I don't know what it would mean that some things are more logically consistent than others. — litewave

I think the decay case can be swept under the rug saying there are infinite, but as many universes on one side of the half life as on the other. Mathematics supports at least that since all the positive reals (or rationals for that matter) on one side of any arbitrary division can be mapped to the reals on the other side. There are more little numbers than big ones, in that sense.

So the more worrisome case is the discreet ones like the measurement of spin along some axis. For a typical particle, that is a 50/50 shot, but for two particles, you get four outcome permutations. If the two particles are entangled, you can select the probability of correlation by the similarity of the axes between the two measurements. Nearly parallel axes means pretty much full correlation. So four worlds result from the two measurements, and they have probability of say 40, 40, 10, 10 percent. That is just four worlds, two of which are four times as probable as the other two. They all are logically consistent, so they all exist, but two of them seem to be more consistent. What does that mean??? It can't mean that there are 4 of one world and 1 of the other, since four of them would be identical, and thus violate the law of identity.

Yes, the physicists are trying to work that one out, and I suspect their answer is going to shed some empirical light on the whole ontology matter. The ontology of worlds within the one context of QM rules/logic is still a different from context-free ontology where there seem to be almost no rules, making me question even stupid things like why 3 is not 4. I think some axiom (something unproven) is needed to demonstrate the inconsistency of that.

I replied a day early. Below is a better critique, but first:

I own a four wheeled car with five wheels. Does my car not exist?
— noAxioms

Of course it doesn't. You just defined a concrete inconsistent "thing". — litewave

This is a cheap shot on my part. My car is four wheeled, but it has a fifth as a spare. The statement is true, but the language ambiguity doesn't count as logical inconsistency.
Similarly, I can create a square circle. Grab chalk and draw a square in a parking lot (four equal sides and angles). If you draw it large enough (somewhat larger than 6000 miles on a side), it becomes a circle. Non-euclidean geometry to the rescue!
But it illustrates a point: Objectively, there seem to be no hard rules to be violated. I have a hard time justifying a four-sided triangle, but it presumes that three is not identical to four. Pretty obvious, but is that true given no rules at all?

A consistent something, whether it is abstract or concrete, exists. An inconsistent "something", whether it is defined as concrete or abstract, doesn't exist (is nothing).

This didn't really answer my question, but is simply a reiteration of your stance. I actually thought of a valid challenge to it, and it is an empirical one:

MW interpretation says there is no wavefunction collapse and all possible outcomes exist. Problem is that some outcomes are more probable than others. Some particle has a half-life of say a millisecond, but it is possible that the thing lasts a minute or more. So if all these outcomes exist, why do empirical measurements find more occurrences of the probable ones than the improbable ones? Wave functions would not be known at all if all outcomes exist equally.

One solution is that any event (the decay of said particle) has some finite number of discreet possible delay times to decay. This implies an upper limit to the length of time of decay (violating definition of half-life), and it means all the times between those discreet values are somehow impossible. I don't think any physicist would accept such a solution to the problem, but I suppose it cannot be disproved either unless it can be measured better than the resolution of the discreed possibilities.

The other solution is that some realities are more probable than others, and in the case of your proposed view, it means some things are more logically consistent than other things. This world exists more than the possible but more improbable ones.

If you deny the problem, how so? If you agree with the problem, what might resolve this seeming conflict?

That which is logically consistent has an identity and so is something. — litewave

It seems to me that you eliminate the existence of nothing without explicit statement of contradiction. So four-leaf clovers with three leaves don't exist, but barring that sort of contradiction, everything else does. It seems to leave completely empty the question of if something exists. I can think of no thing that is not completely abstract that is logically inconsistent. I own a four wheeled car with five wheels. Does my car not exist?

I don't usually find myself on this side of the argument. Consistency, while perhaps necessary, doesn't seem sufficient. I've argued for the existence of unicorns, not just imaginary ones, which, as I stated in your thread, are imagined experience of unicorns, not unicorns themselves. Not even an idealist can create a physical object. He only creates the experience of that object since his entire universe is experience.

The thought of a unicorn is not a unicorn, and doesn't mean a unicorn is consistent. The thought produces a memory of an artificial human experience of a unicorn. That's about as good as I can word it. The memory is distinguishable from the memory of an actual experience of a unicorn most times, but not always. The existence of that memory or the having of that imagined experience does not instantiate a unicorn. I cannot even imagine my own wife. I can only imagine my experience of my wife.
Now if logical consistency is equated with ontic existence, then the unicorn exists. Does 'instantiation' also mean that same thing? It has to. Let's say a magic amulet (that changes color in the presence of danger, kind of like Bilbo's sting) is logically consistent, but it happens to be instantiated in a place with no observers. What does that mean? Danger to what? Well, perhaps the nearby rock formation, in danger of the impending frost breaking it up. But the amulet is identical to itself, and is not what it isn't.

Anyway, that's my attempt to describe something improbable but not logically inconsistent, and with an instantiation not dependent on idealistic ontology. This sort of thing is implied by equating existence to consistency. I cannot find fault with the assertion, but it seems to weaken the whole concept of ontology if there is no distinction with possible but nevertheless nonexistent, an intuitive state that I assign things like my older sister.

Final comment on what Chany wrote:

You would have to embrace multiverse theory and say that every single possible world is a real world, as real and concrete as the actual world. This leads to a contradiction, as it is also logically coherent (possible) that only the actual world exists and that the other possible worlds do not exist — Chany

I don't think this is a contradiction. There can be a logically consistent MW universe as well as a single world one, and both of them contain this same state as we see here. The truth of the other one seems not to contradict how ours works, and MW being false here does not preclude the existence of those alternate worlds. Ouch. Did I just contradict myself? This uni-world is identical to one world of the MW setup. They would seem to be the same thing, so MW has to be true given the definitions posited here.

