On Existence, Non Existence, and why they are real.

[sprinkles]

Existence and non existence are equally real.

Why?

Answer: They have to do with predicates.

Did you know that "exist" is a verb? It is also a predicate. When you say "Bob exists" you have a subject and a verb only predicate. To exist means to have objective reality or being. When you say something exists, you are describing something about that thing, but you are also describing that thing's relationship to the world.

The term existence itself is also describing things about the world. It describes that which is true and/or objective. So when you say that something does not exist, not only do you describe the thing that does not exist, you also describe something about the world. This means that non existence is real because the existing world is the paradigm that frames it.

Or in other words, to say that a thing does not exist is like drawing a verbal picture of the world with this thing not present. The thing that doesn't exist is not in the picture but you're still describing something about the picture and the picture must be there and include the non existence in order to describe the world sans this thing that doesn't exist.

i.e. it is real because the world is real and you're describing an aspect of the world.

 

[Matt3737]

Do concepts or ideals have existence?

 

[sprinkles]

Do concepts or ideals have existence?

Yes, as descriptions of things.

For example, if I say "pink unicorn is a concept" this does not mean that the pink unicorn is materially equal to a concept. It is not made of some strange substance called 'conceptium' or whatever. Concept is a category that describes the nature of the pink unicorn as it relates to the world.

Concept is a taxonomic item. It exists, it exists as information or data. Just like 'fish' or 'bear'.

Or imagine a hard drive allocation table. Are the folders that contain your files real? Do they take up space? Yes, they do. A small amount of space is used to contain the information that delineates folders from each other and tells the computer where to find things. It would be possible to actually fill your drive with empty folders, like filling a room with empty boxes.

And on that note, that little idea of 'concept' actually physically exists when you think about it. It could probably be quantized. That thought might even weigh something and take up space!

 

[sprinkles]

Furthermore, concept is a concept and existence is also a concept in itself.

When you say something exists, you are using an abstract concept. You can tell somebody that a thing exists even if it is somewhere else, which is what makes existence an abstract concept.

If that were not the case then the only way you could indicate something exists is to physically direct somebody's attention to it in the real, and to describe something, you'd have to build a 1:1 copy of that thing.

 

[Matt3737]

In such a manner then, non-existence too has existence.

Parmenides is the original proponent of your philosophy and whom had a large influence upon Plato. He went as far as denying the possibility of change, for how could non-being come into being and vice versa?

In "the way of truth" (a part of the poem), he explains how reality (coined as "what-is") is one, change is impossible, and existence is timeless, uniform, necessary, and unchanging. In "the way of opinion," he explains the world of appearances, in which one's sensory faculties lead to conceptions which are false and deceitful. These ideas strongly influenced the whole of Western philosophy, perhaps most notably through their effect on Plato.

As Plato discussed in The Sophist:

