I think Banno and @noAxioms both proposed compatibilist responses to your worry, — Pierre-Normand

A compatibilist says that free will and determinism are compatible with each other, but I would need both words more precisely defined were I to agree with that.

noAxioms suggests that we are counting objects. — MoK

I was showing the counting of options, not objects.

I agree that one can write code to help a robot count the number of unmoving dots in its visual field. — MoK

You are complicating a simple matter. I made no mention of the fairly complex task of interpreting a visual field. The average maze runner doesn't even have a visual field at all, but some do.
All I am doing is showing the utterly trivial task of counting options, which is a task easily performed by a determinsitic entity, answering your seeming inability to realize this when you state "So I am wondering how can deterministic processes lead to the realization of options".

The solution is to count the options (in the maze example, paths away from current location) and if there is more than one, options have been realized. If there is but one, it isn't optional. The means by which these options are counted is a needless complication that is besides the point.

But I don't think a person can write code to help a robot count the number of objects or moving dots.

I wrote code that did exactly that. It would look at a bin of parts and decide on the next one to pick up, and would determine the angle at which to best do that. This was 45 years ago when this sort of thing was still considered innovative.

Copenhagen interpretation for example suffers from the Schrodinger's cat paradox.

Nonsense. Just because you don't know how it explains a scenario doesn't mean it doesn't explain it. Copenhagen was developed as an epistemological interpretation which means the observer outside the box doesn't know (wave function describing state) the cat state and the observer inside has a more collapsed wave function state. Super easy.
Sure, off topic, so I'll leave off the delayed-choice thingy.
But your assertion that Bohmian mechanics is the only valid interpretation (a deterministic one) is on topic, and thus the falsification of the other interpretations is very much on topic.

Again, I counted six kinds of determinism, and some of those are almost certainly the case and some of them are almost certainly not the case. Bohmian mechanics was number 2.

We are morally responsible if we could do otherwise. That means that we at least have two options to choose from. — MoK

Moral responsibility is far more complicated than that, as illustrated by counterexamples, but the core is correct. There being more than one course of action available, and it is very hard to come up with an example where that is not the case. I am in a maze, but find myself embedded in the concrete walls instead of the paths between. I have no options, and thus am not responsible for anything I do there.

The options are however mental objects, like to steal or not to steal

Stealing and not stealing are physical actions, not mental objects. Bearing moral responsibility for one's mental objects is a rare thing, but they did it to Jimmy Carter, about a moral person as they come.

The fallacy seems to be in the assertion that determinism somehow takes away choice, which of course is nonsense since we'd not have evolved large (and very expensive) brains if not to make better choices. I cannot think of a single way that a choice can be made better by a non-deterministic process than by a similar but deterministic process. I invite such an example, but a deterministic algorithm implemented on a non-deterministic information processor is still a deterministic process.

So I am wondering how can deterministic processes lead to the realization of options. — MoK

This is trivially illustrated with the most simple code.

Take a step.
Count the ways forward (don't include the way you came)
If 0, it's a dead end. Only option is to turn around.
If 1, continue that one way
else there are multiple options.

It's that easy. The realization of multiple options is as simple as counting, and there is even multiple options with case 1 since a good maze following program might conclude it to not be productive to follow the current path to its unseen end.

Almost all computer programs are fully deterministic and are great models to simplify what might otherwise be a complex subject.

What you need to worry about is not the realization of options, but how determinism always results in the same choice given the exact same initial state. So our program might be crude and uses the right-hand rule, in which case it doesn't even count options, it just takes the first rightmost valid path and doesn't even notice if there are other options. A better program would be more optimal than that, but then complexity is required, and it still does the same thing given the same initial state.

So realization of options is one thing, but no matter how many options there are, only one choice can be ultimately be made, even if determinism is not the case. You can follow a choice in the maze, and if it dead ends, you go back and take the other way, which is 'doing otherwise'. Even the right-hand robot can do otherwise in that sense.


As for the infant process of neural development, that's an insanely complex issue that likely requires a doctorate in the right field to discuss the current view of how all that works. It seems irrelevant to the topic of determinism and options.

First, I have to say that De Broglie–Bohm's interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct since it is paradox-free. — MoK

All the interpretations are paradox free. None of them has been falsified (else they'd not be valid interpretations), and some of them posit fundamental randomness, but several don't.