Now what made me change my mind?
You said "It is logically consistent that some logically consistent thing (other worlds for instance) to not exist". Not sure if you can use that as an argument against, since it boils down to "It is logically consistent that some logically consistent thing is not logically consistent". That is not logically consistent, so the nonexistence of the other world is false. If you can make a paradox of it, then we have something.

I assert at the beginning that existing things must be consistent because it seems absurd to me that an inconsistent thing (such as a four-sided triangle) could exist. So to suppose that I am self-contradictory means to suppose that I don't exist, which is absurd. — litewave

Just because existing things must be self consistent doesn't imply all self-consistent things must exist. I've been exploring the implications of the two being synonymous, but just exploration.

A couple of weeks later you ask me "can a four-sided triangle exist?" I don't say "No, a four-sided triangle can't exist." I don't say "That's inconsistent." I say "You've broken the arbitrary rules of the geometry game." — T Clark

What rule was broken? Sure, the name arbitrarily assigned to the three sided thing, but what is fundamentally impossible is equating three to four. Is the abstract rule that makes that impossible some arbitrarily assigned rule, or is three really not equal to four, even in the absence of people doing geometry?

I never really asked myself the question if I exist - I take my existence for granted. The reason I take it for granted is that I am conscious (consciousness) and consciousness is something rather than nothing, so it exists. — litewave

I thought you had equated existence to 'logically consistent', not to 'something, not nothing', which is a weaker, circular definition.
I've spent quite some time trying to identify all the things I take for granted. There are plenty I'm sure I've not yet identified. Some of them hold water when put to the test, but I like to put all of them to the test.
If existence is consistency, then the consciousness is not evidence unless it can be shown to be consistent. The fact that they've named 'the hard problem of consciousness' implies that the self-consistency of it is in question.

How can something that doesn't exist have properties? There is nothing that would instantiate those properties. — litewave

A far better question. I notice the word instatiation there, perhaps implying a thing possible but not instantiated. Let's presume a person is a physical thing, with a body and consciousness that is part of physical processes of that body. This person is one thing extended in time and space, from conception to death, head to toe. Now picture two of those persons, identical, except one instantiated, and the other not. What would be the difference between the thought processes (consciousness) of the instantiated one vs. the uninstantiated one?

That's sort of my method of working my way through these sort of questions. Doing it in 3rd person really helps. The problem above can be simplified to 2+2=4. Is 2+2 objectively equal to 4, or does the arithmetic require instantiation for the sum to be true/performed?

Sorry, I didn't completely answer your question about properties of an inconsistent thing, but I named some of the lowest positive real number. Those properties still seem valie, even if they lead eventually to inconsistencies. If the inconsistencies are subtle enough, the nonexistence of the thing might not be so clear.

So to suppose that I am self-contradictory means to suppose that I don't exist, which is absurd. — litewave

Well, people in history questioning their own existence (Descartes most famously) cannot start from a begging position of considering nonexistence absurd. Why ask the question if you know what the answer is going to be?
An inconsistent thing doesn't exist, but it still seems to have properties, so having properties is not proof of existence.

If I (or my universe context) was self-contradictory, what test for that might there be?
— noAxioms

I think it would be absurd if there existed something that is not identical to itself, or something that is not different from other things. So your existence is a guarantee that you are consistent with all reality, even though it is in practice impossible for you to check the consistency of your relations to all your parts, properties, and everything else. — litewave

I didn't assert existence yet. Suppose I am self-contradictory and thus don't exist. I am not identical to myself then, but how would I know that?

Your statement above presumes the existence of the inconsistent thing. If a inconsistent thing can still think, then cogito ergo sum doesn't work. That's actually what I always suspected, so I'm not taking this as any sort of denial of your definition of existence. Just noticing the implications.

I'll also try to look at your paper you just put out.

Yes. Although it doesn't seem to be inconsistent for there to be parallel worlds.

No, I have always favored the interpretation since the other ones require the ability to alter the past. Not impossible, but a harder pill to swallow I think. The view really messes with one's intuitive sense of self identity, and for that reason, probably meets more resistance than it deserves.

I wouldn't say that naming something creates it. The candle is objectively there, as a collection of atoms. Just because we find this collection interesting enough to give it a name doesn't mean we created this collection by naming it. — litewave

The naming creates the abstract grouping at best. Sure, the name makes no physical changes to the atoms, events and whatnot that comprise the group itself.
But a candle is a fairly simple example of an object as member of a known context. There is perhaps an apple that isn't next to it with which I can perform an empirical test. I can't do that with the universe since there's no objective stance from which a distinction can be made. The candle seems to be an example of what a naming does to it. I wanted to explore the idea of that.

A nonexistent has no identity, so I don't think it makes sense to regard it as identical to itself. The definition of a four-sided triangle, for example, denies that the triangle is a triangle; it denies its identity. It refers to nothing. All contradictory definitions refer to nothing. — litewave

I have a hard time with this one. Perhaps I don't exist because I am a contradiction in some way not identified. The lowest positive real number seems to have the identity named, and has obvious properties like being the inverse of the largest number. A sufficiently complex nonexisting thing might have the property of self awareness, and yet is not identical to itself due to some contradiction deep in some unexplored corner.

