Hello. What does it mean for something to exist? Does existence have an essence?

Existence suggests something acting or being acted upon.
If existence has an essence it is differentiation.

Holographic patterns. As if this forum were for failed physicists.

The wave is the pattern.

Is ad hominem permitted on this site?

The wave is the pattern. — Rich

How can a wave BE a holographic pattern?

An ad hom would be if I claimed an argument here is wrong because the author's mother wore army boots. But what I claimed, indirectly, is that philosophers are poor physicists, and ought avoid physical unless they can present the mathematics.

Holographic patterns. As if this forum were for failed physicists. — Banno

Exactly, it's for failed philosophers!

I see. It appears ad hominem is permitted. No problem. I've seen much worse.

If there is some memory of it, it exists. — Rich

This deserves an ad hom.

If you are an adherent of the holographic model of the universe, you can say that it exists, if there is a holographic pattern of it.

And if you adhere to the Goat Theory of the Universe, you can say it exists, if it is a goat.

And if you adhere to the Goat Theory of the Universe, you can say it exists, if it is a goat. — Banno

But only if it's a holographic goat!

All holograms are Goats.

↪Bitter Crank Can we say then that the insubstantial is unreal? Or is it just immaterial? — mew

A good answer is that to exist is to be the subject of a predicate - that is, roughly, to exist is to be spoken of.

So Santa Exists. — Banno

Pay attention to Banno.

Abstract things are immaterial. "Beauty" as an ideal is immaterial. So is "ideal" immaterial. "Immaterial" is immaterial. Immaterial, and "insubstantial", the way you are using it, are no bars to being real, though.

If I say, "The Kingdom of Zirkon" located in another galaxy far away, is a great place to live." then the Kingdom of Zirkon exists. I just called it into existence, as Banno said, by speaking of it.

You might object saying, "Maybe Zirkon is a great place, but unfortunately it isn't 'real'." and you would be correct. It exists, but it isn't real. Just as Santa exists and is not real (so I have been told, anyway), or Oz and its wonderful wizard exist but are not real.

So, an atheist can say "God exists."

A lot of philosophy sounds like some sort of annoying word game.

Existence suggests something acting or being acted upon.
If existence has an essence it is differentiation. — Cavacava

Is this different than what darthbarracuda said? Namely that to exist is to be causally relevant? What do you mean by the second sentence? Does it mean that since acting or being acted upon requires change and change implies differentiation then existence is about creating difference?

Do you agree with darthbarracuda that to exist is also to be causally relevant? If you do, and since you believe that fictions exist (in some way), which way you think they're causally relevant?

All holograms are Goats. — Banno

Goats on heat :D

Existence suggests something acting or being acted upon.
If existence has an essence it is differentiation.
— Cavacava

Is this different than what darthbarracuda said? Namely that to exist is to be causally relevant? What do you mean by the second sentence? Does it mean that since acting or being acted upon requires change and change implies differentiation then existence is about creating difference?

Causality is found in nature. Do you think Justice, Morality affect us? If so, their affects are not causal, but discursive, and they are as much a part of reality as a hammer or a goat.

I think differentiation (repetition of what is discriminated suggests sameness) is basic to being. Rest & motion are both necessary, otherwise our knowledge of anything is problematic.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon is a very progressive goat

Hello. What does it mean for something to exist? Does existence have an essence? — mew

As you can see from the confusion of replies, you are asking for a simple definition of something that has irreducible complexity.

The essential idea is that to exist is to have actuality. And as Aristotle argued, that kind of individuated substantiality is a combo of material and formal cause. There has to be some kind of materiality that explains the reactivity. And it has to be constrained in some fashion that gives it its particularity.

So even thought about in simplest terms, two things have to come together in a way that results emergently in a third. Reactive potential has to be given a particular shape. Then we have some thing that is individuated - that is in physics-speak a degree of freedom. Or in semiotics-speak, a difference that makes a difference.

So one can point to ideas or the things we might agree to talk about. They are certainly part of the story of the road that leads to substantial existence. Even a fairy story might be true - if made material.

Likewise one can start over at the other side of matter. Something definite exists when quantum indeterminism is organised into an observable state - like a field's potential for a particle. But unformed potential does not actually exist in itself. It needs to be formed to have the kind of actuality that allows definite causal interactions.

So existence should be considered as the highest state of hylomorphic development. It is the concrete limit of a process of emergence. And we do then also want to grant reality to the two factors that are in interaction - the formal and material causes of being. They seem to "exist" in that they both really have an effect. But metaphysics has to respect that they don't themselves exist in a substantial fashion, otherwise it all collapses into a confusion of jargon.

What does it mean for something to exist? — mew

I would say that to exist is to have temporal extension. Anything which in some way stays the same, for a duration of time, exists