jorndoe

Is it possible to categorically not exist?
But fictions, fantasies, hallucinations, dreams and such do exist.

Yet, if anything significant differentiates fictions/fantasies/hallucinations/dreams and perception, then it must be the perceived.

We sometimes come up with fictions and share them among us, which language and whatnot are sufficiently flexible to do.

Such fictions, fantasies, hallucinations and dreams are still confined to us, though, and could perhaps be contrasted with "real" things, depending on how we use the term "real".

@Wayfarer might have a dream in which he slapped Donald Trump, though (unfortunately perhaps) the real Trump never felt a thing. :)
What Philosophical School of Thought do you fall in?
At the first go I got Epicureanism, and Humanism on the second.
Everything and nothing
Wait, @Bitter Crank, except according to some theologians, their deity can do the impossible, creatio ex nihilo.
So much for the old metaphysical thesis, nihil fit ex nihilo, I guess.
It may be sort of wrong anyway, after a fashion, e.g. the zero-energy universe, expansion of the universe.
Everything and nothing
:D

1. No, "nothing" is the missing complement of everything.
2. No, of course not.

if it be nothing, I shall not need spectacles — Gloucester

_{Nothing (Wikipedia)

Nothingness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)}
Post-intelligent design
Suppose there is absolutely nothing. How could something come into existence? — Metaphysician Undercover

I guess, in that case there couldn't have been anything preventing it either?
Post-intelligent design
@Wayfarer, anything other than endless 3-dimensional space is difficult to imagine for a universe, isn't it? :) A simpleton universe could just be 'one' "thing" in it's entirety (indivisible, changeless, no green trees however much I like those, etc). As far as consistency goes, that seems fine (to me at least); as far as contemporary physics goes, who knows.

it is simply an empirical and logical impossibility that there could be a universe comprising a single entity — Wayfarer

Logical impossibility isn't implied. Can you derive a contradiction?

As an aside

in the absence of observers, our universe is dead — Davies

Notice that Davies does in fact presuppose (imagine?) an unobserved universe here, namely a "dead" one, by his own words. But Davies is writing about our universe, with us and lovely green trees in it, and a hypothetical "theory of everything" thereof.
Bug reports
Weird. For a bit I've had this showing up when logging in:

But there isn't anything new in the Inbox. What gives?
Post-intelligent design
@Wayfarer, I was thinking in terms of ontological self-identity, consistency.
Your 'one' doesn't seem contradictory to me, not "impossible to conceive".
But if you're thinking physics, well, then who knows, things are a lot more complicated, and I'd tend to agree (though something like a photon seems indivisible, in a manner of speaking).
Was that what you meant by "impossible to conceive"?
Post-intelligent design
I was simply observing that it is impossible to conceive of a universe with just one item. 'One' depends on there being 'more than one'. — Wayfarer

How so?

In reference to the further comments, of course it's impossible to observe anything if you're absent.
You mean you can't imagine something you're not observing?
That seems a bit like incredulity.
What will Mueller discover?
[...] politics. I don't expect them to play fair to begin with. — Agustino

Maybe you should? Just sayin'.
In defence of weak naturalism
I'm a realist — Harry Hindu

I tend towards realism (or anti-idealism) as well; alternatives just don't stack up.
But of course the conundrums you brought up still apply. Who doesn't like a good mystery? (Y)

Anyway, my comment was just an attempt to point out a potential problem with some propositions.
Say, there's not much doubt that the Sun exists, and we may then come up with sufficient definitions thereof (converging on quiddity). Such definitions can be found in dictionaries and whatnot.
If, on the other hand, we only have definitions to go by, then things become more questionable, which was what I meant by defining quiddity (like flying pink elephants perhaps).
Come to think on it, Hume may actually have agreed.
If the potential problem holds up, then it would go towards naturalism of some sort.
In defence of weak naturalism
If something can exist, then it must exist — Srap Tasmaner

Seems vaguely like modal realism?

