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Liebniz described his monism in terms of immaterial entities of being. Carlo Rovelli explored the physics of this in The Order of Time: that our physical reality consists not of objects in time, but of interrelated events, four-dimensional entities/patterns. Material existence, then, is relative to the position of the observer as an interacting event.

Rovelli explains that our language system is ill-equipped to distinguish between ‘now’ for me and ‘now’ for an observer on Jupiter, for instance. Fortunately, we rarely have to make such a distinction at this stage. But we do run into a similar problem when we talk about the difference between real and fictional characters.

Here within language, I exist in the same way that a fictional character exists: potentially, a pattern of interrelatable values. But existence irl implies interaction with an observer/measurement device - ie. with an event, not with a mind. It’s not so much a material instantiation of the pattern as an observation of it that verifies existence irl.

That I assume you are a real person is a choice I make based on observing patterns of language similar to real people whose material instantiation I have observed. In reality I have no definitive proof either way, no material instantiation of your existence irl nor reason to doubt it. I simply prefer to assume a real person than to entertain alternative scenarios at this point.

Since yours is a monist view, I assume all people in your view are also patterns at the end of the day correct? Wouldn't that result in fictional people "existing" in the same way you and I exist? — khaled

My worldview is Monist in the sense that it assumes, as an axiom, a single ultimate Origin of all particular patterns (entities). That hypothetical-but-logically-necessary Source is what I call "The Enformer" or "First Cause". But our physical senses are tuned to detect & interpret physical patterns, not the meta-physical "Pattern Maker". However, we can infer the Necessary Being*1 as a transcendent creative force via Reasoning from mundane experience with phenomena and causation.

I'm not sure what you mean by "fictional people". In the movie The Matrix, Neo is a fictional character, who is portrayed as a personal pattern in two fictional worlds : A> simulated normal reality (computer-generated data patterns) and B> gritty actual reality (nature-generated data patterns). Presumably, human viewers of the movie can tell the difference between imaginary movie characters and observed reality people. Yet, the movie presents a philosophical dilemma in which the simulations are so close to real phenomena that they seem to "exist" in the same way you and I do. However, in the physical world, we can't be so easily fooled by single-sense appearances, because we have multi-sense sensors. Unfortunately, the movie presumes that the AI simulation -- converted by the pods into dream language -- is so sophisticated that a fictional steak can taste "juicy and delicious"*2.

Nevertheless, even if we flesh & blood humans can't distinguish between a high-resolution simulation and actual reality, the Programmer of Nature should know which is which. So, from that higher perspective, any fictional people will "exist" in a different sense : artificial creations existing only in the imagination of natural creatures. For example, Neo first existed as an imaginary (abstract pattern) character in the mind of the factual (concrete pattern) story creators, then was repeatedly re-created in the minds of movie-goers. Ironically, the fact that we can imagine such paradoxical situations may be what made Philosophical Skepticism necessary. :smile:


*1. Logically, The Transcendent Being persisting beyond space-time would not "exist" in the same way as you and I do, within the constraints of Space & Time. Ironically, that implication would also apply to any "fictional people". Hence, the difficulty of distinguishing between "Inferred" and "Imagined" characters.

The notion of necessary being, applied to God and withheld from man, indicates that God and man differ not merely in the characteristics which they possess but more fundamentally, in their modes of being, or in the fact that they exist in different senses of the word 'exist'. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/scottish-journal-of-theology/article/abs/necessary-being/828B48FABE8B24A8567A8D2BF450D80B

*2. Cypher in the fictional Matrix :"You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? . . . . Ignorance is bliss."
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/characters/nm0001592