I kind of like the identity <-> existent thing, but my nature is to see if it stands up to a little exploratory cross examination. If I (or my universe context) was self-contradictory, what test for that might there be?

Maybe the existence of the 'like' button on this forum is logically consistent, but obviously its nonexistence is logically consistent too. If both scenarios are consistent then they both exist - but in different worlds (contexts), because it would be contradictory if the button existed and simultaneously didn't exist in the same world. We happen to live in a world where the button doesn't exist, but perhaps our copies in a different world (which is a copy of our world) can enjoy the button. — litewave

We don't think entirely differently, do we? If no world has it, then it is logically impossible. If this is a uni-world sort of physics (non-MW interpretation), then hard-determinism is what makes the alternative with the button an impossible thing.

And yet mathematicians talk about and use the concept of infinity in productive ways all the time. — T Clark

Mathematicians are not making a reference to the largest number.

Second - no. It doesn't bring something into existence "in the context of ideas." It brings it into existence in the only way things are brought into existence. — T Clark

Only way? There is nothing possible yet unnamed, totally not known by any entity capable of knowing about things? Is that what you're saying?

A collection of things (such as a cosmos) is also different from its parts, so the parts provide a context for the collection/whole. — litewave

I find this true, but circular. A thing exists if it is part of the context of all existents. That's just a tautology. But delimited by some objective criteria such as logical possibility, the distinction seems to be drawn. The universe (our spacetime, or perhaps our quantum-mechanical wad of inflation stuff in which our spactime is defined, exists due to its logical consistency. There is no larger theater in which the universe is instantiated and built/played out.

Existence in the most general sense means being identical to oneself and different from others. — litewave

More on this. Wouldn't something nonexistent be identical to itself? Take the smallest postive real number, or javra's dfjsl-ajf'l, something not logically possible (mostly due to that four-sided triangle bit). How about the 'like' button on this forum. It seems not to exist, but it is logically consistent, and identical to itself. Perhaps it exists, but is not present in the context of the features of this forum. Were it not to exist at all, I could not complain of the nonexistence of it in this context.

Hey, this is metaphysics. It's not true or false. It's enlightening or misleading. It's useful or not. — T Clark

Hits (nonexistent!) 'like' button. I'm apparently looking for something useful.

I'm a little confused by your formulation, but let's try this - Yes, this dfjsl-ajfl exists as much as Santa, love, math, or the moon. — T Clark

Just for my $0.02: I think love is a physical thing in the same category as the moon. Not an object, but a complex physical relation of matter, not just an an abstraction like Santa and Math. I can give coordinates to an instantiation of love. A simpler relation is velocity, not a property of any physical thing, but a relation that a physical thing can have with some reference. Of course I can give coordinates to Santa as much as I can to my invisible friend at my side, both being references to mentally constructed objects.

I think the idea of objective reality is hard to support in this context. I think its existence is worthy of examination. That is not a new idea. You have assumed the existence of the physical reality of objective reality independent of human conceptualization. I think you have begged the question.

Yes, that's what started this topic. I felt myself to be begging when I pushed this problem.

You’ll have to explain this better. The main crux that I don’t yet understand: how is a horse—which is one particular existent—in any way compare with the sum of all existent things? The argument I provided was for the latter; and I can’t yet make sense of how it could be meaningfully applied to the former (or to any particular existent for that matter).

Less pivotally, you’ve lost me with how a horse can be distinguished as such without it holding a background of not-horse; I’m thinking background in terms of shrubs, the sky, a tree or two, etc. But even an imagined or dreamed horse will have some background that is itself distinguishable as such … no? Then again, say you try your hardest to visually imagine a horse with no background; let me know if you can visually imagine this such that there is no color or shade of grey, white, or black to this not-horse realm. I know I can’t. Which isn’t to say that I can’t focus my attention on the imagined horse such that the non-horse background is not payed attention to; but this non-horse area will still be relatively dark, or light, or something. This not-horse realm is then a background to the visually imagined horse. — javra

It seems things exist against a background of other existents, not against nonexistent things. So a horse is a horse because it is not a shrub, not because it isn't a unicorn. If everything was a horse, there would be no horse. There would indeed be no background, and I cannot visualize that. Part of the description of a horse is where it stops.

There’s being in and of itself and then there’s things that stand out in one way or another—or, to be more up to date with the thread, things that have a context. Both givens with being and things that have a context are existents, but while being encapsulates all things with a context—such that all things with a context are—not all forms of being are things with a context.

To hopefully better phrase a previously given example: A gravitational singularity from which the Big Bang resulted (this as is modeled by todays mainstream physics) is one such instance of a given with being that is not a thing with context.

This was commented on by others. The singularity is but one event in a much larger collection of events in the context. It is a special boundary event to be sure, and none of the other ones qualify as the edge of it, but it still seems to be but one event in that context. The entire context is what perhaps lack a context of its own. I see this as the same wording you are reaching for here, but I don't envision the singularity as a context free existent of its own.

One way of putting it: if the Big Bang resulted from absolute nonbeing, then it was an ex nihilo effect. Allowing for such can result in metaphysical mayhem if one is to be consistent about what one upholds—which is one strong justification for the very old philosophical proposition that “nothing can come from nothing” (maybe a different issue though, this were there to be disagreements with this outlook on ex nihilo effects).