I wonder if the universe were infinite, then wouldn't what is actually possible have to become actual at some point? — Cavacava

Well, it would have to be infinite in all possible aspects, at least, wouldn't it?
Even then, I'm not quite convinced; infinitudes aren't that easy to reason about.
In defence of weak naturalism
@Sam26, haven't you ever wondered why these NDE experiences tend to be visual (with the eyes safely situated in the body), and audio (with the eardrums safely back in the body), remembered (with the brain back in the body), etc?
Some common characteristica are known from other reports, like "sensing a presence", when being subject to generated magnetic fields, fluctuating similarly to brain scans.
Individual self-comprehension has always been troublesome.
Jumping to the conclusion that "supernaturalism is much more probabilistic than" something a bit more "down to Earth", as it were, seems a stretch; I'm guessing what we might call the "natural" world is significantly richer than our thinking.
I suppose several independent, credible, well-justified reports of somehow "seeing" something that the experiencer couldn't possibly otherwise have known (or inferred/guessed), would lend more merit to the hypothesis.
How about putting together an organization of spies using OOBEs? :D
In defence of weak naturalism
Even if we provisionally accept the PSR, it still doesn't logically follow that a cause must have all the properties of its effects (whatever that might even mean). The most that PSR entails in this case is that there must be a cause for any property, which is a plausible (though not necessary) principle if by that we mean that the property is either entailed or made more probable by a prior state of the world combined with dynamical laws. But conservation of properties does not follow from this. — SophistiCat

Sufficient reason can't apply to existence, the lot, everything, without circularity (e.g. existence is self-explanatory).
Thus, if you want to apply sufficient reason to the universe, then you'd have to show that the universe isn't everything first (which could make the principle kind of redundant in this respect, who knows).
At least that's how it seems to me.
Otherwise you just get the usual structure of "everything and then some".
In defence of weak naturalism
Sure, @Harry Hindu, well, you could just hand me a dictionary/encyclopedia, those have plenty good definitions.
But, there are no running elephants in dictionaries, for example. You might, however, show evidence of a stampede or whatever, and that's "real" in this sense at least:

x is real ⇔ x exists irrespective of anyone's definitions — jorndoe
(may or may not be a worthwhile thesis, don't know)

On the other hand, dictionaries excel at context-building, e.g. may state where elephants live or something. You won't find flying pink elephants in dictionaries either, by the way, but that didn't stop me from just mentioning them. :)

Anyway, I've just noticed there are some relations among ...
```
Invention   Discovery
Definition  Evidence
Quiddity    Existence
```
... when it comes to epistemic claims.
Definitions are fine; my depreciation is just when some such x is defined only (possibly invented).
In defence of weak naturalism
I'm the opposite. — Harry Hindu

Apropos, it seems we spoke past each other. :D (Too few definitions?)

Here's another expression of my inquiry regarding existential claims:

Is x something you can show us first (without having to define it), or is x something you have to define for us first (without having shown existence)?

The former is easily exemplified, e.g. the Sun. The depreciation I expressed was towards the latter.

Whatever is real, does not require our definitions to exist. Rather the opposite, we try to converge on quiddity of whatever is real by means of discovery, something like that. Oftentimes this involves predication. — jorndoe

Perhaps I can turn it into a thesis:

x is real ⇔ x exists irrespective of anyone's definitions

I'm not sure that holds, though.
In defence of weak naturalism
I've come to depreciate definitions over time, in this context, not because they're useless or anything, but because their employment can be misleading.

Whatever is real, does not require our definitions to exist. Rather the opposite, we try to converge on quiddity of whatever is real by means of discovery, something like that. Oftentimes this involves predication. Merely defining quiddity of reality-constituents seems fraught.

Of course, in terms of our language, it's always a good idea to express things concisely, which may involve definitions. Going by dictionaries and encyclopedias, definitions are inherently circular, but that can work wonders in context-building.

