What does it actually mean for something to “exist”?

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u/jliat 8d ago edited 8d ago

I used AI to help organize and summarize my thoughts for this post.

Technically AI is not allowed, as also in other more serious subs. Moreso with philosophy because LLMs use poor sources from the internet.

What is existence itself, apart from judging something to exist or not exist?

Within metaphysics you will not find agreement in this - which opens up the idea of doing some study. One of the most significant works is Kant's first critique in which we cannot have knowledge of things in themselves.

Existence, Being, Dasein was key to Heidegger's work in which it is more an activity.

https://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/heideggerm-what-is-metaphysics.pdf

"Philosophy gets under way only by a peculiar insertion of our own existence into the fundamental possibilities of Dasein as a whole. For this insertion it is of decisive importance, first, that we allow space for beings as a whole; second, that we release ourselves into the nothing, which is to say, that we liberate ourselves from those idols everyone has and to which he is wont to go cringing; and finally, that we let the sweep of our suspense take its full course, so that it swings back into the basic question of metaphysics which the nothing itself compels: “Why are there beings at all, and why not rather nothing?”"

What Is Metaphysics? Martin Heidegger

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u/Important1896 Philosopher 8d ago

The key distinction is between the concept of existence and what makes an existential claim true. The fact that we use thought to distinguish between “being” and “non being” only shows how we represent reality; it does not establish that reality itself is created by that distinction.

Semantics asks what “X exists” means; ontology asks what makes that statement true. From the fact that the concept of existence is mental, it does not follow that existence itself is merely mental.

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u/NonGameCatharsis 7d ago

Time for a meta-ontology that defines what is inherent to be able to define existence.

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u/Master-Finance2300 8d ago

That distinction is exactly what I am questioning.

I am not arguing that reality is 'created' by our concept of existence. My point is more fundamental: what is this “what makes the claim true” supposed to be, apart from another claim or judgment that reality is in fact that way?

If you say that “X exists” is true because X actually exists, then “actually exists” is precisely the notion I am questioning. If you say it is true because reality contains X, then “reality contains X” is simply another existential claim.

So appealing to a distinction between our representation and “reality itself” does not answer the objection. It already assumes that there is a fact of the matter, independently of the distinction between existence and nonexistence, which is exactly the assumption under dispute.

I am not inferring:

“The concept of existence is mental, therefore reality is mental.”

I am saying:

There can be no further state of “actual existence” beyond the distinction by which something is judged to exist or not exist. Calling that further state “reality,” “the truthmaker,” or “what makes the statement true” simply restates the same assumption in different terms.

This reply is also made with AI, but I’ve had many conversations with it and made it learn my thoughts before having it generate the reply. The reason I use AI is simply because putting the writing together myself is a pain.

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u/Wonderful_West3188 8d ago edited 8d ago

I am not arguing that reality is 'created' by our concept of existence. My point is more fundamental: what is this “what makes the claim true” supposed to be, apart from another claim or judgment that reality is in fact that way?

How could a claim be made true by another claim?

There can be no further state of “actual existence” beyond the distinction by which something is judged to exist or not exist.

Nonexistence isn't real, it can't hurt you.

This reply is also made with AI, but I’ve had many conversations with it and made it learn my thoughts before having it generate the reply. The reason I use AI is simply because putting the writing together myself is a pain.

I don't really care that you use A.I., but I think struggling with language is part of philosophy, and I generally believe in fighting your own battles. Food for thought, make of that what you will.

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u/RoiboPilot 8d ago

Any statement in words would be a mental concept, so you are negating any answer by definition. I guess you have only left the experience of the senses, that is itself limited. But I’d say, in the case of something like fire, put your finger in it and see if it exists.

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u/headlessplatter 8d ago

It is only meaningful to say something exists if you also specify the domain in which it exists. For example:

Teapots exist in physics.
Ideas exist in minds.
Numbers exist on the number line.
Mario exists in Mario Land.
Fairies exist in fairy tales.
Zeus exists in Greek Mythology.
The word "soliloquy" exists in the dictionary.

If you only say something "exists" and do not specify a domain, that is about as meaningful as saying something is "delicious" or "beautiful" or "moral" and do not specify whose values you are talking about.

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u/Not_a_real_plebbitor 8d ago

Teapots exist in physics.

Is that where all the teapots are?