STRANGER: He who says that falsehood exists has the audacity to assert the being of not-being; for this is implied in the possibility of falsehood. But, my boy, in the days when I was a boy, the great Parmenides protested against this doctrine, and to the end of his life he continued to inculcate the same lesson—always repeating both in verse and out of verse:
'Keep your mind from this way of enquiry, for never will you show that not-being is.'
Such is his testimony, which is confirmed by the very expression when sifted a little. Would you object to begin with the consideration of the words themselves?
...
STRANGER: Let us be serious then, and consider the question neither in strife nor play: suppose that one of the hearers of Parmenides was asked, 'To what is the term "not-being" to be applied?'—do you know what sort of object he would single out in reply, and what answer he would make to the enquirer?
THEAETETUS: That is a difficult question, and one not to be answered at all by a person like myself.
STRANGER: There is at any rate no difficulty in seeing that the predicate 'not-being' is not applicable to any being.
THEAETETUS: None, certainly.
STRANGER: And if not to being, then not to something.
THEAETETUS: Of course not.
STRANGER: It is also plain, that in speaking of something we speak of being, for to speak of an abstract something naked and isolated from all being is impossible.
THEAETETUS: Impossible.
STRANGER: You mean by assenting to imply that he who says something must say some one thing?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: Some in the singular (ti) you would say is the sign of one, some in the dual (tine) of two, some in the plural (tines) of many?
THEAETETUS: Exactly.
STRANGER: Then he who says 'not something' must say absolutely nothing.
THEAETETUS: Most assuredly.
STRANGER: And as we cannot admit that a man speaks and says nothing, he who says 'not-being' does not speak at all.
THEAETETUS: The difficulty of the argument can no further go.
STRANGER: Not yet, my friend, is the time for such a word; for there still remains of all perplexities the first and greatest, touching the very foundation of the matter.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean? Do not be afraid to speak.
STRANGER: To that which is, may be attributed some other thing which is?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: But can anything which is, be attributed to that which is not?
THEAETETUS: Impossible.
STRANGER: And all number is to be reckoned among things which are?
THEAETETUS: Yes, surely number, if anything, has a real existence.
STRANGER: Then we must not attempt to attribute to not-being number either in the singular or plural?
THEAETETUS: The argument implies that we should be wrong in doing so.
STRANGER: But how can a man either express in words or even conceive in thought things which are not or a thing which is not without number?
THEAETETUS: How indeed?
STRANGER: When we speak of things which are not, are we not attributing plurality to not-being?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: But, on the other hand, when we say 'what is not,' do we not attribute unity?
THEAETETUS: Manifestly.
STRANGER: Nevertheless, we maintain that you may not and ought not to attribute being to not-being?
THEAETETUS: Most true.
STRANGER: Do you see, then, that not-being in itself can neither be spoken, uttered, or thought, but that it is unthinkable, unutterable, unspeakable, indescribable?
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: But, if so, I was wrong in telling you just now that the difficulty which was coming is the greatest of all.
THEAETETUS: What! is there a greater still behind?
STRANGER: Well, I am surprised, after what has been said already, that you do not see the difficulty in which he who would refute the notion of not-being is involved. For he is compelled to contradict himself as soon as he makes the attempt.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean? Speak more clearly.
STRANGER: Do not expect clearness from me. For I, who maintain that not-being has no part either in the one or many, just now spoke and am still speaking of not-being as one; for I say 'not-being.' Do you understand?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And a little while ago I said that not-being is unutterable, unspeakable, indescribable: do you follow?
THEAETETUS: I do after a fashion.
STRANGER: When I introduced the word 'is,' did I not contradict what I said before?
THEAETETUS: Clearly.
STRANGER: And in using the singular verb, did I not speak of not-being as one?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And when I spoke of not-being as indescribable and unspeakable and unutterable, in using each of these words in the singular, did I not refer to not-being as one?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And yet we say that, strictly speaking, it should not be defined as one or many, and should not even be called 'it,' for the use of the word 'it' would imply a form of unity.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: How, then, can any one put any faith in me? For now, as always, I am unequal to the refutation of not-being. And therefore, as I was saying, do not look to me for the right way of speaking about not-being; but come, let us try the experiment with you.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
STRANGER: Make a noble effort, as becomes youth, and endeavour with all your might to speak of not-being in a right manner, without introducing into it either existence or unity or plurality.
THEAETETUS: It would be a strange boldness in me which would attempt the task when I see you thus discomfited.
STRANGER: Say no more of ourselves; but until we find some one or other who can speak of not-being without number, we must acknowledge that the Sophist is a clever rogue who will not be got out of his hole.
THEAETETUS: Most true.