For a large class of cases — though not for all — in which we employ the word ‘meaning’, it can be explained thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. — Wittgenstein

So, anyway, what are we on about with "natural" and "supernatural" here...?
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The Basel problem:

$\sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{1}{n^2} = \frac{\pi^2}{6}$
```
\sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{1}{n^2} = \frac{\pi^2}{6}
```
Function continuity:

$f$ is continuous at $d$

$\forall \epsilon \in \mathbb{R}_{+} \Bigl[ \exists \delta \in \mathbb{R}_{+} \bigl[ \left| x - d \right| \lt \delta \Rightarrow \left| f(x) - f(d) \right| \lt \epsilon \bigr] \Bigr]$
```
\forall \epsilon \in \mathbb{R}_{+} \Bigl[ \exists \delta \in \mathbb{R}_{+} \bigl[ \left| x - d \right| < \delta \Rightarrow \left| f(x) - f(d) \right| < \epsilon \bigr] \Bigr]
```
... and God said ...

$\begin{aligned} \nabla \times \vec{\mathbf{B}} -\, \frac1c\, \frac{\partial\vec{\mathbf{E}}}{\partial t} & = \frac{4\pi}{c}\vec{\mathbf{j}} \\ \nabla \cdot \vec{\mathbf{E}} & = 4 \pi \rho \\ \nabla \times \vec{\mathbf{E}}\, +\, \frac1c\, \frac{\partial\vec{\mathbf{B}}}{\partial t} & = \vec{\mathbf{0}} \\ \nabla \cdot \vec{\mathbf{B}} & = 0 \end{aligned}$
```
\begin{aligned} \nabla \times \vec{\mathbf{B}} -\, \frac1c\, \frac{\partial\vec{\mathbf{E}}}{\partial t} & = \frac{4\pi}{c}\vec{\mathbf{j}} \\ \nabla \cdot \vec{\mathbf{E}} & = 4 \pi \rho \\ \nabla \times \vec{\mathbf{E}}\, +\, \frac1c\, \frac{\partial\vec{\mathbf{B}}}{\partial t} & = \vec{\mathbf{0}} \\ \nabla \cdot \vec{\mathbf{B}} & = 0 \end{aligned}
```
... and there was light.
Islam and the Separation of Church and State
We just watched "The Monster Among Us" (2008) on the Documentary channel.

Sixty years after the Holocaust, a new brand of anti-Semitism has reared its ugly head again in Europe. It has the same purpose, but a different face.
It's somewhat related to Islam, in part due to the unfortunate Israeli-Palenstinian situation.
Here's a short youtube: The Monster Among Us/ Allen Mondell Cynthia Salzman Mondell (4m:38s)
Yeah, if there are aliens out there, then that's why they're keeping out of sight.
Islam and the Separation of Church and State
Among fundamentalists, extremists and fanatics, it so happens that religious scriptures can be interpreted either way. That's not limited to the Quran. You could similarly interpret the Bible to both be against and to allow slavery. For that matter, anyone could claim that their interpretation is the one correct reading. Such is the nature of scriptures I guess; anyone may employ whichever interpretation when that's convenient.

^{I personally know a lovely Muslim couple, currently living in the US (and was a bit worried when Trump got into office, but fortunately they're fine for now). They're just ordinary moderates, not anti-secular, or theocratic or anything. If things in the US takes a turn for the worse, then we'd invite them to stay here until they could get a footing. Off hand, I'm guessing their sentiment is the majority among Muslims, but it's a guess on my part.

I also know a Muslim that's a bit less moderate. In their own words, Islam is all-encompassing, and addresses every aspect of life. Not sure what their sentiment on secularism is, though I can't really see them wanting to enforce Islam, Sharia Law, or the likes. All I can say, is that they'd most likely be fine if living in a theocratic, Islamic society with heavy enforcement of blasphemy laws.}

At this time in history, it seems that a good lot of violent, extremist religious folks are Muslims. I'm not sure that can be derived from the Quran in particular (in comparison to any other scripture) though. It comes down to what their reading is; you can also find passages that prescribe kindness toward others.

But, yeah, "Jakarta's Christian governor jailed for blasphemy against Islam" is ridiculous, deplorable, and should be met with critique accordingly.
Hypostatization
Thankye for the comments.