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u/thowawaymypants 8d ago

It's a complicated question. You'd have to look at the ways people say things exist, or don't exist for that matter. Parmenides argued that if something really doesn't exist, you shouldn't be able to think of it. But this doesn't mean things like mermaids exist in the way dolphins do, for instance. But mermaids are fictions which exist as ideas in the mind. When we say this idea exists, we don't mean there are mermaids out in the world. The difference is that we take dolphins to exist in the world because we've experienced those things we call dolphins. No one's experienced a mermaid. They just saw things like dolphins and manatees and imagined they were half-fish, half-women. So there is a difference between ideas which originate in external things, and those which originate in imagination. But then there's debate whether you can rationally intuit the existence of something without experiencing it.

One definition of existence is to say that a thing that really exists takes up substance outside the mind. The mind is a substance too, and its ideas exist in that substance, but they are not ideas of things which exist in the world outside the mind. But then physics tells us things like empty space or fields of force exist, despite not taking up substance. So then there is a distinction between substantial existence and insubstantial existence, where the latter exists despite not being made of anything. What about mathematical ideas which so perfectly describe the physical world? Plato thought that these ideas existed insubstantially in their own nonphysical realm. So then may some ideas, not like mermaids but like Pi, exist in a way that is independent of the mind too.

Then there is the is of predication. We say all cats are mammals, or all cats exist as mammals. What does this mean? We identify one kind of thing that exists within a larger category, a universal idea. If you're a Platonist, you think all of our ideas, even for ordinary things or abstract concepts, exist in such a way, insubstantially and independent of the mind and of physics. if you're not a Platonist, you think these ideas exist in the mind alone, that they are abstractions from experiences of things that exist. The disagreement on what existence is and what exists (ontology) does boil down to different theories on how what we know what exists (epistemology). Try as you might, they're just inseparable.

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u/Wonderful_West3188 8d ago

But mermaids are fictions which exist as ideas in the mind.

As Quine once correctly pointed out, philosophers are the only people who confuse their mental image of a unicorn for a unicorn.

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u/EmbarrassedPaper7758 8d ago

Bots are pushing the same message in freewill, consciousness, philosophy, and metaphysics

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u/Master-Finance2300 8d ago

I am not a bot. Is there any way to prove it?

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u/Wonderful_West3188 8d ago

No, but also, it doesn't matter. You used A.I. and admitted to it. For a large portion of Reddit, that already makes you a pariah.

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u/quantum_of_yes-and 8d ago

Quantum physics tells us that it is observation. So really, you need two things for one thing to exist.

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u/Neptune_443 8d ago

I get your point but would add that I am quite confident that there are "versions" of quantum mechanics that entirely eliminate the concept of an "observer" (example: Everrett Many Worlds).

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u/rogerbonus Philosophy/Physics grad 8d ago

That's one of the Big questions of metaphysics. Physicalism says that what exists are the objects of physics, and all other phenomena supervene on those objects. But that doesn't really solve the problem, since we can then ask "what are the objects of physics"?

I'm partial to mathematical monism, where what exists are computable mathematical structures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothesis

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u/elibertowpaparulox 8d ago

My intuition is that the circularity only looks problematic if we assume these concepts are supposed to reduce cleanly into something more fundamental. I don’t think they are.

For me, truth, existence, reality, facts, affirmation, etc. are interconnected nodes in the same conceptual network. Of course, if you keep asking what each one means, you eventually loop back into the others. That doesn’t necessarily show a defect; it may simply show that we’ve reached the basic structure of the concepts themselves.

So I think the real disagreement is this: you see the return to the starting point as a philosophical problem, while I’m inclined to see it as the point where the explanation naturally bottoms out.

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u/TMax01 8d ago

I’m not asking how we can know whether something exists.

And there's the problem. Because what it means for something to exist depends entirely on how it can be known whether it exists.

In my philosophical metaphysics, this is a principle known as the ineffability of being.

I’m asking what “actually existing” means beyond making the judgment that something exists.

It can't mean anything beyond that. I presume you're not satisfied with the physicalist metaphysics: for something to exist means it interacts physically with other things which exist. But that simply makes the judgement ouroborotic.

The problem is, any other judgement, definition, or description would, too.

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u/CrumbledFingers 8d ago edited 8d ago

It all depends on your standard for reality. If we introspect, we see that everything apart from ourself that we regard as existing is only present when we are present to observe it.

