Existence is what is real, and what is. If something doesn’t exist it is nothing, even an idea must first be in the brain of a being, or entity; once it exists even essence doesn’t need to be necessary or eternal in the form it is in, such as the essence of a bubble it is not necessary, essential or eternal.You state that essence is something so it then is in existence. if all existence dissappeared there would be no essence,if a shadow of essence was left then it would still be in existence so then what exists of it would still be there.
Exestense consists of all that is existing.
That’s a rather ballsy thing to say since, inasmuch as you cannot prove your own existence, it is tantamount to admitting that you aren’t real.
The only thing necessary, essential, and eternal is God. If existence ceased, God would not cease. Therefore, God transcends existence and is not nothing. That means your assertion is false.
You keep overworking an already tired English verb: to be. A thing may be without existing — it may be as a copula, an identity — as in the example of a unicorn. You’re trying to prove something with grammar, but your grammar is incorrect.
True - but just barely. I think there are things that exist before there is the idea for them. One example I can think of is the subtext of a novel, which might be there without the concious intent of the writer. That is written before the idea for it existed - it can be discovered, and then expanded on.
At the level I worked, Peeks and machine code are very abstract. I did my graduate research in microcode, which is the program that for some computers defines the basic instructions that you see in assembly language. Now I work on the gates and flip-flops that comprise a microprocessor.
I’d say the name unicorn represents a horse with a horn instead of a unicorn is a horse with a horn. I agree with your distinction between these statements and ontological ones. Would I be correct in rewriting your sentence as “the essence of a unicorn is a horse with a horn” - understanding it is more than that?
Good examples.
Our ability to pin it down is different from its inherent capacity to be pinned down. If there were such a thing as a well-defined essence, that does not imply we would be able to completely understand it. This is just like the similar argument about understanding God.
First of all, what you are talking about concerns entities composed of matter and/or energy. If I understand you correctly, essences are not things, so I don’t see why the limitations of matter apply. If essences are fuzzy, I don’t understand how they are essential. If even direct and perfect access to the essence of a chair doesn’t help me decide if a certain thing is a chair, what is it but the “idea” in a sense, of each chair. I thought essence was more than the commonality of a set of things.
Also, we’re not all as probabilistic as you may think. The mass, charge, and spin of an electron are all well defined. The location and momentum of the electron is what is uncertain. Not only that, statistics returns the certainty that probability removes. Gas laws are statistical. The the motion of each atom is random, in the aggregate we can say very clear things about the properties of the gas. While it is possible for my monitor to choose to move across my desk - or to Alpha Centauri - the expected time before this happens is many, many times the lifetime of the universe. That kind of uncertainty seems a mighty shaky thing to pin a worldview on.
ICan prove my existence as I am communicating with you, I am real and you are real, as real as any essence.
God and existrence are one in the same to me,god is a word that people use to define what they believe created the universe, but God would first have to exist and the essence of God is Existence, I use the word essence to mean the make up of what is called God. To me God is not a being to be worshiped but the totality of existence of which we are all a part. Something had to exist before there could be an essence, essence needs to be real if it is only a word it would first need a thing to proceed it, either an idea or an accidental existence.There can be nothing outside of existence because if it does not exist it is nothing.
You should state that to you God is essential,but only if God is existence. If you state God is non existent then you are Atheistic.So you could say existence is essential, real and eternal,should everything go out of existence then God would desolve too.
A unicorn exists as a figment of one’s mind and in reality has no essence, just as an idea has no essence until it is the thought in an already existing mind of someone. Before that it was not an idea. A unicorn has never existed except as an image of a non existent entity. To say a picture of a unicorn exists is one thing,like Mickey Mouse a cartoon character. It does not exist in reality.
Oh, sure. No one is saying that nothing is ever discovered. But what you have discovered is that which your story was to be. It doesn’t have to be pre-conceived, it just has to be there to be discovered. In fact, the concept of discovery itself is more essential than existential.