I don't like Bohmian mechanics because it requires FTL causality and even retro-causality, forbidden by the principle of locality, but that principle is denied by that interpretation. That makes it valid, but it doesn't make me willing to accept it.

My goal in this conversation is to examine the question, "Does saying, "a thing with defining attributes exists" add anything to that collection of attributes? My position, contrary to Meinong's position, answers, "yes" to the question. — ucarr

You got it backwards. Given EPP, a thing with defining attributes necessarily exists since existence is prior to those attributes. So the answer would be 'no' given EPP since nothing is added.
Meinong denies EPP, and therefore existence is not necessary for a thing to have attributes. So Meinong would say 'yes' (as do you), existence is optional and thus in addition to those attributes.

For what I know now, I think existing things have presence. Presence is a detectable part of the world that relates to its perceiver. — ucarr

So you deny mind-independent existence then? This topic was explicitly about the meaning of mind-independent existence (commonly known as 'realism'). If you don't deny it, then why the definition based on perception?

Moreover, existing things that have presence are in some way measurable.

If perception defines existence, then measurability seems to define presence, not the other way around.

I think I can answer your question, "What meaningful difference is made by having this property (existence) vs the same thing not having it?"
...
If material things, as I believe, emerge from the quintet, with its forces conserved, then it makes sense to me to argue that a material thing being said to exist parallels saying a book belongs to a collection of books populating a library.

This seems to suggest existence as being part of a domain (the universe perhaps) and not at all based on perception. This seems to utterly contradict your definition above. OK, so perhaps you are using E4 as a definition. X exists if X is a member of some domain, which is our material universe perhaps. That's a common enough definition, and it is a relational one, not a property. A thing doesn't just 'exist', it exists IN something, it is a member OF something.

The distinction between a thing existing and the exact same thing not existing is that the latter thing isn't in this universe, it's in a different one. It exists in that one, but not this one. All very symmetrical.

Here again, the unicorn exists by E4 (it's out there somewhere in this universe) and perhaps under E2 (because our imagination is arguably perception of it). The horse and the unicorn share the same ontology.

Are you walking back your claim distance does not exist?

I never claimed that. I said distance would not exist given a definition that only material things exist, and the fact that while distance might be a relation between material things, it is not itself material. Anyway, I would never use that definition, so I don't claim anything about the existence of distance.

Can you share an example of "distance" not anthropomorphic?

In a world like this one but without humans in it at all, a planet orbits one light-hour from its star. Of course I had to use human concepts (including one of our standard units) to say that, but the distance is between objects that have no anthropocentric existence.
2nd example: In a very different universe of conway's game of life, a Lightweight spaceship is of length (distance) 5 at all times. There is no people in that universe since it has but 2 spatial dimensions, but an observer is possible.

All I can say is, "Yes, the universe is material and therefore things existing within it are also material."

Can you elaborate details describing how the universe performs the action of containing material things immaterially?

No. The question seems to be a category error, treating the universe as an object that 'does things'.

How do immaterial things relate to material things?

Well, light was one of my examples, arguably not a material thing since it is massless. My material eyes react to light, so that's a relation.
Another example is the fine-structure constant (α) which relates to me since material of any sort cannot form with most other values of it. Universe with different values of it might just be fading radiation.

how do you know these reactions have immaterial causes and not material causes?

I don't claim immaterial causes, nor do I claim material causes. Distance causes a rock to take longer to fall, so immaterial cause can have effect on material.

Since you believe light is not material, how do you understand light bending around a gravitational field, and how do you understand laser light generating heat?

Light travels on a geodesic, so it doesn't curve. As for heat, light has energy. If energy is considered to be material, then I guess light is considered to be material.

Are you saying that regarding the tracing of a world line in spacetime, one is traveling instantaneously?

No. I said it wasn't travel at all. The thing is question is everywhere present on that worldline. It is one 4D object, not a 3D object that changes location.

I really don't know what 'framed between different states" means. — noAxioms

We know there can be a distance between Point A and Point B; we know there can be an interval between Point A and Point B.

If we're talking spacetime, points in spacetime are called events. If we're not talking spacetime, then there is no meaningful interval between the points.

In determinism, could you have willed otherwise? — Patterner

I can think of I think 4-6 different kinds of determinism, and under 2 of those, yes, you could have willed otherwise, but probably not due to any difference of internal state, which is, as I've said, evolved to not be a function of random processes.