Karl Popper referred to Einstein's deterministic view of time as Parmenidean:

In his discussion with Albert Einstein, Karl Popper argued against determinism:
The main topic of our conversation was indeterminism. I tried to persuade him to give up his determinism, which amounted to the view that the world was a four-dimensional Parmenidean block universe in which change was a human illusion, or very nearly so. (He agreed that this had been his view, and while discussing it I called him "Parmenides".) I argued that if men, or other organisms, could experience change and genuine succession in time, then this was real. It could not be explained away by a theory of the successive rising into our consciousness of time slices which in some sense coexist; for this kind of "rising into consciousness" would have precisely the same character as that succession of changes which the theory tries to explain away. I also brought in the somewhat obvious biological arguments: that the evolution of life, and the way organisms behave, especially higher animals, cannot really be understood on the basis of any theory which interprets time as if it were something like another (anisotropic) space coordinate. After all, we do not experience space coordinates. And this is because they are simply nonexistent: we must beware of hypostatizing them; they are constructions which are almost wholly arbitrary. Why should we then experience the time coordinate—to be sure, the one appropriate to our inertial system—not only as real but also as absolute, that is, as unalterable and independent of anything we can do (except changing our state of motion)?
The reality of time and change seemed to me the crux of realism. (I still so regard it, and it has been so regarded by some idealistic opponents of realism, such as Schrödinger and Gödel.)
When I visited Einstein, Schilpp's Einstein volume in The Library of Living Philosophers had just been published; this volume contained a now famous contribution of Gödel's which employed, against the reality of time and change, arguments from Einstein's two relativity theories. Einstein had come out in that volume strongly in favour of realism. And he clearly disagreed with Gödel's idealism: he suggested in his reply that Gödel's solutions of the cosmological equations might have "to be excluded on physical grounds".
Now I tried to present to Einstein-Parmenides as strongly as I could my conviction that a clear stand must be made against any idealistic view of time. And I also tried to show that, though the idealistic view was compatible with both determinism and indeterminism, a clear stand should be made in favour of an "open" universe—one in which the future was in no sense contained in the past or the present, even though they do impose severe restrictions on it. I argued that we should not be swayed by our theories to give up realism (for which the strongest arguments were based on common sense), though I think that he was ready to admit, as I was, that we might be forced one day to give it up if very powerful arguments (of Gödel's type, say) were to be brought against it. I therefore argued that with regard to time, and also to indeterminism (that is, the incompleteness of physics), the situation was precisely similar to the situation with regard to realism. Appealing to his own way of expressing things in theological terms, I said: if God had wanted to put everything into the world from the beginning, He would have created a universe without change, without organisms and evolution, and without man and man's experience of change. But He seems to have thought that a live universe with events unexpected even by Himself would be more interesting than a dead one.
—Karl Popper, Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography

 

[subwayrider]

The term existence itself is also describing things about the world. It describes that which is true and/or objective.

I'm curious how you would define "objective."

And if it's what I think it is, what makes you think that because the vast majority of people perceive it to be real, that it actually makes it real?

What is "real?"

 

[Matt3737]

Sorry, I didn't mean to state that as 'your' philosophy. It is only in part by separation and the defining boundary of each shares in Parmenides philosophy, but not in the definition of non-existence or non-being. He refutes that as illusory and a confounding of reason and would argue against you to come to the idea that non-existence is as real as existence.

 

[sprinkles]

[MENTION=4822]Matt3737[/MENTION]

Yes! Very good.

I'd also further posit that speakable reality is only an approximation, as true reality cannot be quantized. In fact this is why quantum theory itself has the issues it has.

This is also why a lot of people have trouble understanding scalars and real values as opposed to rational or logical values.

A rational value is like taking pi and calling it 3.14159... It delineates pi into a specific value that you can work with, but this delineation is only and always approximate. The real value of pi is not so delineated. Just as acceleration is described as units per second per second in a vector (e.g. meters per second squared) so that something that accelerates at 1 m/s^2 will be travelling at 10 m/s after 10 seconds, starting from relative 0.

But it's not like that every discreet second the velocity suddenly jumps up by one unit. The thing is not sitting still for a whole second and then suddenly jumps to 1 m/s after the first second with nothing in between - no, it must accelerate as a vector with in between values, which refute Zeno's paradox. It has to get halfway there, before that a quarter of the way there, before that an eighth of the way there, ad infinitum. Quantizing is simply looking at the smallest fundamental unit. It is in a practical sense saying that "this cannot be divided any smaller" but yet still there are properties in quanta which defy our physics models.

