Questions tagged [existence]
Ontological and metaphysical questions about the study of existence, being and the structure of reality.
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Could 'cogito ergo sum' possibly be false?
I've heard it postulated by some people that "we can't truly know anything". While that does seem to apply to the vast majority of things, I can't see how 'cogito ergo sum' can possibly be false.
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Why is there something instead of nothing?
A simple but fundamental question.
The "something" means the whole Universe (known and unknown), it could be represented as the reality version of the set of all sets, which is itself debated. It ...
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How can one differentiate nonexistent entities?
How is it possible for things that do not exist to not be the same? How can one differentiate nonexistent entities? How can I know the difference between ghosts and werewolves if neither exist?
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Being alive today: the most improbable coincidence?
Think about it; modern humans have been around for at least a couple hundred thousand years.
Yet, your mind, your soul, your very awareness, happens to be "alive" today. If time is a flow, moving ...
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What arguments would support a secular pro-life position?
I've been thinking about the pro-life position (by "pro-life" I mean the position that abortion should be illegal. I.e. on par with murder) for awhile, and it is normally presented as a religious ...
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Is willful ignorance about one's own mortality escapism?
I don't mean if someone is dying of cancer and they refuse treatment or something -- I'm saying if a healthy person who is unhappy obsessing over his own inevitable death one day chooses to ignore ...
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Can something come out of nothing or not? Why?
In our current state of affairs it is safe and reasonable to assume something exists - be it a universe, pure conciousness, illusion or other designations. If some readers nevertheless claim something ...
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If you place a pencil in an opaque box and close the box, does the pencil exist? [closed]
I’m trying to explain to my friends about things existing. I gave them this question: if you place a pencil in an opaque box and close the box, does the pencil exist? They say yes and I ask how do ...
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Why do things have a front and a back?
This question was asked by my three year old niece and I couldn't think of a good answer.
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What does "everything" mean?
For starter, I'm not a student in philosophy, but mathematics. I only have a general knowledge in logic and set theory, all in the context of mathematics. My question comes from a doubt I got while ...
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Can one prove a negative existential claim?
A major concern in epistemology is just what we can know about existential claims, that is, claims about the existence (or lack of) something.
Suppose for example that I assert the following:
The ...
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What is the meaning of "meaning of life" and why do people seek it?
One of the oldest questions is "What is the meaning of life?". But what does the concept of "meaning of life" actually mean? What does it mean for something to be the "meaning ...
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Proving that man is not born with certain skills?
I was arguing with my father about the nature of the human mind. I believe that a man is not born with a predetermined skill, such as painter or composer, and that through hard work and dedication, a ...
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Can we logically prove that anything exists?
Suppose I want to prove that negative numbers exist. Well, I could easily do that using a mathematical proof. However, all I would be doing is adding another logical object to a list of known logical ...
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Is faith just a consolation for the common folk?
In reading Dostoevsky, I stumbled upon the perplexing question of faith being a mere consolation. And in spite of considering myself a believer, I still agree to this statement to a certain extent. ...
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Could it be possible that the universe doesn't exist?
Could it be possible that the universe doesn't exist? That nothing exists, not even you or me?
And by not existing, I mean totally not existing, as in not even existing as a computer simulation, or a ...
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How should we understand the teletransportation thought experiment?
Please read the short story here:Beam me up
First, I'd like to to know whether there is anything inherently inconsistent about this teletransportation idea? Is there fundamental reasons which say it'...
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Proof Universe Came From Nothing?
Consider the following proof:
(1) Let the Universe be defined as the set of all things.
(2) It is impossible for a thing to come from itself. (You can't be your own parent)
(3) 2 implies a set of ...
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Why isn't existence a predicate?
According to SEP
There are two sets of reasons for denying that existence is a property of individuals. The first is Hume and Kant's puzzlement over what existence would add to an object. What is ...
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Can existence be justified as ‘better’ than non-existence?
I’m relatively new to philosophy. Been doing some soul-searching, and asked myself ‘is good empirically better than evil’. Found a thread on here, where people pointed out that science cannot really ...
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How do the meanings of *to exist*, *to be*, and *real* differ?
What definition of to exist, of to be, and of real preponderates contemporary philosophy?
How do the terms differ from one another?
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How well did Aristotle feel his belief in the eternity of the universe was established?
In the Middle Ages, Aristotle's belief that the world was eternal posed a major theological challenge for the many people who held a religious belief in Creation. Moses Maimonides, in his Guide for ...
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Does Dissociative ego disorder challenge Descartes‘ „cogito-argument“?
In the 17th century Descartes set out for a new start in philosophy. Applying the method of systematic doubt he searched for a philosophical statement whose truth stands firm and cannot be questioned ...
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In what sense if any could something without mass or energy exist?
I have long been interested in physics as (working toward) a description of absolute truth and, as a consequence, have had a number of discussions with people with religious and metaphysical beliefs ...
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Defenses of Descartes's rationality in regards to "cogito" fallacy?
What philosophers and in what writings, if any, have attempted to explain or defend Descartes's rationalism in respect to the "cogito ergo sum" fallacy pointed out by philosophers like Russell, and ...