What is will?

Cheap answer: It's what you want to do. I will to be outside this jail cell. Physics compels me to do otherwise, so my will isn't entirely free in that sense.

In the philosophical sense, I'm totally unclear why free will is better since it seems to be a freedom to do something other than what you want, which is a weird thing to value. Or perhaps choice not based on prior state, which is an insanely bad thing to value.

To me will is an ability of the mind. What do you mean by mental processes here? — MoK

Same meaning as yours, different words. Both of our words leave 'mind/mental' fairly undefined, leaving open a natural or supernatural interpretation of it.

In determinism, is it not the resolution of an uncountable number of factors which, although we cannot hope to track them all, resolve in the only possible way? — Patterner

Under 4 of the 6 definitions, yes, 'the only possible way', and we even have free will under one of those 4.

Just as, though we cannot calculate all the factors in an avalanche, due to their arrangement at the start, every rock lands in exactly the one and only place and position it does?

Under 4 of the 6, yes.

I have argued in the past and I still think can be considered true that if something cannot be predicted, even in theory, it is meaningless to say it is determined. — T Clark

Well, a system in principle can be predicted from outside the system, it's just from inside that it has been proven unpredictable, a rather trivial proof at that, by Alan Turing.

It feels intuitively to me that in some, many, most? cases unraveling cause is not possible even in theory.

A deterministic world is not necessarily reverse deterministic. Classically, our physics seems to be, but it is weird watching entropy go the wrong way. A world like Conway's game of Life is hard deterministic, and yet history cannot be deduced since multiple prior states can result in the same subsequent state.

could not be unraveled with the fastest supercomputer operating for the life of the universe

A computer, however unreasonably fast, cannot simulate itself, at least not at speed. I wrote a program to do exactly that and got it up to about 15% efficiency.

There is a point, isn't there, where "completely outside the scope of human possibility" turns into "not possible even in theory." Seems to me there is.

Actually simulating our physics (even the most trivial closed classical system with say 3 particles) cannot be done without infinite precision variables, which puts it in the 'not possible even in theory' category.

We are on the same page if you agree that options are real. — MoK

We are on the same page. Say the options are vanilla and chocolate. Both options are available and while your lack of sufficient funds might compel a choice of only one of them, determinism does not compel some choice against your will. It is your choice since it is a function of your mental processes.

What does "would otherwise have done" mean in a deterministic setting? — Patterner

In the context of my comment, it means that determinism does not remove the choice from being a function of your will. Had you willed otherwise, a different choice would have occurred.

If you read carefully, it says "That sounds like". It doesn't mean that "That is". — Corvus

It doesn't 'sound like' dishonesty either. There statement is perfectly reasonable.

You are also still in confusion between the sentence in the post to you with your own visual perception of the object on my desk.

I have no visual perception of the object on your desk, and never claimed to have it. Please stick to what I said and not what you unreasonably imply from what I said.

You have no perception of the object on my desk, hence you have no idea what the object is, was the point.

I did not disagree with your point. Your point was simply irrelevant to the existence of the object, which is what this topic is about.

But your saying that you know the object relation to my desk sounded something not quite right.

If I parse that correctly, I think you're saying that what I posted didn't sound quite right to you. That's acceptable. You are trapped in a mode where you seemingly cannot assess the validity of a statement that uses a different definition of 'exists' than E2. But if that's the case, why are you contributing to a topic that explicitly states up front that it is not about mind-dependent views?

If a thing is material it exists. Do you deny that material things exist? — ucarr

Depends on the definition of 'exists'. That's always going to be my answer if I don't know the definition. Your first statement says if it is material, it exists. OK, but that doesn't mean that if it exists, it must be material. So it does not imply an assertion of existence only of material things, leaving me with no clear definition from you of what you think 'exists' means.

Do you deny distance is meaningful to you in real situations?

No. I don't deny the meaningfulness of the word, even if there's no context here to narrow it down to a specific definition of the word.

Do you deny that things that make a difference to your money, your time, and your attention exist?

Depends on the definition of 'exists', but you seem to be leaning heavily upon an anthropocentric definition, in which case, no, I don't deny their existence given such a relational definition.

All I can say is, "Yes, the universe is material and therefore things existing within it are also material."

