Questions tagged [existence]
Ontological and metaphysical questions about the study of existence, being and the structure of reality.
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Is there a philosophical principle stating that everything that can be imagined can possibly / must necessarily exist?
Is there a philosophical notion that stipulates or proposes one of the following statements?
Everything that can be imagined could also possibly exist.
Everything that can be imagined must necessarily ...
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Philosophies that suggest that thoughts have an existence beyond their physical realization
I'm a beginner at Philosophy, and I'm trying to categorize this metaphysical belief:
"Thoughts are thought by humans, but continue to exist, interact with other ideas, and exert power in some sort ...
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Is Kant's postulate of the existence of God a metaethical assumption?
Also, I would like to get some bibliographical reference about Kantian metaethics.
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Is it possible to argue convincingly against suicide?
My question is more specifically about arguing convincingly against suicide from the perspective of some kind of universal inheritance.
We find ourselves existing in the universe. If we accept the ...
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Wanted: literature on the ethics of creating a fake world (The morality of God)
WARNING (reader discretion is advised. Don't do these experiments if you are not familiar with existential philosophy or if you suffer from some mental disorder)
This question is subtle. I think ...
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Collective Being
If, as a Collective of embodied selves (eSelves) we voted for ideas instead of individual eSelves - the objective being to construct a Reality that resonates with Existence itself - what would 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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Descartes vs Buddha - Was Descartes wrong?
Descartes imagined an Evil Demon to suggest that the external world could be a complete illusion. This Evil Demon would have the power to trick all your senses. This idea is similar to the Buddhist ...
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Does inexistence exist?
If inexistence exists then how is it inexistence?
And if inexistence does not exist then how come it into existence and we know about it?
Or is it paradox?
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Do whole numbers other than zero actually exist?
Think about counting up: you start from 0. There are many decimals in between 0 and 1, actually, an infinite amount of decimals are there. So in the same way that there is no last number there is no ...
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What is the purpose of a high in terms of it being created or intended by a creator
I Believe God is real, if believing God is real and that he created the universe and everything it it, what is the purpose of a high? (produced by weed or any other drug)
Why would God create a high? ...
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How do "I" know that "I" think?
"Cogito, ergo sum", "I think, therefore I am", said Descartes but how does one know that one thinks? Could "my" thoughts not be part of an illusion of someone/something else? Can "I" actually know ...
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Is it ethical to try to survive on this context?
We are destroying the planet. At certain point, we will be forced to stop reproducing and perhaps we will be killed due to the lack of resources (e.g. Donald Trump will not hesitate to shoot people ...
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Update-How might we perceive our relations with the environment?
With an excessively growing population, human might be increasingly conflicting with the environment. How might we perceive our relations with the environment? Our advancement in civilization might ...
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Why would a person want to die?
I've got a friend. He's well-placed in life: not poor, not ill, has family, certainly not an idiot, but quite clever. He's probably lonely, since I am the only close friend. So no relationships, just ...
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Is existence restricted by rendering?
Is existence restricted by the rendering of the being?
For example, as I am rendered as a physical being in the form of my body, is the plane of my existence limited to the physical world?
I would ...
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What is the philosophical significance of the First Law of Thermodynamics?
The Law states that “no energy can be destroyed or created, for it is constant; it can only be transformed from one form to another”. Do you think this alignes with many of the teachings of Buddhism, ...
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If all of us are going to die one day why should we care about the feelings and emotions of others?
We are taught to care for others' feelings and emotions. We must exercise certain deeds hailed in holy texts.
Why do such things matter when we all will die one day?
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Consiousness and existence
My question is fairly straightforward would consiousness never exist if that "subject" was not subject to information from the external world via the "subjects" senses because of a "fault" in the ...
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Techniques of overcoming ennui (boredom)
Did any philosophers discuss overcoming ennui/boredom?
I read this question and its answer, but I am less interested in a definition of boredom and more interested in direct approaches or theories ...
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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 existence and what kinds of it can be distinguished?
Existence, for instance of a human being, need not be restricted to the material body. Also the influence exerted on the environment can be considered a part of their existence. A discussion with ...
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Has any philosopher ever argued succesfully that anything at all does not exist?
Is it possible to prove that something does not exist? I'm asking because I find it very difficult to think of any such idea.
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For Husserl, how can we know things in themselves?
I don't quite understand the nature of "going back to things themselves". How does Husserl break away from Kant?
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Is it, a priori, more likely that an unknown object does not exist than that it does?
For me, intuitively the answer seems to be yes. But I don't know how this could be justified a priori. The hypothesis "x does not exist" seems not to be simpler than the hypothesis "x exists". By the ...