I wasn't going for Platonism in particular, though Plato is the first articulation of such thinking I know of.
There are a few angles, like Plato's forms versus instantiations (or ideals versus convergent instantiations), universals versus particulars, abstracts versus concretes, etc.

(Please don't get hung up on the words.)

The image wasn't intended to be our abstract cow, more like observing that cows in general doesn't seem to be just those creatures going about their business out on the grassy fields. :)

But, I'd say there is indeed such as thing as a reification fallacy.
An "external", wholly independent, abstract cow comes through as an example thereof, sort of.

How exactly is this abstract cow supposedly related to the cows in the world?
Why should anyone take this hypothesis serious, and ontologize such an abstract cow, anyway...? — jorndoe

Or is it that, what we (or some at least) consider an abstract cow, originates with our rough "maps" (recognition) of worldly "territories" (mentioned creatures), and so has attained a life of it's own...?

[...] Then there's the issue of how things in the world can change but still instantiate a the transcendental Platonic Form. — darthbarracuda

(Y) Those oddities with Platonism were among the objections that came to mind.

One of the areas where such thinking seems to resurface regularly is in logic and mathematics.

• Abstract Objects (Gideon Rosen, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
In defence of weak naturalism
Maybe it's easier to differentiate with examples.

Gravity, rubble in the driveway, and many other things we encounter daily, we label physical.
I'm guessing things like telepathy, psychokinesis, and sorcery would be outside of physicalism.

Sorcery, magic, enchantment, witchcraft; the use of supposed supernatural powers by the agency of evil spirits called forth by spells, incantations, &c., on the part of the magician, sorcerer or witch. The word meant originally divination by means of the casting or drawing of lots, and is derived from the O. Fr. sorcerie, sorcier, a sorcerer, Med. Lat. sortiarius, one who practises divination by lots, sortes (see Magic, Divination and Witchcraft). — 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sorcery

For some reason the mere existence of "physicalities" (as exemplified) is usually not in doubt, but what exactly they are usually is.
When it comes to examples of "non-physicalities", it seems more like we define them first, and then try to figure out if they actually exist (as defined).
Are there things that our current mind cannot comprehend, understand or even imagine no matter what?
I don't think it's possible for any individual to fully self-comprehend, and wherever the blinds spots are, we patch with fluff.
Is Atheism Merely Disbelief?
Why not generalize the different kinds of stances/attitudes, or absence thereof, towards any proposition?
In this case the proposition would then come from theism.
- proposition is unknown
- no particular stance either way (e.g. 50/50, irrelevant, of no further interest)
- belief that proposition holds (e.g. sufficient confidence)
- disbelief in proposition (e.g. insufficient justification)
How are beliefs formed anyway?
"Whatever begins to exist has a cause"?
If something can possess existence, then does that mean there can be something that possesses non-existence?
What was the something then? Something that be, would have to exist (implicitly), which is contrary to non-existence.
Predicate ontologization is bad language, existence is not a properly proper property, whereas, conversely, predicates/properties do exist, for what they are.

Formally, the proper expression is
- ∃x∈S [ φx ] (Y)
where φ is a predicate, x is a variable, and S is a set.
If the ∃ and φ symbols were interchangeable, then you might end up with strange expressions like
- ¬∃x∈S [ ∃x ], ∃x∈S [ ¬∃x ], ∃x∈S [ ∃x ], ¬∃x∈S [ ¬∃x ] (N)
I guess I side with Kant on that one, in part at least.
"Whatever begins to exist has a cause"?
One thing is eternally true, that nothing is eternally true. — Samuel Lacrampe

Nifty reasoning, @Samuel Lacrampe.
Well, of course Platonism implies Platonism.
It looks like the term "eternal" is hitching a ride with propositional consistency here, though.
The most ontological import you can derive, is that anything that exists is self-identical, or so it seems to me anyway.
Does (abstract propositional) consistency itself exist apart from all else, is it a constraint on our thinking, or something else...?
"Whatever begins to exist has a cause"?
@Samuel Lacrampe, doesn't that make the kalam/cosmological argument into an argument for Platonism instead, sort of...?