Yes, I think so, if I understand you correctly. At least, it’s my perception of the essence of a unicorn.
I agree with that. Certainly, the essence of the God I’ve encountered is love (as I’ve defined it many times). But that doesn’t mean that I understand Him completely. Aesthetically, I value nothing more; epistemologically, I know less of little else.
Though we don’t know everything, we do know this: essence is essential, just as practice is practical. It’s not at all uncommon for one person to have a vision of a thing’s essence while others all around him scratch their heads in bewilderment. Like an interior designer, for example, picturing how the room will look while the homeowners stare blankly at four unpainted walls of gray plaster.
Just to clear up one thing, I’m not a physicist, but I did understand what was uncertain in Heisenberg’s inequality. I reject your assertion that statistics returns a certainty that probability removes. What statistics does is describe how the probabilities are distributed — i.e., it returns an expectation. You might expect many lifetimes of universes for water to change spontaneously to wine, but expectation and actuality are not the same. A real possibility that is statistically remote is still a real possibility, just as a proposition that is barely true is still a true proposition.
Maybe you’re a webbot. Or maybe you’re the message board equivalent of the Virgin on a piece of toast. Or maybe you’re just me, debating my alterego.
Like I said, you’re a materialist. It seems that specifically, you’re a pantheist.
I really don’t need a puny god like that. I already was one.
That is also how you exist to me.
For what it might be worth to whoever might be paying attention, this is why you cannot prove your own existence. In order to do anything at all — including writing a proof of your existence — you must first exist. Thus, your existence is axiomatic. Because your conclusion (that you exist) is the same as your unstated premise (that you exist), your argument is circular, and therefore unsound.
But that’s what I’m not getting. What I tried to show with my example is that some things are essentially undefined precisely - and I thought you had agreed with your mention of uncertainty. I certainly do agree with you that not everyone would see the essence clearly even if there was one.
I had hoped I was clear that my certainty was not 100% probability - just effective certainty. It is silly to have a spare monitor at hand just in case yours decides to go to Alpha Centauri, and I think it is silly to have a worldview based around the same kind of worries. (YMMV).
And I don’t even understand what barely true means! Is it like something being more optimal than something else? (One of my pet peeves - I helped change the name of a subarea of my field from optimization to improvement, since optimality was seldom guaranteed.)
I would check with the IRS on that I exist as much as your essence, Or is nothing doing the typing on this key board. I give you more credit than that. I say you are in existence. To me you are part of the greater whole, with dignity and the right to be treated such.
Yes, I am a material being but I am not materialistic,my friends who would admit I am in existence can attest to that.
I think we’re just still dancing even though the music has stopped. And that’s okay. The interesting thing about definitive essence is that we sometimes value something without knowing it, thus the epistemic/aesthetic contrast I’ve stressed so much. I had always valued edification; I just didn’t know that that was what goodness is. The god I knew about — the one I was told about by so many people for so many years — is not the God that, in the end, I came to value above all else.
Who’s worried? I don’t worry that my monitor may disappear; I merely acknowledge that it may. Pretending that such a thing is impossible merely because it is unlikely is too much like fudging for my taste. It’s like setting a clock ahead five minutes in an attempt to fool yourself into believing that it’s some time other than the time it really is.
You may not know what it means, but you used it: “True - but just barely.”
In a way you are correct because things to me( whether they are seen or unseen have existence in a certain way),What exists can be studied,what does not cannot be, except as a concept of a existing entity.
It may be that no one need be typing on a keyboard, but I cannot read any thing that doesn’t come from the softwear first,plus one needs a computer and electricity to run it Or at least a battery, some being had to creat the soft ware and I am pretty sure it was done by a human that exists or at least existed at one point that the soft ware was made.
Not at all true. Just ask Russell and Whitehead. Then ask Godel.
Maybe so, but what does that have to do with you? It is easy to prove the existence of someone else; it is impossible to prove the existence of yourself.