1) While the universe may arguably contain material things, the universe is not itself material. Material things have for instance location, duration, mass, etc. none of which are properties of the universe.
2) Not everything is material, even if everything arguably relates to material in some way. For instance, light is not material nor is magnetism or the cosmological constant. All these things are parts of the universe.

Regarding my reading of E1 - quoted above - "member of all" tells me existence as "member of all" participates as a presence in "all that is part of objective reality."

Yea, that's a pretty good reading of E1.

Unless you entertain some arcane notion, such as, "Objective reality is inaccessible to consciousness." then I see the definition as simple and clear.

Objective reality being accessible to a specific consciousness depends probably on if said consciousness is part of that reality or not. There seems to be no test for being part of objective reality or the exact same thing not being part of that reality. That's not your problem, it's the problem of the E1 definition.

If you travel from Point A in spacetime to Point B in spacetime

One does not travel in spacetime. One travels in space, and one traces a worldline in spacetime. 'Travel' implies that the thing is no longer at point A once point B is reached, and this is not true of a worldline in spacetime.

Regarding frame dependence WRT distance and interval, can you show logically that distance and interval are not both framed between different states?

I really don't know what 'framed between different states" means. As for the two words not meaning the same thing, 'distance' is frame dependent, and 'interval' is not.
So to translate between frames, a Lorentz transform is used which says that x' = λ(x - vt) which shows x' (the distance in the 2nd frame) not to be equal to the x (distance in 1st frame).
The interval on the other hand is invariant over a Lorentz transform. You can verify the algebra if you look it up. All this is since you asked, but is off topic.

What meaningful difference is made by having this property vs the same thing not having it? — noAxioms
I'm examining your question presented in bold immediately above. I don't agree that Meinong, by arguing against EPP and thereby setting up, "...allowing properties to be assigned to nonexistent
things..." establishes existence as a property.

With what part are you in disagreement. I assure you that existence becoming a property follows from denial of EPP. Disagreeing with EPP on the other hand is an opinion, one which is logically valid. The question is, how justified is that opinion?

Existence is not a property because it is not emergent. This is one of the important implications of "Eternal universe uncaused."

OK, but I don't accept (let alone understand) your premises, so I don't accept that existence needs to be emergent. It does seem to be emergent under say E5 at least.

The idea of determinism, for me, isn’t a simple domino effect; it’s more like a web of interconnected factors—each one influencing the other. Our choices, in this context, aren’t isolated events but are deeply embedded in this complex system. And while we may not fully understand it, I think determinism accounts for all of this complexity and interconnectedness. — Matripsa

Determinism or no, yes, it is a complex web of interconnected factors, hardly a linear domino chain. You got this right.

Chesterton emphasizes the importance of mystery in life, and at first glance, it might seem like determinism would strip away that mystery.

Don't confuse determinism with predictiability. Lack of predictability is the source of mystery, and it has been nicely proven that the world is not predictable, even in principle.

It’s not randomness that creates mystery—it’s the overwhelming intricacy of a system that we can never fully predict or control.

One can control it to an extent. That's what good decision making is all about, and why deterministic processes are an aid to that, not a hindrance.

Does anyone else here feel that determinism, in its full intricacy, actually leaves room for more mystery rather than less?

Same, not more. Whether the sort of determinism you envision is the case or not seems not to have any effect on this.

If I present you with one ball, there is only one option available whereas in another case, when you are presented with two balls there are two options. — MoK

There are always multiple options. Your examples don't bear that out well since there's one obvious correct answer, but correct answer might not be the reply you want.

- - - -

Many spin determism as a bad thing, but never have I seen an example of determinism thwarting what you would otherwise have done. Quite the opposite: Randomness might thwart what you might otherwise have chosen. For this reason, evolution has suppressed amplification of random events and selected for deterministic functions in all biological processes, exactly as have engineers making artificial information processing devices.

That sounds like gross dishonesty to keep pretending to know, when not knowing anything about it. — Corvus

So you just told me something and now I'm being accused of being grossly dishonest when I indicate that I know what you just told me. Strange claim there. For the record, even if you define existence by perception, I have perceived your object precisely via your telling me about it. That perception told me the one predicate of the object that I care about.

But this topic is about definitions of existence other than E2, and only under E2 does existence require perception. In a world like this one in every way except absent perceiving things, that object (assuming it is not itself a perceiving entity) would still exist upon your desk in the same ways (E1,3,4,5,6) that it did with the presence of the perceiving entities. Only it's existence under E2 would not be satisfied.



