# If something is not yet in existence, does it exist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 18, 2009, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-something-is-not-yet-in-existence-does-it-exist/500156 "2009-06-18T11:47:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-something-is-not-yet-in-existence-does-it-exist/500156/1 "2009-06-18T11:47:41Z")
In an earlier thread Existence was described as: The state of all emerged essences. Aristotle is quoted as:the what it was to be. Essence was identified as : the nature that identifies a thing before it comes into existence. I disagree with this, the dictionary defines essence: That which makes a thing what it is; necessary PART or PARTS. important feature or features,substance,entity; any concentrated substance that has charecteristics,flavor,fragerance,effect of a plant,fruit from which it is etc. obtained,a substance of alcohol,perfume. existence is defined: Real or actual being,continued being, life, ALL that exists,thing that exists. My conclusion is is that if essence does not exist(if it is not in existence than it is nothing. Nowhere). Where was essence before it came into existence? If it was nowhere, then it is nothing, until it can exist. so I am led to wonder how can anything, idea etc. exist with out first coming from some being’s idea,or thing. The essence of a rose needs a rose to be first. Notice that essence is described as a PART. Captilazion is mine ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-something-is-not-yet-in-existence-does-it-exist/500156/2 "2009-06-18T12:01:22Z")
I agree, but for me it’s a definitional thing. By definition you cannot reify ideas, only informational phenomena. Which is not to say that there is not a chance that we are just ideas in someone else’s mind, but at some point you just have make assumptions. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-something-is-not-yet-in-existence-does-it-exist/500156/3 "2009-06-18T12:55:43Z")
I believe essence arises simultaneously with existence. _When_ a thing is, only then you can simultaneously say \*what \*that thing is. Any previous speculation (or “ideal”) is not the thing itself, so is only that - speculation, and _not_ the essence of a thing. Note that: it’s always the essence of a thing. No thing, no essence. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-something-is-not-yet-in-existence-does-it-exist/500156/4 "2009-06-18T13:28:14Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I believe essence arises simultaneously with existence. _When_ a thing is, only then you can simultaneously say \*what \*that thing is. > Any previous speculation (or “ideal”) is not the thing itself, so is only that - speculation, and _not_ the essence of a thing. > > Note that: it’s always the essence of a thing. No thing, no essence. What about the essense of a thought? Thoughts exist, no? If so, doesn’t the mere conceiving of a thing, in a way, bring a thing into existence? ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-something-is-not-yet-in-existence-does-it-exist/500156/5 "2009-06-18T14:42:54Z")
I would say that your thoughts are patterns of associations. The pattern may exist, but the outcome of that pattern remains non-existing until physically realized. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-something-is-not-yet-in-existence-does-it-exist/500156/6 "2009-06-18T15:16:31Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > I would say that your thoughts are patterns of associations. The pattern may exist, but the outcome of that pattern remains non-existing until physically realized. I’m no existentialist philosopher, but this doesn’t feel right to me. By ‘physically realized’ do you mean constructed? If so, how do you explain time, or astronomical phenomena we haven’t actually witnessed, but have calculated? It seems more logical to me that anything that can be conceived comes into existence at that point, which means, yeah, everything exists. Apologies at the outset. I’m very weak on this topic, but appreciate the engagement. ---
**Author:** ![NoJustice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecb155/32.png) [@NoJustice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoJustice)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-something-is-not-yet-in-existence-does-it-exist/500156/7 "2009-06-18T17:50:01Z")
Just because thoughts exist, does not mean that thinking of a thing, brings that thing into existence. There is a difference between a thought of a thing and the thing itself. The thought of a thing can exist without the thing itself existing, just as a thing can exist even if nobody thinks of it. BTW, “_The state of all emerged essences._” sounds like little more than meaningless gibberish to me. I bet I can guess which thread this came from. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-something-is-not-yet-in-existence-does-it-exist/500156/8 "2009-06-18T20:09:14Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > What about the essense of a thought? Thoughts exist, no? If so, doesn’t the mere conceiving of a thing, in a way, bring a thing into existence? It is true that a thought will exist, but first there needs to be an existent being to bring it to be, something, or being, must first be in existence, to bring forth the idea. Essesence cannot exist unless there is existence. As the dictonary defines it essesence is a part of existence. I do not see how it can be, before it exists. ---