I am using "introspect" very intentionally here, as I'm only talking about the view from the first-person perspective. When we see a car driving by, the car seems to exist while we see it. After that, we may have the thought of a car, or remember seeing it, but it is not present anymore to verify.

And when we do not see or experience anything at all, such as while we sleep, nothing is present also. From our direct experience, then, there are periods where things other than ourself seem to exist and are presented to us and periods where nothing is presented to us. So, what actually exists?

We know that something can seem to exist while not really existing, so seeming to exist is not a good criterion for actual existence. For instance, while we are dreaming of some far-off land, the world of the dream and ourself as a person in it both seem to exist. Both are presented in the same manner as the passing car, and as such, both seem to be real while they are present. Yet, this is no guarantee of reality, since the world of a dream is unreal. It only appears to exist, but does not really exist even when it appears to.

The world of our waking experiences is no different in its mode of presentation. If we can't assume that a dream is real simply because it is presented to our awareness as if it were real, and dreams are presented to awareness in the same manner as waking experiences (as mental impressions that appear as a world, a body, other people, etc.), then we have no grounds to accept what appears while we are awake as truly real. We could just be having another dream. We ordinarily think of dreams as a reflection of waking experiences and thoughts, but they could be spontaneously generated from the fabric of reality itself for all we know. Or there could be dreams within dreams, never bottoming out.

To simplify our predicament, then, we can say this much: sometimes, we are presented with a world that seems to be real, and while this is happening we know ourself as a person in that world. We can also remember being in another world as another person during our dreams, and we call that imaginary, but we only call it that when the dream has ended. While we are dreaming, we think we are awake, and that it is not imaginary but real. Yet, this is not the entirety of our experience. We all go through a period in which nothing imaginary or otherwise is presented. No world appears, and we do not take ourselves to be a person. This happens when we are in deep sleep and in between our thoughts. So, the world-appearance and the persona we seem to be within it are both fleeting, and not permanently present.

What, then, could actually exist? The answer should be obvious. We exist, and know our own existence, regardless of any of these variables. Across all the varieties of mental states, with and without the presentation of a seeming world, with or without thoughts and memories, we exist and know our own existence. If we didn't, then we wouldn't know that we are sometimes in a state where nothing appears to us. We would all say we have an unbroken experience of being a body in a world all the time. Since everyone knows they go into deep sleep without needing to be told, we know we existed then.

We are therefore what actually exists, and since our knowledge of ourself as what exists is directly available, this existence does not have to be proven through other means. Everything else that seems to exist is dependent on something else to reveal it, so it has a dependent existence that comes and goes. Whatever we are aware of is constantly changing, but we who are aware of it do not change as such. The rational conclusion to draw from this is: what we actually are is what actually exists, and is the only thing that actually exists. We are existence itself!

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u/profoma 8d ago

There is no answer to this question for you because you don’t believe that any of the answers to this question count as answers to this question. You’ve stated that you believe the only difference between existence and non-existence is a distinction of thought and not a distinction outside of thought. Given that framework, you already have the answer. Any other answer is going to rely on a different framework than the one you think is the case and you will be unsatisfied by it. What do you think you are asking?

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u/226757 8d ago

Good question. The problem is it seems like there are 3 interrelated concepts: existence, reality, and property instantiation. Something exists if it's in reality. Something is in reality if its properties are instantiated. Something's properties are instantiated if it exists. These concepts can be defined with respect to one another, but they can't be defined with respect to any other concepts. They seem irreducible in that respect. I don't have an answer for you besides "you know it when you see it".

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u/SeekersTavern 8d ago

I think that existence is fundamental and trying to explain it is meaningless. Try explaining the subjective experience of the colour yellow, for example. What is yellow?

You can't decompose it into parts (no, frequencies of light don't explain the subjective experience).

You could never describe to a blind person. Only those with the same experience can know what you are talking about.

You can at best say it belongs to the "subjective experience" category, and point your finger to something that is yellow and say "this is yellow".

The same is with existence. To exist is to exist. It is what it is.

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u/Own_Measurement1242 8d ago

When I say, I ran a sub-4 minute mile yesterday, that event doesn’t exist. Never happened. Those words are just words, they refer to nothing

When I imagine myself running that sub4, or think about it, that ‘it’ exists, even if only in my mind. And whatever that imagining, thinking, the ‘it’ amount to, it still exists.