Why effect? The word implies a cause, contradicting ex nihilo. 'Resulted' is a verb tense implying time is not part of the collection, but something (time, perhaps space as well, but not ex nihilo) into which the Big Bang happened, again a contradiction. All these references seem to imply a deeper context, and the metaphysical mayhem resulting in the conflict between that context and the ex hihilo.
If spacetime (not just the singularity, but the whole QM collection) exists sans context, then it just is. It is not an effect, and is not something that 'resulted'. If so, what does it mean when I say it 'just is'? That's the conflict I run into: lack of meaning to that wording.

On the other hand, as our models of spacetime break down the further we conceptually move back through the Big Bang, we are left with the alternative that there initially existed a state of being devoid of both space and time.

Existed? That wording contradicts there not being time. How can time not yet exist? Maybe it will exist in an hour. Sorry, my eternalist leanings are really showing through here. If the universe defines time, then it doesn't have the property of an object within that temporal context, of needing to come into existence from nonexistence. Being one of those things myself, such thinking is hard to set aside. The intuitions are what make us fit.

But, getting back to the reasoning first offered for the sum of all existents, let “the sum of all that exists” be here termed the cosmos. If one wants to uphold multiple universes, then the cosmos would encapsulate all these multiple universes. Thus defined, I still find it justifiable to uphold that the cosmos can only exists in terms of being per se but does not exist in terms of a thing with context. The existence of things with context is a product of pertaining to the cosmos as one of its many parts, imo.

Agree with this. The way you define cosmos is an objective description, not confined to things existing in <X>.

In retrospect, though, I’m arguing from a point of view not very sympathetic to there actually being multiple physical universes. If you’re leading enquiry is into how our universe’s existence compares to those of other universes, this is something that I’m not qualified to comment on.

One of the simplest ones is that of places beyond the Hubble sphere. Physics says the universe is infinite. There's not a place you can be at the edge where you see stars only on one side. Given that, are there stars 50 billion light years distant? If so, that star defines another universe, completely beyond empirical reach from here. Light from anywhere in that universe will never reach us. If it doesn't exist, then there must be a furthest existing star, from which no other stars in that direction are visible.
Strange answer is that both might be true, depending on your coordinate system of choice. The question plays on several unstated assumption, one of which equates existence to 'existence now'. In that latter form, the big bang doesn't exist because it is in the past. But a reference to time doesn't work for anything outside the context of that time. I can't ask if pi exists now, but I can ask if the concept of pi exists now, but not before somebody thought of it.

Then did you mean the DNA as an abstract thing? In that case, it is a single abstract thing, identical (in every way) to itself. — litewave

OK, that makes sense. I have five apples here, and an identical number of oranges over there. The oranges does not represent a new five, even if it is a different instantiation of five things.

OK, how about the candle?
— noAxioms

In the usual usage the candle is meant as a thing extended in spacetime (enduring in time). Then the statement "candle is lit at time T" means that the candle is in the lit state at time T.[/quote]This also makes sense. Interestingly, the naming of it creates it. To physics, it is all just particles and events and relations, but the grouping of them, extended in spacetime, is encapsulated by the name 'candle', which has meaning to the user of the language.

Not sure why we're nailing down the usage of identical in this topic.
— noAxioms
Existence in the most general sense means being identical to oneself and different from others.

This is worth a reply on its own. Thank you for this different definition, which admittedly seems not to reference a context, but is one implied? More later.

Naming is what brings things into existence. — "T

Sometimes naming does not bring things into existence. — "Owen

This seems only a different context, and a different designation of which contexts are included in objective existence, a term with which I have yet to find any meaning. So naming a thing (doesn't need a name, but even any concept of it) does bring the thing into existence in the context of ideas. I see nobody being right or wrong here, but working from different contexts without stating them.

But if I name a “five-legged, telepathic, ghost unicorn that’s been teleported to Earth by AI UFOs which have traveled back in time from a future multiverse in which planets are all shaped as four-sided triangles” as “dfjsl-ajf’l” my ontological suppositions are that this entity does not then suddenly pop into existence (in the narrow sense of existence, i.e. into the realms of objective reality) — javra

Outlandish though it be, your description did seem to make it pop into existence in my thoughts, and you seem to realize that, prompting your parenthesized disclaimer that you're not including imagined ideas as existing things.

My only disagreement with your comment the is the " i.e. into the realms of objective reality". I am very much questioning that the reality you reference there is objectively real. Reality seems to be things that are present in our universe (our context). That being the definition of objective reality is to deny that there are other contexts (not just deeper but related contexts, such as a creating deity which would not be a real thing in the universe), but completely unrelated contexts.

You have a lot in your posts, but I'm just now getting to it all and trying to weigh in on some of the discussions.

When I say that a thing is identical to itself I mean that it is identical in every way. The DNA strands of twins are not identical in every way - to say the least, they have different positions in spacetime, which makes them different things. — litewave

I didn't say 'strand'. The DNA of twins is identical, consisting only of information, not particular details of a strand, which has properties like position.

OK, how about the candle? Are the two states not the same candle because of the differences in lit and burnt-out, or are they one thing, identical to itself, just extended in spacetime? Even the latter has a hard time with identity if you consider MW cloning. The statement "candle is lit at time T" has no truth value if all those states are part of one identity, and only some of those states are 'lit'.

Not sure why we're nailing down the usage of identical in this topic.

There are some things you could try if you get stuck: — Srap Tasmaner

Linguistic ascent is the worst. Not looking for how existence is used in our language. Almost all the confusion in philosophy, especially in forum discussions, seems partially rooted in language use, which takes far too much for granted.
Transcendental: I'm not asking if anything is the case. Everybody thinks I'm looking for proof or evidence of something.
The theory crafting is perhaps a way of wording part of what I am doing.