**Author:** ![Interconnected\_Series\_of\_Tubes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/13edae/32.png) [@Interconnected\_Series\_of\_Tubes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Interconnected_Series_of_Tubes)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-something-is-not-yet-in-existence-does-it-exist/500156/9 "2009-06-18T21:52:29Z")
With an education focused primarily on hard science with a smattering of philosophy, I’ll forward this: something exists if it has energy and/or mass (which are really the same thing, yadda yadda) and therefore makes a measurable impact on space-time. If it doesn’t, then it doesn’t. In reply to **Grey** and **Onomatopoeia** ’s discussion I would side with what I think the former is trying to say. “The essence of thought” is nothing more than an intricate series electrochemical gradients through nerve cells. Contemplating a table means that the pattern of electricity that represents “contemplating table” exists. The concept of a table exists as another dispassionate set of electricity, hormones, neurotransmitters _et al._ In short, you’ve got to demonstrably _prove_ existence. Just because we can’t see nebula XYZ doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist - and when it’s discovered its existence changes not a whit. You simply get new “thought-storms” related to it. I dunno. Maybe I’m missing the point. But it’s fun, ne? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-something-is-not-yet-in-existence-does-it-exist/500156/10 "2009-06-18T23:46:03Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > What about the essense of a thought? Thoughts exist, no? If so, doesn’t the mere conceiving of a thing, in a way, bring a thing into existence? No, that comes under the “mere speculation” clause of my post. An imagined unicorn, for instance, lacks several properties that would render it real (such as mass), hence has no essence, IMO. The essence of a real unicorn wouldn’t just be “a horse with a horn”, it would be “a horse with a horn that exists in the real world.” ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-something-is-not-yet-in-existence-does-it-exist/500156/11 "2009-06-18T23:57:16Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > I’m no existentialist philosopher, but this doesn’t feel right to me. By ‘physically realized’ do you mean constructed? If so, how do you explain time, or astronomical phenomena we haven’t actually witnessed, but have calculated? These will exist or not independent of our observation. And time very much exists - we can measure it, it has real effects. > [@](#): > > It seems more logical to me that anything that can be conceived comes into existence at that point, which means, yeah, everything exists. What definition of “exists” are you using here? I have the idea of pink unicorns that live on the moon. Does that mean they exist? Or just the idea of them exists physically, as **ISoT** says. It’s easy to get hung up on general definitions about essences, existence and idealism, but I think one thing people lose focus on when they drag existentialism into things, is that people like Sartre weren’t really talking about abstract essence like Platonic ideals when they said “existence precedes essence”. Sartre was talking about something much more ephemeral - what is it that makes \*me \*me, and _not you? Not_ what it is it that makes me this class of thing (human) but what makes me this individual (Neil)? In this sense, I agree with him that something, some substrate, has to exist before Neil arose as an emergent entity, and in that sense, I subscribe to a hard “existence precedes essence” view. It is only when we deal with general classes that my stance softens somewhat to simultaneity. Oh, I’m Neil, BTW. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-something-is-not-yet-in-existence-does-it-exist/500156/12 "2009-06-19T00:01:28Z")
Think of “before” here as having a logical sense, not a temporal sense. Whether or not there are actually any unicorns, what it is to be a unicorn is quite clear. There is an “essence” of unicorniness even though no unicorns exist. The claim that there is such an essence of unicornhood is controversial, of course. But I’m just articulating the view. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-something-is-not-yet-in-existence-does-it-exist/500156/13 "2009-06-19T07:46:05Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Whether or not there are actually any unicorns, what it is to be a unicorn is quite clear. But I am arguing that “list of properties” is not the same as “essence”. One of the properties of a unicorn is that it is a _mythological_ creature - IOW, part of the “essence” of a unicorn is that it does _not_ exist. > [@](#): > > There is an “essence” of unicorniness even though no unicorns exist. I think this confuses the \*idea \*of the unicorn with the \*essence \*of the unicorn. I don’t think the two words mean exactly the same thing, which is basically what you’re arguing. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-something-is-not-yet-in-existence-does-it-exist/500156/14 "2009-06-19T09:38:01Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > But I am arguing that “list of properties” is not the same as “essence”. One of the properties of a unicorn is that it is a _mythological_ creature - IOW, part of the “essence” of a unicorn is that it does _not_ exist. So essence encompasses the properties of a thing, but is not merely their sum? Is there something additional to the essence, or does it emerge from the sum of all properties of a thing? Personally, it seems to me that essence is just a remnant of the confusion Quine dealt with: to even be able to say that ‘unicorns don’t exist’, there must be something called a unicorn, or else the sentence just wouldn’t make any sense. But if there’s a unicorn, then the sentence would appear to be wrong! Yet we know, intuitively, what we mean by it, and it’s clear that this is