ in the same way, despite my attempts to make its meaning explicit. Perhaps you should try explaining to me what you mean by saying that something exists.
Very well. Do frames-as-ideas exist in the same way that, say, a soccer ball exists? Or an atom of hydrogen?
Then why did you say, “The frame doesn’t need to be declared”? If, in order to say something exists, one needs a frame, then it seems a frame always needs to be declared, and that this itself is not based on observation (it is a fact independent of any particular observation).
It is then a recasting of cogito ergo sum?
Please elaborate. You said frames exist. You said to declare that something exists one needs a frame. Perhaps the exposition on atoms is becoming more apropriate?
Well.
I really don’t.
I thought I did, but very well. I will do what I can. This is not meant to be a declaration of an opinion I have settled on, but the current result of my ongoing investigations. That said…
In a philosophical context, something exist if I am sensing or (inclusive) if I have a concept of it.
The model of sensation is what I would call phenomenal existence: I am sensing something; thus, that something exists. It is extreme solipsism without a consistent subject for sensation. Sensation itself does not exist, one does not sense sensing. If we were to make an analogy to painting, phenomenal existence is an impressionist painting; this analogy does not extend far enough to imply that we have sensational snapshots of anything (contrary to Hume, IMO). There is no identity. The model of sensation is pure solipsistic, nihilistic nominalism. It is RAM without an operating system.
The model of concepts is what I would call psychological existence. It is not based on sensation, but it does use sensation as input (as well as other psychological existents: concepts). It has an undefined, consistent, “atomic” subject: “I”. “I” serves as the union of phenomenal and psychological existence. “I” exists as all psychological “things” do. As far as I can tell, the self (“I”) is transcendent: it is the ubiquitous existent of all psychological structures and hierarchies (I cannot conceive of my own non-existence, I can only conceive of a place where I am not, for example; “I” am the one viewing this empty space).
All declarations of existence are psychological, even declarations of phenomenal existence. The phenomenal world is nonsensical and private. “Ultimate reality” is psychological. I am quite likely an idealist no matter how much I personally would like to rebel against it. I am not a monist in that there is a very obvious schism between phenomenal existence and psychological existence.
In a review something got deleted. There is no consistent subject in the phenomenal world.
Ah, I think I know what you’re asking. (Correct me if I’m wrong.)
All of those things are real. They’re not real in precisely the same way, however. They’re part of different levels of reality.
The boundaries we impose on the world are arbitrary. A “soccer ball” doesn’t exist independently (sans interaction) any more than an atom does. Neither can be completely understood without taking into account everything else.
The frame needs to be declared in our discussion; otherwise, there’d be no concept for us to manipulate. The concept inside our discussion is not the interaction in reality, any more than the concept of unicorns means that one-horned horses are running around somewhere.
No. Descartes took for granted that thinking requires existence, and so drew the conclusion he wished to draw.
I would say that interaction is existence.
No, the concept of frames exists. To say that something exists (to give it the concept of existence within the mental models built by my mind), I need to specify a frame. If things can meaningfully be said to exist, they have relationships with other things. This is the same as saying that there’s an interaction.
You’re confusing the reality we’re talking about (the moon) with our means of talking about it (the finger). Stop looking at the finger, and pay attention to the moon!
I shall consider your definition of “existence” and get back to you. It’s sufficiently complex that I’ll need some time to think it over.
What exists is what human beings find worth talking about.
“Concepts…are the expression of our interest, and direct our interest.” Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 570.
Wittgenstein’s late work represents an effort to restore to philosophy a sense of “what matters,” and this turns out, paradoxically, to entail a repudiation or ending of philosophy as such, as if to take an interest in our lives would mean becoming bored with the “problem of life” as imagined by philosophy.
“The real discovery is the one that makes me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to.” PI, 133. He was not speaking of philosophy as it is academically understood.
The importance of “interest” or “mattering” – which is what makes language possible – has been almost completely neglected in studies of Wittgenstein, but it represents a possible point of intersection with our era’s other truely important thinker, Heidegger, when the latter wrote about “Sorge” (care) as the basis of man’s relationship to Being.
What can comprehensibly be said is ultimately a matter of what is found to be worth saying.
OK, that’s interesting. I think I’m personally satisfied with your exposition for the moment, but I’d like to make a hopefully quick hijack. I would use much the same wording to describe moral judgment making. But now, because of that, I would say there is no objective morality. Would you say there is no objective reality? Or, contrarywise, would you say there is an objective morality? (I won’t press this issue to complete the hijack, just wondering)
I still haven’t contemplating your existence defintion. I’ll get back to you shortly.
Regarding your question: I’d say several things.
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Of course there’s an objective morality! (grossly unjustified assumption)
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If there’s no way in which morality can be determined objectively, it’s ultimately completely arbitrary and therefore meaningless. If it can’t make any distinction (or makes all distinctions possible), it can’t logically be real in any sense. It certainly wouldn’t be important. (consequences of definition of ‘objective’ and ‘morality’)
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If you have some time, try performing a search on the Prisoner’s Dilemma and the evolutionary computer models that have been used to evaluate it.
Excuse my rather lowbrow contribution to the thread, but Vorlon, the existence of your user name as the originator of a thread screws up the visual presentation mightily. Would you consider the possibility of shortening your username to something that doesn’t do this?:rolleyes:
Several people have mentioned that previously. I don’t know why it happens to some but not others: my screen is just fine.
I’ll think about it. As I haven’t gotten any complaints from the moderators, and presumably screen configurations can be changed to compensate, I don’t think I’ll be changing any time soon.
If screen configuration can remedy this, I’d be happy to try it. However, that solution isn’t obvious to me, nor is it terribly practical to eff up my config just because some people have bloated, ok-it-was-clever-the-first-time, carpal-tunnel inducing usernames. But, YOUR screen is fine, screw the rest of us…
Of course, “An Arky” is a scintillating example of wit and clever wordplay. 
At least it’s short.