 

[sprinkles]

I'm curious how you would define "objective."

And if it's what I think it is, what makes you think that because the vast majority of people perceive it to be real, that it actually makes it real?

What is "real?"

Nobody really knows.

But this is useful insofar that you can use it to make predictions that do not contradict each other, which is what the practice of reason is all about. Whether things are really really really real is kind of a non issue, especially considering the real probability that it is a self created problem, created by your consciousness thinking about it.

 

[Flavus Aquila]

I think concepts exist in a different way than other things.

A horse exists insofar as it actually is. If, however a horse is missing its tail, the difference between what the horse is and what it should be, to be complete some call quiddity (the essential form that all horses fit, barring injury, or deformity).

A pink unicorn is a quiddity without actual existence, except that it exists in the intellect of fancyful people. This mental existence of a physical being some refer to as secondary existence - because it requires a secondary agent to exist - and the unicorn quiddity does not essentially to the agent's existence.


So a pink unicorn does exist as a mental image only. However, if no one had ever imagined such a creature as a unicorn, then it in no way could be called real - and as such, it could never be compared to a horse. Only existing things can be compared: either as quiddities (ideal horse vs ideal unicorn); as quiddity and reality (ideal horse vs injured horse); or reality vs reality (one horse vs another horse). A real unicorn can be compared to neither a real horse, nor an ideal horse because no real unicorns exist.




*Comments about Rhinos and Narwhals are not going to help*

 

[sprinkles]

[MENTION=862]Flavus Aquila[/MENTION]

Yes, though unicorns are likely derived from horses.

Would a unicorn still resemble a horse if horses did not exist?

Inherent natures also apply to things unseen and undiscovered. Some posit that there may be thousands or even millions of undiscovered species on the earth. Things which exist right now but are not known to us. These must also have quiddity.

We also do not know that unicorns do not exist. We assume that they do not. Even if they are entirely invented this does not rule out the possibility of a creature coincidentally fitting the invented model. It might be incredibly unlikely, but the unlikelihood is not on account of it being imagined. It's unlikely on account of the probability of accidentally getting it right.

 

[sprinkles]

Also note that the non existence of a second moon lets the Earth's tides, axial tilt, climate, seasons, and probably the length of a day be what they are now instead of something else.

 

[sprinkles]

[MENTION=862]Flavus Aquila[/MENTION]
Also, do you believe humans went to the moon?

Imagined objects can be compared to real ones if you assign the imagined object some realistic properties. This is how you know if a rocket design will go to the moon before you build it.

If you cannot compare an imagined design to something that is real then you cannot predict before hand and must trial and error everything. A lot of design and engineering revolves around taking something that is not yet there and comparing it to alternatives before you build it. If you cannot do this then you also cannot run calculations or simulations, you just have to build the thing on a guess and hope it works (which it probably won't, if it is non-trivial)

You'd have to wait until any problems exist before mitigating them. If you can't compare them before they exist, then you are pretty screwed. Stuff would blow up and catch on fire a lot more often, that's for sure.

Edit:
Also note that ideal design and realistic design are separate even before you build anything. An ideal design may not actually be buildable or even possible, and you can know this before you even attempt it, or if it is an archetypal ideal, it may not be yet specific enough for what you need it for. But the realistic design is something that you actually can, and do build. One generally comes to a discernment between the two before the building takes place, before the object exists, before a prototype exists, before anything of its archetype even exists.

This is called invention. Without conception that precedes existence, invention is not possible. Objects which were invented did not exist before they were invented and to avoid contradiction we must treat this non-existence as the same kind of non-existence that unicorns have.

 

[Matt3737]

A rational value is like taking pi and calling it 3.14159... It delineates pi into a specific value that you can work with, but this delineation is only and always approximate. The real value of pi is not so delineated. Just as acceleration is described as units per second per second in a vector (e.g. meters per second squared) so that something that accelerates at 1 m/s^2 will be travelling at 10 m/s after 10 seconds, starting from relative 0.