As for going over this over a week, sure. Years actually, but it only recently got stuck on this point. I have a pretty good story that is self-consistent as any I've seen, and solves almost all the hard questions, at least to my satisfaction. Fermi paradox is one of the things that is yielded a coherent answer. But part of my supposedly consistent story is flippant use of the word 'exists', so I'm trying to pin that down.

I perhaps claim to have an answer, which I rate still very low on a probability of being THE answer. Everybody has a different opinion, and the odds of mine being the closest guess to the fact of the matter is still very low odds.

So in pondering the question "why is there something instead of nothing", I instead ask how the experience would be different if there were not anything, and found it to be the same. Instantiation is not required. But that answer leans heavily on what it means for something to just be.

I don't think FOL has anything to say about ontology. Not sure where that discussion is intended to go. ∃ means something other than an ontological assertion.

I guess we can agree that every thing that exists must satisfy the criterion of logical consistency: it must be what it is and not be what it is not. In other words, it must be identical to itself and different from what it is not. — litewave

This doesn't help if something is logically consistent but nonexistent. I questioned that above when I cannot come up with an example of a consistent thing that nevertheless is known not to exist.

About identical, the word is ambiguous. Twins share identical (indistinguishable) DNA but are not the same person. A lit candle seems to share numeric identity with the burnt out stub an hour later. It is the same candle (identical), but the two states are hardly indistinguishable.

Say what it means. I cannot read the notation.
For some x, Fx is true. Not sure what the a is.
It being a rule of first order logic doesn't tell me what it means that something (my context universe in particular) exists.

Truth is that which can be shown to be the case.
To show that 'Unicorns have four legs' is true, we need to verify it. — Owen

This topic is not about demonstrating existence, or worse, defining existence in terms of demonstrability, which reduces to idealism.

If you can prove unicorns exist by saying they have four legs, you know you've done something wrong. — Srap Tasmaner

Kind of followed by my understanding of the last line of Owen's post. So perhaps I misunderstood. I'm trying to get a clarification. Maybe the four-leggedness is not true of unicorns because they would first need to exist to have the four legs, but then the reasoning is circular and meaningless.

Remember, I'm not trying to prove anything exists. I am trying to nail down what we're claiming if we claim something exists or not. My shabby attempt of that is "is present in a context", and no, counting legs does not prove presence in whatever context in which we might claim unicorns exist.

So having four legs is something true of unicorns, therefore unicorns exist.

I actually am not far from that logic, but I wanted to make sure you're saying that. It also seems to leave open the obvious paradox of one truth about a nonexistent thing is that it is nonexistent, thus proving its existence.

x exists =def (some F)(Fx). — Owen

But what is (some F)? Perhaps I am just behind in translation of predicate notation. The F seems to be the context, and I have no problem with the statement when there is a context involved. Maybe I'm reading it wrong.

Gave all this several more days to work it over. Had to get this one out of the way:

'I think, therefore I'm possible' is a tautology.

1. I think, therefore I am. — Owen

Well, I am not willing to accept this, so hardly tautological. Even Descartes went only so far as something like "thinking, therefore existence" without immediately being so bold as to fit an "I" into that picture. But I'm questioning what it means to exist, so such axioms cannot be held if they rely on what I'm trying to define.

Possibility exists and therefore actuality can exist. — schopenhauer1

Maybe they're the same thing.
Despite my discarding objective existence based on possibility (due to inability to think of anything objectively impossible), I wondered if there is a distinction between 'possible' and 'real'. There is an epistemological difference, but seemingly not an ontological one.
For example, take again my context of the prime numbers. Eleven is a real prime, and twelve is not. The number of grains of sand on Earth is a potential prime with some significantly low probability. It is impossible to count them, but assuming we had a hard definition of what it means to be counted or not (we most certainly don't), the resulting number would in fact be a prime or not, with no probability about it.
Hence my questioning possible things. If something is possible in some context, it exists. If it doesn't exist in that context, it isn't possible. Can I defend that? I couldn't think of a counter-example. It doesn't work without 'context'. Objective existence is without context, and without context, existence is undefined, and possibility has no impossibility with which to distinguish itself.

Where does that leave me? Thinking, therefore existing in the context of this universe, but no requirement that the universe be real in a context that excludes impossible ones. There does seem to be a deeper context, but it seems that such regression is finite. No turtles all the way down. There is a context that is the entire structure, and it seems not to be a meaningful thing to apply the label 'exists' to that context.

The antinatalist must be pretty happy. There are billions of non-actualized potential people for every actualized one.

I thought of a better word than 'set' or 'structure'. Streetlight brought it up in the causation thread, and it is simply 'context'. A thing is actual or not within a context. There seems to be no context in which a universe is actual but distinguished from another one that is not, unless the context is 'things created by some creator external to the created thing, in which case said creator is just part of a larger context.

It doesn't much give me the answers I seek, but the word seems to better express the question a bit at least.

How would you address this reasoning?: The background to the sum of all existents either exists or does not. If it exists in some way, it is contained within the sum of all existents. If it doesn’t exist in some way, then there is no background to the sum of all existents. Both conclusions result in there not being a background to the sum of all existents, aka to existence. — javra

Seems like pretty good reasoning at first glance, an argument for a lack of distinction.
But can we apply this logic to a horse? Against what background does the actual horse stand apart if the background doesn't exist? I pick horse because it might stand out against the nonexistent (in this world) unicorn. Does the unicorn need to be actual enough for the horse to stand apart from it, in which case the contradiction is unavoidable.
We need to find logic that works for the horse (an example we believe to understand a bit more clearly) before attempting to apply it elsewhere.

