You'd probably have to specify that that's what you mean by "everything."

By "everything" I mean whole Universe or Multiverse - just everything.

'everything' is a word.

You appear to be asking a metaphysical question: do non-material things exist? A materialist will deny this. Certain types of idealist will say that all things are non-material.

I don't know if I could persuade our good friend @Mariner to give his explanation for why materialists and non-materialists aren't as different as they appear to be. But who knows?

My own definition of everything is: all things everywhere at all times, whether known, unknown, or unknowable.

Does "everything" include potential entities that could and could not happen, exist in our world or not exist, and are abstract, fictitious, or imaginary? — wax1232

Only as something imagined in my opinion.

Do we include "everything" in addition to material things, non-material things, spiritual things, etc.?

It would include non-material things, spiritual things, etc. if those things existed. But they don't.

It would be usual to distinguish between every thing potential and every thing actual. One would be a subset of the other.

Then the potential itself could have various levels of definition. If you are talking about the existence of possibilities, that could be in this exact world, or a world similar, or in any notion of world at all. So it might be just all the worlds with our same laws of nature, but then different in all the possible accidental ways. Or it could be worlds with different laws - different necessities - too.

So the task of defining what "everything" might mean can be systematically decomposed via a number of standard Metaphysical dichotomies like actual~potential, particular~general and chance~necessity.

If you keep unravelling the notion of everythingness, you get eventually to the notion of vagueness or the indeterminate - the everythingness that is also a nothingness.

So we can define what we mean, but the question has quite a few levels to dissolve. And so our use of the word is quite context dependent. We are usually thinking of some already bounded form of "every thing", which is why you do have people like Tegmark trying to classify levels of multiverses for instance.

It would be usual to distinguish between every thing potential and every thing actual. — apokrisis

So what would it mean for something to be 'actual'? I could think of no objective way to frame that answer. Best I could do is "the thing is a member of set such and such". The set of all existing (actual) things is a circular definition, and thus useless. The set of all sets is similarly without distinction of any kind.

So for instance, Earth is a member of the set of physical objects in the universe of which we are aware. I don't want to take the idealistic stance and say that Earth's existence is dependent on our awareness of it, but without the reference point of our awareness, in what way can it be said that Earth is 'actual'?

There is doubt, therefore the doubt is actual. Really? How would the same doubt be any different if it was merely potential?

It would be usual to distinguish between every thing potential and every thing actual. One would be a subset of the other. — apokrisis

Why do you think one would be a subset of the other, instead of being completely different, mutually exclusive, categories? I would think that if a potential is actualized, then that potential, as a potential, no longer exists, instead, it is something actual. And if a thing potentially exists, this would deny the possibility that it actually exists.

Yes.

Does "everything" include potential entities that could and could not happen, exist in our world or not exist, and are abstract, fictitious, or imaginary?
Do we include "everything" in addition to material things, non-material things, spiritual things, etc.? — wax1232

Alexius Meinong thought that abstract, fictitious, imaginary things really exist, and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein thought that facts in logical space are the world and that they determine both what is and what is not the case.

If we are talking about actual things in a world then the essential difference is that the possible forms are materialised. We are speaking of substantial being.

Do you not agree that the actual is some numerical subset of all the possible forms of organisation plus all their possible material accidents?

If we are talking about architecture for instance, surely there would always be more design possibilities and potential flaws and defects of execution than actually ever physically expressed.

The mutual definition of the categories themselves is a different issue - which I also highlighted.

Yes — Srap Tasmaner

(Y)

On a Thursday, some men come to the house and empty my bin. They generally take everything in the bin, and leave nothing. They don't, fortunately, have to take everything that has ever been in the bin, or will ever be in the bin, as it would be a bit too heavy.

I think the above makes sense, and is a standard use of the term 'everything'. And yet the two uses within it refer to very different things. One can talk about an absolute, contextless 'everything' as the op does, and ask about it's meaning, but the answers one receives will be more confusing than illuminating, because words without context lose their meaning.

Do you not agree that the actual is some numerical subset of all the possible forms of organisation plus all their possible material accidents? — apokrisis

No, I think they are distinct, as per dualism. "All the possible forms of organisation" is a mental construct, conceptual only, whereas "the actual" refers to physically existing forms of organization. You don't seem to recognize this distinction and that's why I often accuse you of category error.

The mutual definition of the categories themselves is a different issue - which I also highlighted. — apokrisis

I don't think that defining the categories is a different issue, because if you have already positioned the set of actual, as a subset of the possible, then you leave yourself without the means for defining physical existence as actual.

Since we normally refer to things with physical existence as actual things, you create the possibility for ambiguity and equivocation. I believe you'd be better off to divide your category of "all possible forms of organisation", into true and false, or fact and fiction, something like that. This would clarify the epistemic status of that category, not creating the illusion that actually existing physical things exist within that category.

I don't know if I could persuade our good friend Mariner to give his explanation for why materialists and non-materialists aren't as different as they appear to be. But who knows?
14 hours ago ReplyShareFlag — Mongrel

I would rather say that both materialism and idealism cannot be entirely consistent; any materialism involves, usually inadvertently, some grains of idealism, and vice versa. This can be demonstrated, since both positions involve (non-material) concepts and (material) defenders.

If we are going to be fixated on isms, put me in the column of good 'ole Realism. Things are as they appear to be.

For a realist like me, these discussions are often assuaged by a careful semantic (and etymology is a big help here) inquiry. What is a thing? Are things the only objects (watch out for this word) which exist (another tricky word)? Is "every-thing" composed solely of things? If it is not, what is the word that we should use to denote "all existents", whether they are things or [something!] else?