It's commonly said that Platonics are inert:
- an object is abstract (if and) only if it is causally inefficacious
Suppose x is (defined as) atemporal, "outside of time". Then there can be no time at which x exists. And x cannot change, or be subject to change, but would be inert. Interaction with x could not occur.

If we suppose otherwise for a moment, then there's the question of sufficient reason (of which Craig's 1^st premise seems a special case). Is there a sufficient reason then, that the universe is exactly 14 billion years old, and not some other age, any other age...?

It's all rather odd.

There's also a bit of oddness when speaking of time in tensed language, or at least that's how it seems to me. I guess we might suppose that we can speak of time (itself), where we implicitly mean (all of) time untensed. This suggests a block-universe, something like that. Regardless, you'd derive that "time had a cause of its existence", thus having "causation" be atemporal (in part at least).

Can we exemplify atemporal causation, in a way that matters?

- laws of logic: if p is true, then not p is false,
- laws of mathematics: 2+2=4 — Samuel Lacrampe
I'd narrow them down in this context:
- identity, x=x, p⇔p
- additive identity, 1+0=1
Anyway, for this sort of thing to have much ontological import, I'd say more (or something else) is needed.
"Whatever begins to exist has a cause"?
For one, I think the "Whatever" part needs to be delineated.
Otherwise we might just replace it with, well, whatever.
What about causation then, all causes and effects, or just some past causal chains?
The kalam/cosmological argument alleges to prove one unique 1^st cause, which hence was supposedly how it all began, including causation (in fact, all causal chains, and time too).
Therefore causation has a cause of its existence?

Anyway, going by contemporary cosmology, spacetime is an aspect of the universe.
And causation is temporal, causation is another aspect of the universe, not somehow "not of the universe" (which, again, would require it's own justification).
Did "time begin to exist" as well?
I don't think it makes much sense that "time has a cause of its existence", unless "causation" is somehow extended to mean something more, something invented for the occasion.
Phrases like "a cause of causation" and "before time" seems incoherent.

In short, before applying these premises, the applicability have to be delineated.
Mary's Room & Color Irrealism
Well, how do we get to know about anything that isn't already part of ourselves, one way or other?
Perception is interaction.
Dreams are not (at least not with anything extra-self).
Qualia (as particular formats of experiences) are the personal part of interaction, the part on our own end.
Is 'I think therefore I am' a tautology?
When tautology is another expression of identity, it doesn't seem like a tautology as such.
As per Gassendi, really all that's determined (deductively), is that there's cognitive activity.
That is, while thinking you can conclude thoughts exist (with certainty).
I'm still fairly confident that I exist, though. :D
Mary's Room & Color Irrealism
Couldn't a similar argument (to Mary's Room) be made for roughly any new phenomenological experience (qualia)?
Self-reference warning: mind comprehending mind. ⚠
I don't have Mary's color experiences, just my own, when they occur, and we agree what to call them by pointing them out.
Doesn't seem anti-physicalist as such, more like a variety of Levine's explanatory gap.
Does a 'God' exist?
My 2 cents on this fine Sunday.

1) Empiricism. Is it true that if we have not apprehended X with our senses, then X does not exist? Look for counterexamples.
2) Experience. If we can experience an unappehended (with our senses) X, what is the ontological status of X?
3) Evidence. What is evidence? Is an experience (even if unapprehended by our senses, or communicable to others) evidence? — Mariner

1) I assume there are plenty things I've never perceived, many more than what I have perceived for sure. Novelties. I sure am not omniscient, since otherwise I'd know that I were.

2) Phenomenological. If I day/dream hallucinate fantasize feel love remember imagine, then whatever those are, they're part of me (when conscious). Referring back to (1), qualia is my personal end of perceiving something extra-self. Paraphrasing Searle, if anything significant differentiates perception⁽¹⁾ and hallucination⁽²⁾, then it must be the perceived.

3) Evidence could be anything. It's not pre-defined, it's shown.
How did living organisms come to be?
In general, knowledge is only partially dependent on would-be knowers. While going by the traditional definition, the "justified" "belief" part is our part.