Actuality is a property of a temporal tulip object. The universe cannot be actual in this way.
— noAxioms

I think the following supports this quoted conclusion:

Looking at things from a solely physical perspective, the Big Bang is inferred to have resulted from a volume-less gravitational singularity (both space and time began with the Big Bang, so, before the Big Bang there was no space: the gravitational singularity is then volume-less, or space-less [as well as timeless; a different issue though] … hence neither incredibly small nor incredibly big, for both these are contingent upon the existence of space). The more mainstream of modern physics—excluding suppositions such as those of QM MW and M-theory—infers the "Boundless" in the physical form (if it can be termed “form”) of a gravitational singularity. There’s lots of evidence for the Big Bang, and all this evidence points to a volume-less state of being that preceded it (in which all the energy of the universe was contained).

I would say space and time are bounded by the big bang, avoiding the 'before the big bang' reference you use above, a conflicting implication of a time before time. Similarly space, which cannot be a prerequiste. Choose your model. Empty space existing until stuff bangs into it, or space and time being bounded. The two models don't mix kindly. The former requires creation: a cause of sorts. Inflation theory fits the bill at least for a cause, if not the preexisting space and time. The inflation concept of time does not map to the time measured by clocks here, and the theory does not posit space into which stuff exploded.

This volume-less gravitational singularity, then, does not exist in the manner that a tulip does. Yet, assuming it to be objectively real, it nevertheless is (or was), thereby physically existing in a manner other than the physical existence of a tulip.

The singularity qualifies as an event, and events exist sort of in the way the tulip does (the tulip is multiple events, grouped together by language). The universe is not just that one event.

I’m far less confident in upholding what I’ve heard from documentaries about the known universe of today (sorry, I don’t recall which documentaries): that the universe is inferred to have no center and no circumference.

Funny, since I cannot conceive of one with a location in space that is the center. Such a picture would mean there's an edge to it with the fastest moving stuff, and if you were there, you'd see stars only on one side, making it pretty easy to point to said center. If spacetime is modeled in 4D, the center is in that 4th direction, which is arbitrary, but they all point to the same place. I guess we just view the geometry differently.

Nevertheless, were this to be objectively real, the same roundabout issue of existence would apply to the physical universe as it is today: there is distance from one tulip to another, or from one galaxy to another, but there is no distance regarding the whole. If so the universe (as everything that is) physically exists in a manner other than that in which any physical item exists as a part of the universe.

Didn't quite understand this part. If you're saying that our universe doesn't have a location in relation to other universes, they I'd agree. For the record, I don't use the word 'universe' as 'all there is'. It is quite context dependent, and, and for the purpose of this discussion, it means all there is in this grand ball of quantum-mechanical structure, bounded by a bang on one end. Otherwise the question of the existence of other-universes is meaningless, being a question of if there is another all-there-is. A more confined definition of universe would be 'all that matters', which is a more idealistic notion since it implies all that matters to us. This perhaps excludes the past which cannot be affected, the future which cannot be sensed, things that are currently not-here, which is inaccessible in both ways, and places simply beyond our reach even over time, for whatever reason.


And thanks for the feedback javra. I may not agree with everything, but I've already identified some bad ideas I had in need of reconsideration. I need these critiques.

You are in a universe where contingent and determined forces play out perhaps from an original apeiron of boundless and indefinite possibilities which was broken in an original asymmetry which allowed for yet more asymmetries into the universe or multiverse we reside. — schopenhauer1

OK, I seem to be one post behind all the time.
Yes, within this universe, contingent forces play out the possibilities into actualities. Hence a tulip is actual, but that is merely a property of this universe: of the temporal relations between states, and the interpretation of the differences in states between various points, as 'becoming' or actuality. A tulip is is interpreted as an object in a temporal container, and all such objects are rightly interpreted as being caused. The temptation is to generalize the universe itself as such an object that has temporal existence (or existence at all), or that it 'became' at all. I find that view quite naive since I have found no evidence to support it. Hence my labelling it a category error. Actuality is a property of a temporal tulip object. The universe cannot be actual in this way.

This problem goes back to the first philosopher, Anaximander actually. He thought all was undefined or Boundless. Essentially, it was the idea that all was potential with no actuality to it (no form). — schopenhauer1

Sounds pretty clean to me.

Of course, how it goes from boundless to boundaries or undefined to defined from the very start, is anyone's guess.

This presumes that it does 'go from undefined to defined', which seems contradictory since it would imply states and time are defined before anything is defined. Isn't potential enough?

I think, therefore I'm possible. Ewww, but maybe...
— noAxioms

Can you explain this more? — schopenhauer1

Hard to. The set of possible structures, which seems strange without a set of rules about why one might not be possible. The set of structures resulting from consistent application of rules. Closer maybe, but a set of rules can be arbitrarily complex and thus technically rule out almost nothing.

We don't have a grand-unified field theory, but I had heard that we expect it all to be fairly simple in the end and "fit on a T-shirt". A limited number of fundamental components and their relational rules. But without a cap on said rules, there seems to be no limit to what is possible. So: a universe just like this one, but with the addition that Latin invokes magic if you have the right DNA. Same T-shirt, but with a little extra stuff printed on the sleeves.

In the end, I don't think there is a set of existing things. I think 'existence' is misapplied. The cosmological argument questions the how of the existence of the universe, or more naively, how it was 'caused', but the universe seems not to be in need of either causation or existence. There is no set, and I exist in the universe despite the lack of meaning to the concept of the existence of the universe.