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Cogito ergo sum and its actual meaning [duplicate]
I think therefore i am is often accepted as true.But how do we know that the fact we are doubting something makes us real?we can be a stimulation or be dreaming.Why is the act of thinking given so ...
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What are the implications of eternal life
The premise
What would be the consequences of transferring the consciousness of a middle-aged person to a mechanical object or device (such as a robot), as opposed to another biological body?
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Does the whole universe end when an individual dies? [closed]
Is it valid to think that from a "perspective" of a dead individue,universe has come to an end? I based this argument on my premise that from the start of the universe (~14 billion years ago) until ...
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Does anything exist outside present experience?
Is there any identifiable attribute to truth other than EXPERIENCE of it appearing to be true ?
Is there any more ' truth ' to it ?
Things we've believed to be true for millennia have been provided ...
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What is the theory that existence, life, and/or consciousness arise simply because all possibilities must be exhausted, and this is one of them?
I distinctly recall reading a Wikipedia page listing multiple theories on the origin of existence itself. One in particular, described in the title, was fascinating and came to mind recently, but I ...
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Descartes's cogito falls short [duplicate]
I just started learning philosophy at school, so please forgive me if what I say sounds naive or has been disproved by philosophers. Basically, the teacher said that Descartes said "I think therefore ...
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Do we continue to live because "I can always die, but not always live"
In response to
"Why do we continue living?"
I've come across the idea that we hold nothingness to be uneventful, how we believe it to be consistent, to be "nothing" at all instances of time, or thus ...
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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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General question about our universe, mathematics and physics: Why is 1+1=2?
Although everyone is surely wondering about this question, I am asking it here though:
Why is 1+1=2?
Why is our universe build up like in that way, that such a formula is always working? (I know the ...
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Why do humans think that something starts with nothing?
I always had a problem with how anything came into being. What I mean is that how come anything exists. Creationists try to solve it by God making stuff, but then where did God come from? Another God ...
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Do material things like trees, birds exist if we are not there to percieve them?
I have not been reading philosophy seriously for very long but I have come across George Berkeley, who said that material things are simply ideas in our minds. Therefore if we are not there to ...
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How can one say that only matter exists without presupposing the idea of existence/being?
I am having some troubles with the whole notion of materialism which states that only matter exists. Doesn't stating that something exists presuppose the idea of existence/being, and therefore that ...
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Is it possible that I'm "God" or a special being/deity?
I know the first thing you may be thinking upon reading this, but there's more to this than you may have assumed. This is not one of those crazy questions where ego-driven maniacs simply call ...
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Does string theory raise new philosophical questions about existence of physical objects?
If you look at the configuration space of a robot arm, it is a manifold. Does this manifold exist in the same sense as strings in string theory? Or do the strings in string theory exist in another ...
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What reasoning (if any) do we use to prove we or the world exists?
p.s Are our observations of the world inductive, or is it just the conclusions that we draw from them which are inductive?
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Can the issue of "something from nothing" be resolved by analogy?
I'm wondering if the question
Why is there something rather than nothing?
is like the question
Why is there up rather than down?
In the latter, I think it becomes clear that the implicit ...
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Do (any) philosophers worry if there can be a priori truths about a changing world?
Do (any) philosophers question how there can be a priori truths about a changing world -- has anyone worried whether this is possible, or if those different modes, of timeless truth and contingent ...
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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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Are "to exist" and "to have being" the same?
I recently read an introduction about ontology. A section was about the debate whether to exist and to have being is the same.
One position says (attributed to Meinong), that some things exist and ...
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Are we all living in a "Black Box" and may we ever be able to make the world to serve our purpose?
This world is a "Black Box" in essence. If we want to know how it works, we will be lost. We can only find our way if we strive how to use the world to serve our purpose. The very same notion is true ...
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What does 'hermeneutic analysis' mean for non-literary material?
I am reading Exploring Robotic Minds by Prof. Jun Tani in which he describes Heidegger as having performed a hermeneutic analysis of the problem of the subjective vs the objective.
Heidegger just ...
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Descartes and existence
What does it mean to exist for Descartes? Of course I know about cogito ergo sum, but is that all there is to it? Is the only criterion to exist to be able to think? Or is there more to it? And if it ...
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Isn't biocentrism just a simple deduction from subjectivism?
I havent actually read his book, but as he's described it, I thought that he was just sharing his view on subjectivism.
Biocentrism, as Robert Lanza says, is:
..."the view that life creates ...
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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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We do everything for pleasure
I have been in debate for a while now with me friend. I come here looking for feedback and possible outlooks to related sources.
The question we posed a long time ago is interesting one: why do we ...
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