Let’s not talk about god - not because I object, but because your concept of god, at least, fits well into essence. (It pre-exists, it is, and people have different views of it.) So, though I don’t buy into this god, God as essence seems consistent.
Let’s go back to literary subtext. While I agree it is discovered in a text (except when it is inserted deliberately) the text itself is invented. The subtext cannot be there before the text is. (I’ll deal with the objection I’m already hearing in a bit.) Writing is making choices, and some choices lead to the subtext and some do not.
By barely I meant that if the essence of the subtext exists, it must begin just as the story is written. Let’s say this is not true, and the subtext pre-exists both text and discovery. There are two cases. In the first somehow the writer discovers the subtext by writing text to display it. But, if there is only one subtext, is the writer constrained to write to that subtext? Since you believe in free will, that can’t be correct.
So there must be more than one essence of subtext , and writing the text connects to one of them. But then the other essences are not representative of anything existing. That’s one problem. The second is that there must be a very large number of essences, covering every possible text.
So, the reader and author are not discovering the subtext from an essence, but rather no matter what the writer writes there are essences connected. Some may never be discovered. Some may not exist yet - the postmodern subtext in Tristram Shandy could hardly have been discovered nearly 250 years ago.
I have a problem as to where something could be pre-existing. If it is no where then it is nothing.It becomes something only when it is in existence. A pre concieved idea come from some entity that already exists.
I agree. But Liberal will say that only things that exist need to be somewhere, things that just are don’t.
I’m also interested in what causes these essences - their origins. Are they eternal, like God? If not, did God create them, or did they spring to existence out of nothing?
And, if essences are not always tied to some existent thing, are they necessary? Do they exist is all possible worlds? If so, they are equivalent to God in Lib’s definition, if not, how are they linked to a world?
It is my understanding of Liberal that he clings to something that does not exist just as I stated in my last post, by his definition essence is nothing. I could be mis interpreting his meaning, but to me he is saying even though we are corresponding we do not exist either. I cannot say he is wrong but I can say I do not see things his way. I guess east is east and west is west and nere the twain shall meet.
That’s what I like so much about discussions with you. They make actual progress. Here on page whatever-it-is of a very long discussion of a very deep topic, I understand you better and you understand me better than we did on page one.
An important correction: I believe in free moral will. Free will in the sense of making choices with the brain (as opposed to the spirit) is not only trivial, but moot. Every such choice is nothing more than the collapse of a probability. It is similar in nature to the pseudrandomness of computer generated randomness by seed. Say that you see a little old lady standing on the street corner. Whether you decide to mug her or spit on her, the moral decision made by the spirit is the same — to hold her worthless. The choice of weapon and means of disrespect made by the brain is irrelevant.
Not at all. In fact, in a quite competent way, you dispensed with whatever problems there might have been — e.g., a postmodern subtext did not emerge into existence until its essence could be perceived. On the other hand, you’ve adroitly pointed out the trouble with existentialism: if Tristram Shandy had shown up in Plato, we would have had a thing emerge before it was essential.
I think there is a difference between “free will” in the sense that no one can predict someone’s actions and that the actions are truly free. I think Chaos Theory explains this quite well. Does a psychotic have moral free will? Someone who is genetically alcoholic? How about Lenny in “Of Mice and Men?”
And, more on topic, what is the subtext is immoral? I’m not sure if you are saying there is but one subtext essence, or a semi-infinite number, but if there is but one, and it is immoral, the lack of physical free will that leads a writer to include it (without being aware of doing it, remember) could be a violation of moral free will.
Tristram Shandy the character, or Tristram Shandy the post-modern book?
I don’t think the perception of an essence is at issue - certainly no one will perceive it until their eyes are opened. Is there a post-modern essence in Tristram Shandy in 1763? If so, did this essence arise when Tristram Shandy was written, or was it there before? If it was, then it would be around at the time of Plato, and if Plato had by some fluke gotten access to it, there would be nothing odd about it appearing. People would be confused as hell, but then some people were confused as hell about Tristram Shandy.