true. If we were to accept that we’re just talking about the ‘idea’ of the unicorn, we’re left in a rather curious position of being _exclusively_ able to reason about ideas, since they and the things they’re meant to represent are two distinct things, then – the idea of ‘my fedora hat’ is something very different from my actual fedora hat, in that I can’t wear it _on_, but rather carry it _in_ my head, for instance. If, on the other hand, we ascribe to the unicorn some non-actualized existence – which I take this essence business largely to be --, we implicitly create a strange class of things that have essence, but can’t have existence, because they’re self-contradictory – ‘my white black hat’, or somesuch. However, what we can do, according to Quine, is essentially to appeal to Russel’s theory of descriptions, and to turn an expression like ‘my white black hat doesn’t exist’ into something like ‘there is either none or more than one thing that is my hat, white, and black’, which eliminates the reference to the individual entity denoted by ‘my white black hat’, and thus, in order to say ‘my white black hat doesn’t exist’, we no longer need for there to actually be something that could be called ‘my white black hat’ (or a unicorn). Thus, I’d say that there’s no need for any essence (beyond a list of properties, perhaps). ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-something-is-not-yet-in-existence-does-it-exist/500156/15 "2009-06-19T11:19:34Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > But I am arguing that “list of properties” is not the same as “essence”. I see now you’re arguing over definitions. On your definition, an essence is a part or parts that make(s) a thing what it is. On others’ definition, an essence is that which identifies a thing before it comes into existence. I’ll call the first “messence” and the second “schmessence.” Unless you’re arguing for a conclusion something like, for example, “There is such a thing as messence, and no such thing as schmessence,” then I’m not sure what the value is of discussing the definition of “essence.” > [@](#): > > One of the properties of a unicorn is that it is a _mythological_ creature - IOW, part of the “essence” of a unicorn is that it does _not_ exist. On the view I was articulating, this is not a bug but a feature. It just goes to illustate yet another way in which essence can be said to “precede” existence. For indeed, something can have an essence without even _possibly_ existing. (And yay for a discussion which intelligibly combines a famous trope from continental philosophy with a famous trope from analytic philosophy.) > [@](#): > > I think this confuses the \*idea \*of the unicorn with the \*essence \*of the unicorn. I don’t think the two words mean exactly the same thing, which is basically what you’re arguing. What it would be for something to be X /= the idea of X. There could be that which it would be to be X even if no one ever has or ever will or ever could concieve (have an idea of) X. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-something-is-not-yet-in-existence-does-it-exist/500156/16 "2009-06-19T12:03:58Z")
I guess I have a slow mind, as I still cannot see how some thing can exist(truly be) If it is not yet in existence, To me it seems there would have to be a being or thing already existing that would bring forth essence. It is true the idea of many things were first not in existence, but some person first had to think of a unicorn etc., if a carpenter is going to build something, he first has the idea, so then the essesence of the product would first be in existence of his mind. So some existent thing would have to preceed its essence. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-something-is-not-yet-in-existence-does-it-exist/500156/17 "2009-06-19T17:56:20Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > So essence encompasses the properties of a thing, but is not merely their sum? No, it is their sum - as long as that sum includes “exists” in it somewhere. > [@](#): > > Thus, I’d say that there’s no need for any essence (beyond a list of properties, perhaps). That’s what I’m saying. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-something-is-not-yet-in-existence-does-it-exist/500156/18 "2009-06-19T18:00:37Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > For indeed, something can have an essence without even _possibly_ existing. Since the different applicable definitions of essence all still have reference to existence as an essential part of the definition of essence, I don’t think this is true. > [@](#): > > What it would be for something to be X /= the idea of X. There could be that which it would be to be X even if no one ever has or ever will or ever could concieve (have an idea of) X. I think all that is needed is the \*possibility \*for X to be conceived. ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-something-is-not-yet-in-existence-does-it-exist/500156/19 "2009-06-19T18:46:47Z")
To be is to be the value of a bound variable. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-something-is-not-yet-in-existence-does-it-exist/500156/20 "2009-06-20T11:40:22Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Since the different applicable definitions of essence all still have reference to existence as an essential part of the definition of essence, I don’t think this is true.I think all that is needed is the \*possibility \*for X to be conceived. Frylock: doesn’t that something precede essence? “Something” means it is in existence so in a way essence needs something to exist before it can. monavis [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-something-is-not-yet-in-existence-does-it-exist/500156.md?page=2)