But it's not like that every discreet second the velocity suddenly jumps up by one unit. The thing is not sitting still for a whole second and then suddenly jumps to 1 m/s after the first second with nothing in between - no, it must accelerate as a vector with in between values, which refute Zeno's paradox. It has to get halfway there, before that a quarter of the way there, before that an eighth of the way there, ad infinitum. Quantizing is simply looking at the smallest fundamental unit. It is in a practical sense saying that "this cannot be divided any smaller" but yet still there are properties in quanta which defy our physics models.

In between values actually substantiate the paradox rather than refute it. A paradox is a synthesis of opposing/contradictory propositions which reinforces the duality of interpretation. Zeno's movement paradox has an approximate resolution by using itself to resolve itself.

Zeno questioned how an arrow can move if at one moment it is here and motionless and at a later moment be somewhere else and motionless, like a motion picture:
Zeno's reasoning, however, is fallacious, when he says that if everything when it occupies an equal space is at rest, and if that which is in locomotion is always occupying such a space at any moment, the flying arrow is therefore motionless. This is false, for time is not composed of indivisible moments any more than any other magnitude is composed of indivisibles.
—Aristotle, Physics VI:9, 239b5

In reference to Zeno's paradox of the arrow in flight, Alfred North Whitehead writes that "an infinite number of acts of becoming may take place in a finite time if each subsequent act is smaller in a convergent series":
The argument, so far as it is valid, elicits a contradiction from the two premises: (i) that in a becoming something (res vera) becomes, and (ii) that every act of becoming is divisible into earlier and later sections which are themselves acts of becoming. Consider, for example, an act of becoming during one second. The act is divisible into two acts, one during the earlier half of the second, the other during the later half of the second. Thus that which becomes during the whole second presupposes that which becomes during the first half-second. Analogously, that which becomes during the first half-second presupposes that which becomes during the first quarter-second, and so on indefinitely. Thus if we consider the process of becoming up to the beginning of the second in question, and ask what then becomes, no answer can be given. For, whatever creature we indicate presupposes an earlier creature which became after the beginning of the second and antecedently to the indicated creature. Therefore there is nothing which becomes, so as to effect a transition into the second in question.

—A.N. Whitehead, Process and Reality

The solution makes use of a convergent infinite series which demonstrates how two interacting continuums converge on a finite number. An infinite series can sum to a finite numeral so long as they are infinitely shrinking in proportion to their summation.

There are an infinity of numerals between each natural number; the real number line contains an infinity of infinities. The quantitative difference between the rational and irrational numbers is merely proportional.

The quantum Zeno effect is a situation in which an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay. The term was coined by George Sudarshan and Baidyanath Misra of the University of Texas in 1977. One can "freeze" the evolution of the system by measuring it frequently enough in its (known) initial state. The meaning of the term has since expanded, leading to a more technical definition in which time evolution can be suppressed not only by measurement: the quantum Zeno effect is the suppression of unitary time evolution caused by quantum decoherence in quantum systems provided by a variety of sources: measurement, interactions with the environment, stochastic fields, and so on. As an outgrowth of study of the quantum Zeno effect, it has become clear that applying a series of sufficiently strong and fast pulses with appropriate symmetry can also decouple a system from its decohering environment.

Edit: I should add that Zeno wasn't actually proposing the existence of a paradox. He was using a reductio ad absurdum argument to substantiate Parmenides view that motion was, in fact, an illusion and that nobody could precisely rationalize movement. It has become a paradox in that common sense derides the notion of the impossibility of motion and hence is at a dilemma at how to rationalize it. A very difficult task given that to rationalize is to give the precise ratio of one thing to another which is at odds with the ideal of movement from one thing to another.

 

[sprinkles]

[MENTION=4822]Matt3737[/MENTION]
Thank you for the insight, this makes a lot of sense.

I wonder what would have come out of it if one realized that the not-fired arrow is already moving, but so is everything else at near enough the same velocity. So the arrow is already moving, and shooting it just makes it move even faster.