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Does fictional discourse pose special difficulties for logic?
Natural language is context-dependent, like the statement “My uncle is a plumber”, which is true or false depending on who asserts it.
There has been lots of discussion about fictional entities and ...
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What is the point of Human Existence?
I have no experience in formal philosophy, so I apologise for the crudeness and generalism of everything I say here.
The Issue-:
Every time I try to motivate myself by logically connecting the ...
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What is objective morality?
It has been argued by some that God is a necessary and sufficient condition for objective morality. I can't accept this, because I don't even know what the analysis of moral objectivity is. It seems ...
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Looking for a specific joke about arguments for Meinongianism
I remember reading a book (or a paper) some time ago, that had a line somewhat like this:
There are good arguments for Meinongianism. They just don't exist.
Now, I find this very funny and find ...
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What are the counterexamples to Kant's argument that existence is not a predicate?
Kant argued that considering existence as a predicate is wrong. A predicate is a feature or characteristic of an object. But logically, existence adds nothing to the characteristics of that object, ...
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Is there a difference between things that can't be interacted with and things that don't exist?
Suppose there is a magical kingdom that is hidden somewhere over the rainbow and can never be reached by anything, most people would say that such a place might as well not exist.
However, the same ...
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Does anything you can think of exist?
Descartes famously says "I think therefore I am." Does it follow that anything I can think of exists?
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Should X, if there’s no evidence for X, be given a non zero probability?
There may be no evidence that a fairy is sitting on a table. Many argue that one cannot prove a fairy doesn’t exist. Thus, many decide to attach an (infinitesimal) probability to it existing, as many ...
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Are there any other things like 'Cogito ergo sum' that we can be certain of?
Are there any other things we can be certain of?
Are there any 'hooks' that can be hooked into 'I think therefore I am', that one could be 100% certain are truthful as 'I think therefore I am' itself?
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Consciousness without thoughts or feelings?
I have noticed that I can sit in a room around people and be consciously aware ... but have no thoughts at all. People often say that your "mind is always thinking", but I can literally stare at a ...
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What is the meaning of "predicate" in this definition?
I have trouble understanding the article on existence in this Philosophy dictionary.
Instantiation in reality, or actual being. Kant pointed out that
existence is not a predicate.
What is the ...
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How to disprove "I'm entitled to my opinion"
Background
There is an article in The Conversation that attempts to disprove the notion that people are "entitled to their opinions." That is, people have a right to believe whatever they ...
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Descartes' Demon
This week I've been given to study from my highschool teacher Descartes' Demon argument but I have several doubts I fully understand it ,but let me put this in clear order :
1) I understand that ...
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How does being come into being? How does existence come into existence?
So, the universe was created by the big bang. And the big bang was created by some stringy things, or branes or whatever. But what created those strings? And what created the thing that created them? ...
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What is the logical structure of this argument by a Hindu philosopher about causation?
The Khandana Khanda Khadya is a work by the 12th century Hindu philosopher Sri Harsha which in some sense sets out to disprove epistemology - it seeks to show that all putative means of knowledge, ...
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How to express Kant's notion of existence on first-order logic according to Ayer?
In Language, Truth, and Logic, Ayer writes:
[As] Kant pointed out, existence is not an attribute. For, when we ascribe an attribute to a thing, we covertly assert that it exists.
However, I can't ...
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How is existence in presentism reconciled with relativity of simultaneity?
There is a famous question by Einstein which was reported by his biographer, the physicist Abraham Pais, and which expresses his concern with quantum physics:
We often discussed his notions on ...
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How does a thought imply there is a thinker in "I think therefore I am"?
How does Descartes say a thought necessarily means there is a thinker?
In my opinion, "I think therefore I am" is egocentric because could really stem from an illusion of the thoughts ...
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Is reincarnation inevitable?
My reasoning:
Suppose the universe is infinite in spacetime (both space and time have no bounds). In this spacetime, a cyclic appearance of particles occurs (cyclic big bangs). When I'm alive I ...
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Question Regarding Holes
What even are holes? Are they something or nothing? Do they even exist? Sure, you might think me saying that holes do not exist is idiotic but think about it. The existence of holes doesn't make sense ...
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Nothingness cannot be. Does that imply something must be?
Nothingness doesn't be, that's the definition of nothingness (at least in this question) that what is not, does not exist.
If there was no Universe, if there was nothing, nothingness would be, that ...
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How can we denote objects that no longer exist?
This is a question more about how we can discuss about objects which no longer exist. For example, let's say that Socrates no longer exists (ignore any religious side of this and consider Socrates as ...
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How to denote the idea of nothingness in formal terms?
I was thinking about the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" , and have read about some theories that existence is the case because non-existence is logically impossible
So, I ...
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Why does the philosophy concerned with the problem of negative existential statements not make use of mental representations to solve it?
Meinong, Frege, Russel and Kripke all seem to accept the principle, that for a statement to be true, its singular terms must denote an object. This leads to the problem, that a sentence like 'The ...
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What is the difference between existing in the mind and non-physical existence?
How could one detect the subtle difference, if any, between imagining a being and using the imagination to interact with a non-physical being?
To provide some context for this question, I will give a ...
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