Existence - What it is

ReluctantProphet · Jul 19, 2006

Sojourner<>< said:
RP I have a new line of thought regarding existence to entertain you with if you like. Keep in mind I'm not so much as trying to support or challenge your original position as add to the thread in a general sense. It goes something like this:

The concept of void, nothingness or non-existence (however you like) is purely fictitious. It's a product of our cognitive processes. The idea serves only to identify concepts that prove to be false understandings of what is "real". The mental process responsible for this illusion would work something like the following sequence, give or take a few steps. 1) I perceive something with my senses 2)Using cognition, I try to understand what I perceive and I produce an initial idea (mental construct if you will) of what it is. 3) I proceed to test the worthiness of the idea by using various interactions with what it is I am perceiving. 4) The tests prove the idea to be a false understanding of what I perceive, thus the thing which I thought that I was perceiving does not exist.

Likewise, Existence as it applies to human cognition would then be the understanding that our understanding of a particular thing in or aspect of that which we perceive is true and correct.

This part I consider to be superb reasoning and exactly correct.

Sojourner<>< said:
Now if I were to define "reality" as all of that which can be perceived but not necessarily understood then certainly all of reality has the ability to affect something in some way (Note that I am excluding the idea of that which can affect something but cannot be perceived by us since this is a product of reason). Only now we have a problem because this is where our understanding of anything both ceases and begins; there is no "is", "existence" or "non-existence" and all that is left is "reality", whatever it is.

This part seems to have skipped some steps somewhere.....?

I see the mentioned problem of leaving out the things that we can not perceive directly. Although I don't see why you are leaving those out. Perception occurs through a minimal process of reasoning in itself. Direct perception implies the least amount of speculation by the senses or reasoning.

The degree of directness attainable has a limit. But this limit has nothing to do with whether something existed or had affect. It only says that we can not perceive with absolutely no process of deduction at all. Even a single nerve only transfers a pulse by, in effect, deducing that a trigger preceded its continued response. It deduces by consequence of affects as though to say, "Because I am urged to respond, then I will pass the urge along."

The deduction processing is biochemical in nature, but is still deduction in concept.

Sojourner<>< said:
Strangely, being a prisoner within my own mind for the time being I am now forced to attempt to use the same processes I mapped out above to ask myself: "reality", what is it? I think it also strange that God's response when asked his name was "I am that I am" in that it sounds striking reminiscent of the kind of questions and logic we are forced to in dealing with this topic.

Ok my brain hurts now. I think I'll go do something stupid for a while.

Ha ha..
Well maybe it will help the slavery aspect of your mind to realize that in ancient Hebrew, the words for "I AM that I AM" are EXACTLY the same words for "I AM that WHICH IS"

So that now maybe your can start making progress toward the resolve of ALL of it?

exploring · Jul 19, 2006

ReluctantProphet said:
Could you offer a little clarification on this?

Are you saying that existence includes anything conceivable even though those things might not exist in reality? I would agree that they exist as thoughts, but nothing more than thoughts or dreams.

Its a semantic question. I have just, slightly unclearly, divided existence into three categories: is the case, is not the case, and inconceivable. This is helpful when you consider things like the picture problem, since if existence was just what is the case, then you can represent existence as the negation of everything that is the case, in which case(!) you run into problems like "does a negation exist" which is inconvenient.

So your definition is everything that is the case, which I wouldn't disagree with. I just added an extra category of non-existence

ReluctantProphet said:
Things that are not logically conceivable are still conceivable in that someone often makes a logical error which leads to thoughts of things that cannot coexist. They might conceive of an immovable object at one time and conceive of an irresistible force at another time. They do not attempt resolve to the logical conflict until they are faced with having to deal with both at the same time.

This means that until they resolve the logical conflict, they still have thoughts of logically inconceivable things but just don't know it. But as thoughts, those concepts still exist. Perhaps in reality neither exists as anything but thought.

In this case I would say that "someone", being subject to the logic of our universe, would not actually be able to conceive of the illogical thing, just some self deception or whatnot ... (the crowd murmur unconvincedly)

ReluctantProphet said:
And "affect" is the property. "Effect" is the casual result of the property.

Thanks for the grammar advice

ReluctantProphet · Jul 19, 2006

exploring said:
.. you can represent existence as the negation of everything that is the case, in which case(!) you run into problems like "does a negation exist" which is inconvenient.

I assume in this, you are saying that a person can paint a picture of something by painting a picture of everything that the something isn't, it's "negation".

A person cannot conceive without contrast thus to see how one thing is different than anything else is essentially what perception and conception are all about. In the case of existence, the negation would be the void of nothingness. But the picture of the void is not the void itself. A person can picture a void regardless of its existence just as the 10 foot man. The thought of the void exists, but the reality of it is another matter.

exploring said:
In this case I would say that "someone", being subject to the logic of our universe, would not actually be able to conceive of the illogical thing, just some self deception or whatnot ... (the crowd murmur unconvincedly)

So your saying that a person cannot truly conceive of something which cannot possibly exist, but rather has only conceived of something that he thought was possible.

I can agree with that if we accept that "truly conceiving" means "conceiving of truth". More typically it is still called conceiving even when it involves a fictional object. But I'm not picky on that subject (yet )

Emmy · Jul 28, 2006

Dear ReluctantProphet, I have read your replies, and come to the conclusion, Existence is Life, to exist-to live. All living things exist, and human-beings can make their existence more, or less, meaningless, or meaningfull. Until I was middle-aged, my existence consisted of work and boring routine, than I realised that only I could make it more, MEANINGFUL, is what I chose. I found it in Jesus, and now my Existence is filled with Love, Joy, and Peace. But instead of calling it existence, I like to call it "Life on Earth." Sincere greetings from Emmy, sister in Christ.

Received · Aug 12, 2006

I don't think we need to look past the etymology: exist: from exsistere: "to come forth, to be made manifest". Something exists if it stands against a backdrop of nothingness. This cup exists; I see it and nothing else. More importantly, it exists because I name it, and perceiving it under the auspices of its name is to work through consciousness. Esse est percipi?

But limiting to the sensate is good and well except in one particular instance: when dealing with people. We are quick to call someone else a self judging by the body alone; when surely the self is not the body; the self is qualified by consciousness, and is thus an inward quality.

Existence - What it is

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