Or kind of like riding a bus. If you're riding in the bus, you're touching it, and other than feeling some G's when it starts and stops (or turns) it doesn't hurt you while you're touching it because your relative velocity with the bus is close enough to zero. But if a person outside a bus that is moving at speed tries to touch the bus, bad things happen.

 

[magister343]

@Flavus Aquila

Yes, though unicorns are likely derived from horses.

Would a unicorn still resemble a horse if horses did not exist?

Inherent natures also apply to things unseen and undiscovered. Some posit that there may be thousands or even millions of undiscovered species on the earth. Things which exist right now but are not known to us. These must also have quiddity.

We also do not know that unicorns do not exist. We assume that they do not. Even if they are entirely invented this does not rule out the possibility of a creature coincidentally fitting the invented model. It might be incredibly unlikely, but the unlikelihood is not on account of it being imagined. It's unlikely on account of the probability of accidentally getting it right.

Unicorns do exist, but they do not resemble horses. The earliest accounts of them clearly fit the description of the Indian Rhinoceros (scientific name: Rhinoceros unicornis, meaning "nose-horn one-horn"). It was only later that people who had never had contact with anyone who had ever seen one started embellishing the descriptions. First they started sounding more like chimeras of goats and lions (sometimes even with snakes for tails), before bestiary writers got lazier and started presenting them as more like common horses.

 

[sprinkles]

Unicorns do exist, but they do not resemble horses. The earliest accounts of them clearly fit the description of the Indian Rhinoceros (scientific name: Rhinoceros unicornis, meaning "nose-horn one-horn"). It was only later that people who had never had contact with anyone who had ever seen one started embellishing the descriptions. First they started sounding more like chimeras of lions and goats and serpents, before they gradually came to be imagined as more horse-like.

Yeah but he already shot that down.

The main point of that though is assuming unicorns of any kind don't exist is inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning is a bit weak.

It's like people who say "If bigfoot existed we'd have found him by now" which is not entirely unreasonable for inductive reasoning, we have discovered a lot and something that large should be hard to miss. However it's only probably true - in a deductive sense we don't actually know because not all species have been discovered. Four new reptiles were found in California this year as a great example and people have lived there for quite a long time.

So the idea that if you eventually see everything and can thereby deduce an absence of something by sticking around long enough is not entirely true, and in deductive reasoning all premises must be true (and valid). Inductive reasoning allows for strong or weak approximations that are not guaranteed truths, but may very well be probable, and unfortunately we often depend on it. It isn't necessarily proper but limited information and the way our perceptions work leave us subject to it none the less.

 

[LucyJr]

Well, when you say "non existence is real" isn t that just a contradiction? What is the nature of the "non existence"?
Y

 

[sprinkles]

Well, when you say "non existence is real" isn t that just a contradiction? What is the nature of the "non existence"?
Y

Something that does not exist. The entire 'not exist' is taken as a single verb i.e. you're attempting to describe a state of being, in the same way that any other 'not something' works.

Such as if you turn a light off, the light is not on. "Not on" is taken as one singular state which you consider to be true. Without it there can never be a light that is turned off. This also could be connected to existence where current does not exist in the circuit powering the light.

This is a good thing if you're an electrician, unless you like ending up in the hospital. You'd want the non existence of a current in the device you're working on to be a real non existence. i.e. it is actually shut off.

Similarly when you drive a car down the road, you typically want to drive where there are no obstacles that you will hit. Is an open and clear road really not there? Ask your insurance company.

Edit:
Furthermore, if pink unicorns don't exist, this implies that you'll never hit one with your car. Or will never have one get caught in a jet engine, sink a boat, get blown through your roof by a tornado, etc etc.
An infinite number of implications that end up being actualized if the unicorn does not exist.

 

[sprinkles]

Additionally, if atmosphere did not exist, would you be able to pass it off and say "It's fine because non existence isn't real"?

I'd wager we would suffocate and die instead.