All this seems very strange coming from somebody claiming to be a realist. I really don't think you know what the term means.

Mind-independent existence? Tell us some examples of mind-independent existence.

The object on your desk is such an example.

E1 The object exists if the desk exists.
E3 The object has the property of being on your desk, so it exists.
E4 The object is in the universe, so it exists.
E5 The object being at rest is a function of the desk exerting a force on it, so that makes the desk exist in relation to the object.
E6 (∃x) (x is on your desk) Your object satisfies that, so your object exists by E6.

Not one of those examples mentions or relies on perception by a mind. Only the reading and understanding of those words requires perception, but the existence of the object by any of the above definitions doesn't require those words to be perceived or understood.

In order to understand what existence prior to predicates, you must first understand what existence means. Would you not agree?

Totally agree, which is why I reference one of the six main definitions whenever I use the word, and then I wonder why you don't follow your own advice when you make assertions like this one:

The point is that without perception, you don't have existence.

Despite stressing the importance of what 'existence' means, you didn't define the word there, so non-sequitur. The object on your desk presumably doesn't have perception, and yet I suspect that you consider it to exist, in direct contradiction to the literal wording of that assertion.

The point is that you don't know anything about it apart from it is an object. — Corvus

I do know more. It exists in relation to your desk. That's the only predicate that matters for this topic.

Existence is the result of perception.

That is not a very mind-independent view. This topic is meant to discuss the meaning of mind-independent existence. Do you have anything to contribute to that besides assertions of definitions not compatible with the topic subject?

I am looking at an object on my desk right now. I can say I know what it is because it exists in front of me. But you can't. You don't see it, and you don't know what it is. — Corvus

Sure I do. It's an object. It's on your desk. You just perceive more details than do I.

Hence, the object I am seeing, doesn't exist in you.

It doesn't exist in you either, unless you ate your desk.

Where do you see problem in my argument here?

Since this topic isn't about epistemology, no, I don't see any problem. Said object exists under E2,3,4,5,6, and perhaps meaninglessly under E1. That's the whole list.

When I see the object, I can also tell the time of seeing it.

But you indicated that the telling of time was necessary, not just an option, for said object to exist. Maybe you meant something else by that wording, but rather than clarifying, you seem to be doubling down on the assertion.

We agree that there is the domain of the mind and the domain of a mind-independent world. — RussellA

And other domains besides those two. Not sure if you agree with the validity of other domains, but E6 examples have referenced some of them.

The problem remains that your disclaimer requires the mind to be able to understand something that we agree by defintion is independent of the mind ie, to understand existence in a mind-independent world.

No. ... to understand the existence OF a mind independent world, not that anything IN that world is doing the understanding. So no problem at all.

Any realist (of the physical universe) believes in a mind-independent world, that is, something not dependent on (supervenes on?) mind. Our own world is such a world, but hardly the only one.

This presumes that 'understanding' is only something that a 'mind' can do, else said world could be understood by some non-mind thing contained by that world.


Edit: I thought about it and ours is a mind-dependent world. It has minds in it (presuming a non-supernatural definition of 'mind'), and had it not those minds, it would be a different world. Ergo, ours is a mind dependent world in the same way that it is a Betelgeuse dependent world.

Your disclaimer makes the OP logically impossible to answer.

If we had no perceptions, we would have nothing to reason about. — RussellA

Nowhere am I claiming that we have no perceptions. This topic is simply not about them.

Our only knowledge about ontology and realism is founded on our perceptions, and our only understanding of the metaphysical depends on the epistemological/empirical.

Again, I never claimed otherwise.

It is logically impossible because any such understanding of a mind-independent world depends on the mind understanding something that is mind-independent.

It's actually quite easy if you follow my disclaimer since understanding of such a world does not require the understander to lack a mind. It just requires the world under consideration to lack the mind.

That you cannot distinguish the difference is pretty hard evidence that you're an idealist, despite whatever label you pin on yourself.