For propositions these differ: absence, indifference, belief, knowledge, certainty, ...

Supposing that to know p, you must also know that you know p, is the first step in a diverging regress. Which, incidentally, might be an argument against certainty (in most cases).

Suppose I was to claim "there was snow on the peak of Mount Everest last Wednesday local time". What, then, would it take for my statement to hold? Well, that would be existence/presence of snow up there back then, regardless of what anyone may or may not believe. And that's the "true" part of knowledge, an ontological condition.

So, we can do our part, justify our claims, and do away with errors.
Certainty
Right @TimeLine, to you the bare existence of those experiences is certain, albeit perhaps not quite what they are (quiddity).
I guess that's not far off the Cartesian cogito ergo sum.

Descartes is in dangerous waters at this point, for if indeed the only claim that is indubitable here is the agent-independent claim that there is cognitive activity present, then he can be fairly associated with Averroist panpsychism, and its considerable taint. At a minimum, the argument requires a significant leap of reasoning, and for Gassendi, this is further evidence that Descartes places altogether too much faith in his criterion and the work he thinks it can do.

_{Source: Pierre Gassendi, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy} — Saul Fisher

In short, if we're to stick with error-free deductive certainty, then Descartes took one step too many by injecting "I" (self).
The deduction derives mere existence of some experiences and awareness, which gets us roughly to some radical solipsism (as if not all solipsism is radical :)), and no further.
The Free Will Defense is Immoral
Well, the scriptural gods have meddled plenty in human affairs.
On that account it's not like they don't interfere.
Actually, some of the interference has been quite severe.
Post truth
In Defence of Post-Truth
Steve Fuller
Mar 2017

Name-drops: Aquinas, Bacon, King James I, Newton, Kant, Nietzsche, Hans Vaihinger, Popper, Frank Ramsey, Sellars, Hawking
Can't help but wonder if all Fuller's historical snippets are "post-truth", "pre-truth", not really anything in particular, or something else.
I'll just quickly classify as "roughly nonsense", "maybe entertainment", or just some words (partially strung together incoherently), like a theme, a genre, of language reduction, a kind of literature that's never about anything other than literature, sort of self-trapped. :)
Black Hole/White Hole
↪Metaphysician Undercover
, no, a black hole tends towards a spheroid when using the Schwarzschild radius.
If it's not a "perfect sphere", then it's just some other shape, that can be modeled sufficiently accurately with the Schwarzschild radius for these purposes.
Can "life" have a "meaning"?
Life is not a means to some other end.

Your future is whatever you make it. So make it a good one, both of you. — Doc Brown, Back to the Future 3
Black Hole/White Hole
That they're consistent with GR doesn't make them a prediction of GR. We invented them so that they'd be consistent with GR, otherwise we'd need to retool our gravitational theory. — Terrapin Station

Not so.
Relativity was/is falsifiable, but has since been verified on several occasions.
It is used in GPS today.
Black holes are predictions of relativity, and has not been falsified per se.
That said, relativity's domain of applicability doesn't quite include the micro-domain of quantum mechanics, so there's not really any telling what may happen in a super-dense super-high-temperature black hole, where relativity suggests a singularity.

Tests of special relativity (Wikipedia article)
Tests of general relativity (Wikipedia article)
Post truth
I was enjoying this conversation until I got to Colbert being quoted as authority, at which point I couldnt take it seriously any more. — ernestm

That seems to be how people feel about Trump these days.

I think Trump genuinely believes the things he says, some of which may not in fact be true — Thorongil
He speaks untruth he genuinely believes in. — Thorongil

Maybe, maybe not.
(Maybe Trump is just biased towards confirming whatever suits him, maybe he has high-up staff feeding him information confirming whatever suits them, ...)
What would that say about what he bases decisions on? We're not talking just deciding what to have for supper.
Either way, wouldn't you normally expect leaders in high places to be reliable, well-informed and honest?
That would be my normal expectation anyway, but doesn't seem to be the case for Trump.
Everyone makes mistakes, yet public leaders are supposed to learn from them, to lead by example, perhaps like a role model or something.

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