So what's the next move? How could you define U in a way that does some work? — Srap Tasmaner

It seems I misinterpreted your meaning of U. You define it (tentatively) as everything that exists in the sort of way I am seeking, not as 'our universe' which is just the chunk of spacetime to which I have access and includes "all the stuff I see and can imply from it".
Taking your definition of U, your statement above is just restating the problem in my OP. Our universe is presumed to 'exist', and not just by being a member of itself. I'm asking what that means. I'm questioning that it means anything at all.

Yeah, I don't understand the significance of being a member of some set. If some means any, then anything you can name is a member of any number of sets. If it is some particular set, then the burden of definition is shifted to defining that set.
— SophistiCat

That last bit was where I was headed. Would have been clearer if I had said "a special set, let's call it U." That's what noAxioms seemed to want to do, and I was just helping him along, as it turns out, mistakenly. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, I can name any number of sets, but I don't think my naming a set is what makes the universe exist.

Yes, a special set. A distinguishing rule.

OK, per hypothesis, there would be a (Many-Worlds) quantum world where a real Harry Potter exists as well as the Harry Potter fictional stories in our quantum world. Similarly, there would be fictional stories in Harry's world that just so happens to describe our world.

In this case it would be true to say (justification aside) that Harry Potter existed somewhere in the universe, though not in our quantum world. We would just need to be careful to keep our claims about the real Harry Potter in the other world distinct from claims about the fictional Harry Potter in our world. Similarly for Harry's claims about us. — Andrew M

Agree with pretty much all of this, but since these quantum worlds are part the one structure (our spacetime), they're really another part of the same universe, just like another planet, sufficiently distant to be completely out of our empirical reach. The existence of alternate worlds is using 'existence' the way we do with tulips: another part of U. This is opposed to the typical language usage of the word which implies part of the world that to which we have access.

So when I assert that unicorns exist, now, on earth, I am speaking of the simple form of existence but extending my definition of 'earth' to include all the inaccessible quantum versions of earth. It seems improbable that such a creature did not evolve in some of those worlds.

Now about the sort of existence that I am talking about: Our spacetime seems possibly to be one of many bubbles of ordinary physics that condenses (?) out of inflation-stuff, all according to inflation theory. In that sense, our spacetime is just one of those bubbles, and thus is just an object of sorts in a strange collection of related but very different bubbles. The cosmologists are working on the nature of that inflation stuff. There seems to be time there, but not time that maps to ours. The bubbles all obey quantum physics and are effectively related even if they cannot interact. They are objects, not true universes. The inflation stuff seems to be the universe (unless there is even more regress), but if there is a bottom to the regression, what sort of ontological statement can be made about that fundamental universe?

This delineation, however, does a disservice to the form of realism that noAxioms wants to uphold: one that does away with all possible notions of idealism. Because this definition of U depends on awareness in order to hold, it opens doors to idealistic notions. — javra

Wanting to uphold that is well and nice, but so many paths keep coming back to the idealism for which I express my distaste. So in the interest of not caving to my biases, I have to give that consideration.

It could help out to better pinpoint what is intended by the term “existence”. For example, as mentioned in Wikipedia, existence can be classified into the “wide” and the “narrow” sense. In the wide sense of existence, anything that holds any type of being (or presence) can be stated to exist. Figments of the imagination, such as fictional characters, then exist in the wide sense. In the narrow sense, only that which pertains to objective reality (but see the aforementioned for different approaches to what this could imply) can be stated to exist. Harry Potter, then, does not exist in the narrow sense.[/quote]All these are the the same class to me. They are objects, things, representations, relations, whatever, within their universes. None are the universe itself, something that is not a member of some more general structure. So some might classify a relation like velocity to be something that exists, and others else might not. I'm not too concerned with that. What does 'existence' mean to a universe whose full description defines defines that velocity?

Then questions can be posed such as the following: does QM MW exist in the narrow sense, or only in the wide sense?

MW is a strange case, and it seems more a question of if that interpretation is in fact the correct one or not. If that interpretation is correct, then there are certainly other worlds and they are certainly observed, some of them at least. They're really all just other places, all part of one universe actually, and thus fail to be an example of the sort of existence I seek.

Some might say there is no fact of the matter (QM interpretation), but I don't think that fact is beyond investigation. They're attempting to build a quantum computer, which means money is being put behind one interpretation over the other, and that money would be wasted if there was no way to empirically falsify something like hidden-state interpretation.

As a related example, existence could either entail the set of “that which is distinguishable from some background” (this being in line with the literal translation of “standing out”) or the set of “that which holds any sort of presence” (e.g., hypothesizing the Buddhist notion of Nirvana, the state of Nirvana would only exist in the latter sense and not the former). The universe—here presuming it equivalent with everything that exists in the wide sense—can be argued to not exist in the first sense just mentioned: it has no background against which it can be distinguished.

Well, it's that background I'm seeking I think. I'm not so sure about a necessary lack of one.

This conception of the universe, then, can be argued to exist only in the second sense just mentioned. To me this implies that U can exist only as a member of itself. The only way I can find to avoid this conclusion is to grant existence in the wide sense a background of nothingness (also in the wide sense)—but, then, it seems that this would endow nothingness in the wide sense with substantial presence: thereby making nothingness too an aspect of existence in the wide sense. Hence, again leading to the conclusion that set U can exist only as a member of itself.