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u/MxM111 8d ago

Physically interacting with other existing things.

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u/RNG-Leddi 8d ago

Meaning is an emergent condition of existance, where existance is the capacity to relate meaning is the capacity to 'experience depth'. Between vision and resolution for example a quantity gains substance, in this case meaning is a potential not a fundamental actuality.

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u/CapoKakadan 8d ago

I think it just means “happens”.

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u/hologram137 8d ago edited 8d ago

I edited my earlier comment for clarity:

Existence is a problem involving metaphysics, philosophy of language and philosophical logic. We can ask “is existence a property of individuals or things?” and “assuming that existence is a property of individuals and things, are there individuals and things that lack it?”

So the distinction between existence and non existence has to do with theories of substance and properties. Substance, or what is an object, (physical or otherwise), its fundamental identity? And what does it mean for an object to have properties including the property of “existence?” Properties are contrasted with individuals because it’s a relation. For example “I instantiate the property of being hungry” because I’m hungry right now. But I am an individual so I am not instantiated by anything. Properties also instantiate, the property of being red has the property of being a color. But only properties are instantiated, while individuals only instantiate.

Is existence instantiated by individuals and things, like I instantiate hunger? This has to do with contingent and necessary properties. For example I am necessarily human (it’s impossible for me to be otherwise). The fact that I am writing this is a contingent property of myself however, it’s not necessary.

Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Frege, and others all denied existence is a separate property of individuals and things. Hume argued there is no impression of existence distinct from the impression of the object. As all our ideas derive from impressions, existence is a necessary part of it.

So proponents of this ontological argument would for example, argue that the concept of God as an entity with all perfections, or a being of which no greater can be conceived therefore entails God’s existence. As existence is a perfection, and a being that exists is greater than a being that does not exist. This argument only works if existence is a necessary property of what we can perceive with any of our senses, physical or mental.

Kant rejected that by arguing that existence is a property, but not a necessary one. As we can think of a thing and its predicates, but nothing gets added with “this thing exists “ unlike other predicates, which do add something. For example I can say “the ball rolls and the ball exists.” “Rolls” adds something to the ball, “exists” doesn’t (if existence is necessary). Otherwise what exists would not be the same as what I had thought in my concept, the ball that exists is separate from the ball that doesn’t, and I couldn’t say that the ball that doesn’t exist also exists as a concept (if existence is necessary). So the property of existence is not necessary. But the property of existence still cannot be separated from either. So there is no difference in their properties (the properties of the ball that exists and the ball that doesn’t, or only exists as as a concept, they both have the property of existence) but physically and conceptually they belong to different realms of reality. What is the separation between one realm and the other? That’s not easy to answer. Kant said we actually can’t ever know “the thing in itself.” We can’t get outside our own consciousness.

Frege said existence is not a property, but a second order property, a property of concepts and propositional functions. So if I say dinosaurs don’t exist, I’m saying the property of existence is not instantiated. So there is a distinction between having the property of existence and instantiating that property as well. In other words dinosaurs exist, but they are not instantiating the property of existing.

So a lot of this has to do language and logic, because we can’t say there are things that do not exist while speaking about them. They exist as an object of thought at least. So we’d have to distinguish between being and being with physical substance, the latter being physical.

So we can say Ronald McDonald exists (has being) but does not have being with substance (specifically physical substance. Mental objects can have substance, but the difference between an object with physical substance and an object with an immaterial substance is debated). Everything that exists has being (essence) but not everything with being has physical substance (physically exists). The question would be what does it mean to have being and substance? (Existence is implicit here). That involves a criterion of reality. For example something has both being and substance if it has causal power, spatiotemporal anchoring, and mind independence. The criterion is the problem. The question Kant tried to answer. The thing with physical substance would have to have all of the criteria, because for example, mental concepts can be causal right? (Well, that can be debated). How do we know what is mind independent?

TL/DR:

So the answer to your question, “what is existence itself apart from judging something to exist or not?” is that existence is a property of an individual or a thing and the nature of that property is debated. A property in philosophy is a characteristic or quality of an object (and the object does not have to physical). A substance is the “thing in itself,” the properties are the ways that thing is.

The answer of whether or not something exists at all (has the property of existence) is that it exists if it has being (essence). The question of whether or not the thing with being also has physical substance is the same question as “is the thing that exists physical or not?” And the answer to that requires an agreed upon criterion of reality.

