THANK YOU. oats.

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Yes.

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Whatever school-y precision I may once have possessed on this subject, if any, has since evaporated. Let's call that my disclaimer.

In any case, what's always struck me about existence is the fact that anything exists at all. As to what in particular exists and in what way, these are just details. In certain frames of mind I have a hard time distinguishing one thing from another: it's all just flux. In this sense existence does seem monistic to me, as opposed to non-existence. Or is this even the right way to talk about existence? Should existence be treated as a property? Could be my brain, whatever that is, is a bit muddled, whatever that means.

But I'm serious about being puzzled over the question about why there is existence at all, which seems far more significant to me than the rest of it.

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I endorse this message.

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The existence of something in concept (God, perpetual motion machine, Wyoming) doesn't have a bearing on that something's existence in non-concept form. I would get into arguments with others in high school on this topic. "You say God doesn't exist. But you can't deny him without acknowledging him. Therefore, you believe in God, even though you claim otherwise."

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PWNED

I have nothing of value to add to this conversation.

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I might venture to say that 'existence' is a poorly-thought-out agglomeration of several distinct properties, which I will list in ascending order of epistemological solidity. I am going to skip a lot of interrelations, comments on neurobiology, and other faffle.

1) Conceptualizability. We have to be able to form a mental representation of a thing before we can contemplate its thinginess, so this is a prerequisite. Many fallacies amount to accidentally or deliberately confusing this property with existence.

2) Observability. Do we obtain sense-data that seems to be produced by a 'thing' we have conceptualized?

3) Effectiveness. Do we witness effects on the rest of the world (beyond basic sense-data of the 'thing' in itself) that seem to be produced by the 'thing' we have conceptualized?

4) Affectability. Can we take actions that produce effects on the 'thing'?

Or in simple terms: 1) Can we name it, 2) Can we see it, 3) Can we track it, 4) Can we kill it?

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"You say Cookie Monster doesn't exist. But you can't deny him without acknowledging him. PLUS you've SEEN Cookie Monster and HEARD HIS VOICE. Therefore you believe in Cookie Monster more than you believe in God."

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platonism makes euclidean geometry work.

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No, it's just a fairy-story to calm down people who find Euclid spooky.

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EXISTENZ... IS PAUSED!

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The way I figure it, I got my internal "consciousness" (whatever that is, but I know it's there), and my sensory experiences. Regularities in my sensory experiences make it convenient to model an "external world" which is somehow real and exists.

There is only one question on which I can see that it matters whether the external world is real or is just a consistent illusion (i.e. the solipsist or not question): suffering of others. If it's just an illusion and there aren't other real consciousnesses out there, what do I care about suffering of others? I might as well be (in effect) a sociopath, although I'd probably be happier not being one. But if other consciousnesses actually exist, then I'd feel kind of bad about the "sociopath" route.

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"which is somehow real and exists"

Sorry. Should be "which I think of as somehow being real and existing".

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I endorse this message.

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Yay, I indirectly caused this post!

Yeah, it does seem pretty stupid, as they come.

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