But I didn't like the second-sense, finding it pretty much the same as the first sense. No, U would not be a member of itself, but it would be a member of something that includes other <need a noun here>'s which also distinguish themselves from whatever background we might identify. I think it presumptuous to select a noun there with the distinction left undefined. I tried 'structure', but not sure if other members that stand out are necessarily structures.

javra, getting to yours. I too have finite time to digest it all.

In terms of antinatalism, it is interesting to know that you need existence to know that non-existence is preferable. — schopenhauer1

Wrong kind of existence, but I see what you're saying. Given the right kind of existence, I'm not convinced that the logic here applies. I exist (wrong kind) in this universe, but this universe seems not to need to exist (right kind) in order for its occupants (us) to know that existence is preferable. Absent a distinction somewhere, the 'right kind' of existence cannot have relevance. Humans instinctually consider the universe to have properties of other objects with which we are familiar, such as a tulip, and thus requires coming into existence, and perhaps sharing existence with other existing things but not with the nonexistent ones. I recognized that misapplication of instinct, and am trying to build it back up on more solid footing.

[/quote]However, non-existence does not seem like something that can exist in and of itself. So, how can anything be purely non-existence by itself without an existence to compare it to?[/quote]It would seem to be a property, no? There can be no pure-warm property without a thing to which the property can be applied (a lit candle say), and something other thing with which to contrast it (un-lit candle). I can do this with objects. A tulip exists in my yard, and the pink elephant does not. Hmm, my logic sort of fails, since the pink elephant seems to need to exist at least so far as to permit the application the property of nonexistence.

Existence entails non-existence but non-existence itself does not seem to make sense. Perhaps non-existence is pure possibility without being actualized? Then again, what is pure possibility as that seems to be "something" and thus has an existence.

You're going down the same path I see. The pink elephant is for whatever reason possible, and hence can have the property of nonexistence. What doesn't get that far? Maybe what makes the pink elephant possible (but not actual) is what makes our universe distinct from one that is not possible.
I think, therefore I'm possible. Ewww, but maybe...

Science tells us that the universe existed for eons without us, but its existence was meaningless without us, we assert meaning into an indifferent universe. — Cavacava

Science might say that events (things, matter, whatever) existed in the universe for eons without us, but it does not offer an opinion on the philosophical topic on the table here. I'm asking if there is an objective fact-of-the matter, independent of our ability to find meaning in it, or our ability to detect it.

When we say that Harry Potter can point to stuff, we are making a different kind of claim to when we say that we can point to stuff. The latter is understood in a straightforward literal sense, the former assumes we are talking about a work of fiction. That is, our interpretation of those claims already depend on us making a distinction between what exists and what is mere representation. That distinction is enough to provide a usage for the word "exists". — Andrew M

OK, the Harry Potter stories (be they conveyed in books, films, plays, whatever) are representations, all forms of language, allowing us to share a vision Rowling's alternate world in our minds. The 'real' world can similarly be said to work the same way. The senses we take in are just different languages, letting us create a model of the world in which the characters in the model point to things. We presume in the direct-sense way that the story our senses tell us are real, that the characters 'exist'. No proof of this exists, but it degenerates into solipsism to assume otherwise. With fiction, there is no such assumption. The world depicted is perhaps a real one, the London/England we know, but an alternate world in which perhaps some quantum collapse back a thousand years unlocked some new gene in a subset of humans that unlocked access to what us muggles would consider supernatural powers, invoked with Latin utterances apparently. The Harry in that world (completely inaccessible to us) can point to stuff, and his ability to do so does not demonstrate (to what??) that world's existence.

Similarly, perhaps our world is a fictional one depicted in stories in Harry's world. There can be no test of it, but I was wondering if it was meaningful to ask what it would mean, without asking to what it would be meaningful to.

You mention that you are not confused about the difference between the two. But whether Harry Potter is confused is only a question of whether the author represents him as confused or not.

The representation is only that, I admit.

So you want set and set membership to be the starting point, and to define existence in terms of those. Something exists if it is a member of some special set U. — Srap Tasmaner

No, the U is arbitrary, and usually means all that stuff I see, and all the rest that is implied by it. The far side of the moon exists despite the lack of its direct accessibility to any of my five senses.

What I am questioning in this thread is what distinguishes U itself from existing or not, especially absent a member-observer being aware of some portion of the contents of the U. Not asking why U exists and certainly not how it 'became to exist', but what it means at all. Is there an objective fact to the matter, despite the lack of anything that can actually know said objective fact?

I looked up all sorts of articles from the various philosophers, and they seem more concerned with what classes of things exist, and which are excluded. Does love exist? Depends who you ask. But nobody seems to address what it means to exist in the first place, at least not in a way that can be applied to our universe itself. So quantum MW interpretation says there is another universe with an earth where life never began. Assuming the MW interpretation is correct (is there an objective correct answer???), does such an alternative world exist? The only distinguishing difference would be the absence of observers on Earth, and it would seem to be idealism to suggest that what makes this world exist but not that one.

Per realism, that we can observe or point to something is not what makes that thing exist (which is a separate question), but it is what allows us to claim that it exists. We aren't confused about the ontological difference between our universe and the Harry Potter universe because we can point to the books and the author from where those ideas derive and we understand their history. — Andrew M

I want to agree, but I think where I differ is the claim. If this universe did not exist, I would still be able to point to it. I would just not exist along with it. The universe existing seems not to be a prerequisite to its occupant pointing to it. Harry Potter can point to stuff in his universe despite both their nonexistence. I'm not confused about the difference between the two, but Harry is. Maybe he reads a fiction book about us.