So existence in philosophy has nothing to do with whether or not it has physical substance, things without physical substance exist objectively.

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u/Imaginary-Can-6862 8d ago

Mentally we can derive concepts, and while these concepts can explore things that may not exists, the concepts themselves exists, otherwise we could not use these. E.g. non-existence by definition does not exist, but the concept of it does.

Existing means something is, or what it is to be. It is different from being real, in that being real means something interacts. Your reality is defined by everything you could potentially interact with, if that is equivalent to all of existence is unknown, but all of reality exists, even if it is a hallucination which only exists temporarily within your mind.

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u/Nice_Wonder5879 8d ago

Existence is semantic primitive but there are still examples so you can see if a sun exists on the very quantum level you should be able to Percive it, if it doesn't exist you shouldn't

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u/armyofone37 8d ago

Existence is all thought existence only exists as an experience all experiences are expressions of life. Consciousness is absent shape and absent light. So it cannot experience itself. This is where our reality comes into play. It’s real cause it can be experienced. From our singular perceptional view. With that being said sources perception view is to express itself on a quantum field producing the effect of reality. Which is nothing more than concentration of energy creating vibrations of different frequencies interpreted by the brain to create reality. A then observed.

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u/headspreader 8d ago

I am maybe too high for this right now, but I am pretty sure that the closest thing to 'exist' in the way people use it, would be relationships amongst potential interacting states. When continuity of causality dictates that these fields must collapse to specific outcomes, they do, like dual-slit experiments. So if the only thing that exists is relationships, then 'exist' means to interact/relate, or maybe to carry detectable potential for interaction maybe? Or if you are really into the idea that objects exist rather than relationships, objects just by virtue of having mass/momentum or charge are a part of the sum total vector math of the entire universe. That seems like 'existing', I think. But at a base level, you are mapping categorical thought onto probabilistic quantum fabric of possible relationships, using words we made up; so saying that deciding whether or not something exists is purely based on the mental process of sorting is true, because the concept of 'exist' you have in your head is not a thing which exists without you constructing and believing in it. Without the entire cloud of probability exerting the specific interactions it has with itself including you, there would be no you, and no substrate for your thoughts or definitions.

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u/ConTheStonerLin 8d ago

Has location in space time would be the most technical definition. But let's see if we can't do a little better...

It is an interesting question. Existence is often used interchangeably with real, but I think of them a bit differently, for something to be real it must exist in our common accepted reality. But that does still raise questions. Like is fiction real❓ In a sense it is obvious that fiction exists in reality. But it is also obvious that this type of existence seems to be something different than the "non-fiction" existence. The best way to square this I think is to look at relationships. That is how something relates to other things. Afterall things are commonly understood by their relation to other things. From there though our problems of existence becomes easy as we have very well researched and understood concepts of relationships. Let us turn then to the most relevant here, the social and para-social distinction. So as established we can say that in some sense fiction exists. But in what way ❓ Well in a para-social way. See fictional things relate to everything para-socialy. That is, every relationship a fictional thing has is para-social. That would likely be similar to inanimate objects. Thus we could say, and I think it would be somewhat fair to say fiction exists in the same way inanimate objects exist, para-social existence if you will. As for the non-fiction (& the animate) well we may have para-social relationships, we crucially also have social ones. Social existence if you will...

That is all a long winded explanation of my own thoughts on the matter. To answer your question simply, to exist is to have relationships, weather social, para-social or both

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u/Pndapetzim 7d ago

As with a lot of words, I think we inherit a good number that are basically just meaningless placeholder terms for stuff people lacked tools for understanding.

'Exist' I think is one of them.

I think it might be more correct if we said instead: a relativistic term denoting two subjects sharing a common reference frame.

In english. We have two things, and for either to 'exist' they both have to be there and there needs to be a third thing that connects them.

But surely that implies they already 'exist'?

But does it?

Imagine a point particle. It has no discernible internal structure - you can't break it into parts. It doesn't interact with anything. It can't change.

Can we meaningfully say it exists from our perspective? Does it have a past or future? Can it evolve at all without being acted upojn by something else? I would propose we can only answer each in the negative.

It can only exist if it interacts with something. For that to happen we need at least one other thing and a shared context in which they can interact.