Our languages were developed from everyday concerns and perceptions. They were not designed for metaphysical inquiry, and we should keep that in mind when we use them for that purpose. It does not mean that it is impossible to use them for that purpose, but it does mean that we should keep an eye for instances in which our non-reflexive use of some words can deceive us.

Our languages were developed from everyday concerns and perceptions. They were not designed for metaphysical inquiry, and we should keep that in mind when we use them for that purpose. — Mariner

Where our language fails us is where the metaphysical inquiry starts. In other words, the metaphysician will seek the areas of language use where the problems of language, such as you mentioned lie. These problems themselves indicate underlying, unresolved metaphysical issues, as the cause of such problems. Large semantic discrepancies indicate divergent metaphysical principles causing wonder and inspiration, in the philosopher.

You seem very confused. The actual arises as a limitation or constraint on the potential.

↪noAxioms If we are talking about actual things in a world then the essential difference is that the possible forms are materialised. We are speaking of substantial being. — apokrisis

You miss my point. I am not talking about things that are actual in a world (or more plainly, are members of the set of things in that world/universe/container), I am talking about things that are actual period. What does it mean, ontologically, that that container itself is actualized, and not just potential. Let's assume it is not a container/universe to which we have access, to prevent idealism from defining its actuality. So not asking how we could know it is actualized, just what the actualization would mean to the set in question of which the actual-things are members.

How could any entity that was actually actual - ie: a materially individuated form - not be individuated within a world. Where would this material thing be? How could it be considered individuated except by virtue of a context of all that which it is not?

How could any entity that was actually actual - ie: a materially individuated form - not be individuated within a world. Where would this material thing be? How could it be considered individuated except by virtue of a context of all that which it is not? — apokrisis

I'm talking about what makes the world actual, not some member of it. And I'm certainly not talking about 'material things', which is just how things manifest themselves to us in this particular world.

What distinguishes and actual world from a potential one? Even a potential world is individuated by virtue of what it is not, so individuation seems not to be the distinction.

Much appreciated!

Does "everything" include potential entities that could and could not happen, exist in our world or not exist, and are abstract, fictitious, or imaginary?
Do we include "everything" in addition to material things, non-material things, spiritual things, etc.?

What is possible includes what is real and unreal, it excludes what is inconceivable. We determine what is possible by reflecting on what we experience, what we have learnt from others and by our own conclusions.

Thoughts exist, we can express them to others using a common language. We communicate what we experience, learn or what we have concluded with others, and I think objectivity starts here. with what is commonly agreed upon.

Scientists tell us what they commonly agree on, what exists outside of our thoughts and I generally believe what they say if it is widely accepted or if I like some aspect of what they are saying. This is not the same situation when it comes to thought. Thought is only constrained by imagination, conceivability, and language. People have many opinions when it comes to what comprises morality, art, justic et al. These thoughts have a history, they are part of our common experience and they are objectively real in that sense.

Thoughts about morality & justice and the rest form convenient ways to condense and to explain our common experiences with others, as they form part of our knowledge. Their reality is in thought but they are causative of our behavior. I like what Plato said:

I suggest that anything has real being that is so constituted as to possess any sort of power either to affect anything else or to be affected, in however small a degree, by the most insignificant agent, though it be only once. I am proposing as a mark to distinguish real things that they are nothing but power

I don't think that anything is 'non-existent' in the sense of non-being, this is a misnomer, I think that what is said to be 'non-existent' in this sense is different from what is stated. Plato again:

When we speak of that which is not, it seems that we do not mean something contrary to what exists but only something different.

This now seems an entirely different question. Are you asking how anything in fact comes to exist? What causes being? Why something and not nothing?

In my Peircean approach to that, individuation is symmetry breaking. The story, being developmental, is triadic. You need the three categories of a vague potential, an emergent regularity of habit or law, and then the third thing of a resulting world of actualised particulars or real possibilities.

So possibility divides into the unformed or vague and the formed or lawfully shaped. The vague state is a true everythingness that is a nothingness in its pure symmetry or indeterminacy. But as that vagueness is broken by organising principles, then you have crisp alternatives where events have either happened or they have not. Counterfactuality exists.

Thus talking about an actual world - as a container - is talking about a state of habitual emergent order in which local events or entities now can be said to concretely exist in a counterfactual sense. It is now the case they might not have existed - as either the global laws of nature, or simple material accidents, might have determined they do not.

So in our world at least, the possibility of rivers flowing uphill is not an actuality due to natural laws. And then the possibility of this river forking there rather than here is a possibility denied merely by some material accident of history. It is impossible not in the formal sense, but in the sense of a material fact.

Thus actuality itself is an irreducibly complex state - hylomorphic. And possibility is a word we use that in fact reflects the various elements it takes to be actualised. In Peircean jargon, you need the hierarchical organisation, the triad, of firstness, secondness and thirdness. You need pure vague potential, then the emergent habits that organise it into a definite state of being which then becomes a world of actual localised events.

In the beginning, anything is possible and nothing is actual. After the symmetry is broken, only some things are possible (due to laws and history). The rest are now possible in only the apophatic or suppressed sense of the counterfactual might have been. There is now a definite fact of the matter that they don't exist (either due to law or history).

Does "everything" include potential entities that could and could not happen, exist in our world or not exist, and are abstract, fictitious, or imaginary?
Do we include "everything" in addition to material things, non-material things, spiritual things, etc.? — wax1232

WHAT is being asked here is not a profound metaphysical question needing deep philosophical insight. All that is being asked is how one ought use the word "everything".

So how ought a metaphysician use the word?

this ought to be fun

Do you think that there is only one way to use the word; one correct meaning?

Maybe. More likely it will go nowhere.