My notion of time is that it is a concept. Can concepts be said to exist? We have concepts, and use them. But they don't exist like trees and cups do. — Corvus

I didn't even list the ideal of time as one of my options since I don't consider concepts to be time. It doesn't take an hour of concept to bake my brownies. Your other topic seemed to want it to be an object, something you could see with a location and color or whatever. "But still I cannot see time. I only see the movement.". But movement is a concept as well then, no? How can you see a concept? If not, why is time a concept but movement is not?
You don't seem to have sorted yourself out.

The list of 6 definitions of Existence you listed are made up of ambiguous words, that need to be clarified.

Yes, they do. Thus there are more than 6 definitions, depending on those clarifications. But most notions of existence fall into those 6 categories, and few would choose say E5, but that one was unique and is sort of derived from Rovelli.

Where are the 3 definitions of time you listed? I cannot locate them in the thread, and I have not been reading all the posts in the thread but just have been replying to your posts to me. Could you list them again?

The reply was directly to you here. The relevant bit:
1) proper time, that which clocks measure
2) Coordinate time, that which dilates
3) Progression of the present, one's intuitive sense of the flow of events.

Of course, to an idealist, a clock is a concept, and concepts don't measure proper time. Concepts don't dilate, but per my disclaimer, I'm talking about time and not just about the concept of time.

It is not the tooth fairy at all.

I didn't say it was the tooth fairy. I said that in my opinion, it shared the same ontology with the tooth fairy, which also exists only under E2 and E3.

If time is a concept, then how we use the concept in our statements and propositions reflect time. If our temporal statements are to be meaningful, then time must be real in the statements.

Exactly so, but you're the one defining time to be a concept, not me.

E1 "Is a member of all that is part of objective reality" — noAxioms

sounds like tautology or circular.

I agree, especially with the circular part.

If E1 doesn't make sense, should it not be dropped, and move on to E2?

Too many people assert it to do that.

E2 "I know about it" — noAxioms
If you know something, is it Existence? I know a name called Pegasus. Is Pegasus existence, because you know, and I know it?

Under E2 definition, yes. There seems to be no distinction between a horse and a unicorn under E2 or E3.

Or if someone comes along and say he is a Pegasus, is he the real Pegasus? Or is he someone pretending to be a Pegasus, therefore a fake Pegasus?

This gets into identity. Pegasus isn't just 'a flying horse', it's a specific one, but other entities can be similar or share its name. Both might exist in the same way, but only one is the actual Pegasus typically referenced and the other is not.
Notice that I said 'a unicorn' above, which is not a particular the way 'Pegasus' is.

Can he be qualified as the existence of Pegasus?

Something pretending to be a certain identity does not (arguable) alter the ontology of the actual thing with that identity.

This is a classical example of a definition that comes from quantum mechanics. — noAxioms

Not a standard definition afraid. — Corvus

What do you think the 'standard' definitions of existence are under quantum mechanics then? I admit it comes from one of the interpretations and not from the theory proper since the theory proper doesn't make metaphysical assertions. E5 did not fit into any of the other categories, and it's important.

Existence is also nonexistence, and nonexistence is also existence. Something cannot exist without possibility of nonexistence.

Not so. While I didn't list it, E8 could be "is possible", which is similar to Meinong's 'subsist' category. E8 could then be worded as "anything that subsists", thus merging his two highest categories. Point is, anything that subsists by definition has no possibility of nonsusbistence.

Nonexistence cannot exist without possibility of existence.

Similar counterexamples falsify this assertion.

I will try to reword your assertions to something that might make sense:
Existence is meaningless without distinction from something that doesn't exist.
That renders totally empty an assertion like "everything exists" or "nothing exists". The latter is perhaps nihilism, which is perhaps more of an awareness of the meaningless of the notion of existence than it is an assertion that there is a reality, and that reality is empty.

No, it has nothing to do with time. 35 is not prime because (∃x) (x is non-trivial factor of 35). That's straight up existential quantification, and an example that makes no reference to time. — noAxioms

Existence of X means that X was perceived.

No. There is similarly no mention of perception either in my example of E6. You're using E2 again.

Perceiving X means perceiving of the time X was perceived. Hence all existence exists in time, and time is perception.

None of this is logically valid. I might think of something while being totally unaware of the time. Even if I was aware of the time, only under E4 or E5 would existing things be in time, and not even then since proper time itself exists under E4 and yet does not exist in time.
Your assertion doesn't even work under E2 (the only one based on perception) since you consider time to be a concept, and your mind does not exist within a concept.

When 35 is perceived or stated as a non prime, its instantiation of the idea emerges with time perceived. — Corvus

Fine, but per my disclaimer, my example was about 35 and not about the idea of 35. My example was of a mind independent kind of existence. Only E2 is mind dependent.

E1 to E6 can be interpreted from the position of Idealism, from the position of Direct Realism and from the position of Indirect Realism. Each interpretation will be different. Any interpretation of E1 to E6 that is based on a combination of Idealism, Direct Realism and Indirect Realism will become unnecessarily convoluted. — RussellA

Sounds like combining them would create contradictions, not just convolution.

If you don't identify with either Idealism, Direct Realism or Indirect Realism, which theory of perception are you using?

I looked up the SEP page on 'action theories of perception' and got all kinds of options, many of which are not mutually exclusive. I didn't read enough to figure out which one(s) seems to match how I think of it. Your items were not on any of the lists, and are more theories of mind and/or ontology, but apparently you find pages that do list them under 'perception'. All three are realist views, and I'm not a realist (E1), but I could be a realist under E5 in that I acknowledge that certain things relate to other things. E5 explicitly confines this to a causal relation. See my response to Corvus below for more detail.

This topic is about ontology and realism, and not about perception.

By the objective state of this universe in E4, do you mean the domain of the mind or the domain of the mind-independent?

Please read the disclaimer in the OP if you still have to ask that.

I understand that Meinong uses "exist" to refer to the domain of the mind-independent.

Which is consistent with my disclaimer, and which eliminates E2 and narrows things down to 5 possibilities instead of 6.

I am not sure if E1,4,5,6 make sense or are meaningful for existence of time, when they are made up of abstract and obscure concepts which need clarification. — Corvus

What needs clarification then is your notion of 'time'. I said nothing so ambiguous as any of the definitions being applicable or not to time. I listed three very well known and very different kinds of time, all three of which are heavily defined, used, and discussed in literature, and are not obscure at all. Hence my ability to render a meaningful opinion about how the various definitions of 'exists' might apply to each or not.

Interestingly, your description of time in the prior post seems to correspond to my third kind, the kind whose existence I put on par with the tooth fairy. I suspect that it is this definition of 'time' is how you're using the word.

For instance, what do you mean by "part of objective reality"?

That's E1, which I did not list for anything, since I do not identify as a realist. As for what it means, that is unclear. The meaning needs to be clarified by anybody who asserts it, but from my standpoint, a thing that has this property is indistinguishable from a things that doesn't have it, but is otherwise identical. I cannot say that of any of the other 5 definitions. The other 5 are all meaningful in some way, and a distinction can be drawn.

All I can say about E1 is that it is objective, not a relation. So it just plain exists, and not 'is a member-of / part-of some domain', all of which are expressions of relations.

Are we supposed to be able to understand and grasp the full meaning of objective reality?

If somebody asserts E1 existence, then at least a partial meaning would be nice.

What is "this universe"?

The universe that has you in it, as opposed to different universes that don't.

How far and how much "this universe" supposed to cover, or be?

The bounds of 'this universe' is left to the user. Some define it to be only the visible universe, or only 'this world'. If so confined, then other visible universes or worlds become a multiverse of sorts (Tegmark listed four kinds of multiverse, the first and third of which are mentioned here). But at one's choice, these can be considered to all be just 'the universe'. Type 4 is more of an E1 definition: All that exists or all that is real. I find that pretty meaningless.

"the causal history"? What do you mean by that?

This has to do with the E5 definition (causal definition). It is an utterly explicit relational definition that only works with structures with temporal causation. X and Y are system states. Let's say X is a meteor. Y is a moon crater. State X is prior to state Y since it takes time for state X to evolve into a world including state Y.. Since state Y is a function of state X, then X can be said to exist in relation to state Y.
This is a classical example of a definition that comes from quantum mechanics.

For a more quantum example, take Schrodinger's cat. State X is the cat state, in the box. State Y is the lab outside. The cat state (being dead or alive) does not exist relative to the lab since the distinction between dead and alive has had no causal effect on it. Sure, the cat exists relative to the lab since it had an effect on the lab before the box was closed. The cat exists, but it's state of living or not is a counterfactual, and definition E5 denies the principle of counterfactual definiteness which states that systems are in a defined state even when not measured.

"existential quantification"? Surely that is not time itself is it?

No, it has nothing to do with time. 35 is not prime because (∃x) (x is non-trivial factor of 35). That's straight up existential quantification, and an example that makes no reference to time.

Present exists, but it disappears before we notice it.
Past exists in our memories only. Time follows to the future. — Corvus

If you want my opinion, Proper time exists by E2,3,4,5,6. Coordinate time exists E2,3,6 The time you mention above exists E2,3 (pretty much the same score as the tooth fairy).
E1 thus far is meaningless and I cannot assign that to anything.

You are proposing Overdetermination, which is philosophically problematic. A solution to the Overdetermination problem would make a good PhD thesis.

From the Wikipedia article on Overdetermination
Overdetermination occurs when a single-observed effect is determined by multiple causes, any one of which alone would be conceivably sufficient to account for ("determine") the effect. — RussellA

Not overdeterminism because any one of my causes along would not have caused the injury. I already explained this.

I believe that things exist in a mind-independent world and I can justify my belief. — RussellA

Got it. Anything not proven (pretty much everything) doesn't count as 'knowing', so you know nothing. So maybe we should not talk about knowing and just go with what has evidence and what doesn't, looking for plausible conclusions rather than definite ones.

On the other hand, I know my perceptions of colour, smell, taste, etc, which are not matters of either belief or faith.[/quote]I agree with those beliefs. I don't agree that they're any more than beliefs, especially when one begins to question what the 'I' is doing the perceiving, or if it's doing any perceiving at all. Skepticism goes a lot deeper than intuitions. If you're going to play the 'don't know' card, I can play that card in a higher suit.

I know that my perceptions are real

What do you mean by 'are real'? Funny that I've hammered on that question dozens of times and you still use the word without mention of which definition R1-R6 you mean.

Generally, "real" and "exist" are synonyms

Which is why they correspond to E1-E6, but you still didn't pick one.
I got a quote that suggests that Meinong is perhaps using E4 as his definition of exists. He uses a relational definition. Maybe. I'd love to have asked him if the universe exists, because it doesn't fit the E4 requirement of having a location in space.

There are three theories of perception, Idealism, Direct Realism and Indirect Realism. — RussellA

What happened to 'none of the above'? I certainly don't identify with any of those labels. But then, I suppose it comes down to the definition of 'realism', which is not specified in the label 'realist'.

Anyway, thank you for actually considering each of the definitions. Remember that you can add your own if my list is inadequate.
Keep in mind that we're doing metaphysics and not epistemology.

E1 The only objective reality I know about exists in my mind

You're describing E2. If it's objective, it's not relative to anything.
In other words, suppose there are two minds, identical, except that one is real and the other not. How would either of them figure out which one they were? That's E1. It isn't a relation, so they both relate the same things as the other, except presumably the nonexistent mind relates to nonexistent cars and moons and forum posts and v-v. My assertion is that they cannot tell. There's no empirical test.

EPP doesn't hold since both of our candidates have the same properties and experience the same stuff.

E2 The only things I know about exist in my mind.

Sure, by definition. E2 is effectively solipsism or at least anthropocentrism. E2 is reality defined by perception. EPP holds since predication requires a mind in order for the predicate to be.

E3 The only things that have predicates exist in my mind.

No, that's still E2. I think you're stuck on E2. All your comments are about what you know, and none are about the metaphysics of what is. Use logic, not perception, to analyze the mind independent ones. EPP holds under E3 by definition.

E4 The only objective state of this universe I know about exists in my mind, although I believe that an objective state of the universe also exists in a mind-independent world.

Which is like saying that the universe is the universe. EPP apparently doesn't hold because things in other universe also have predicates despite not existing. This has nothing to do with anybody knowing about it. Most of the definitions have nothing to do with epistemology.

E5 I know the state that exists in my mind, and believe that it was caused by a prior state that existed in a mind-independent world.

E4 has nothing to do with me or the universe. It has to do with causality, any causal structure. E5 applies say to the set of all possible chess states. It does not apply to the Mandelbrot set. EPP does not hold because there are things with predication (17 being prime for example) but not meeting the E5 definition. E5 requires a temporal structure.

E6 I know the domain that exists in my mind and believe that there is another domain that exists in a mind-independent world

Again E2. E6 is another mind independent definition. Hard to judge EPP on this one but I think it holds since I can form a contradiction if you posit otherwise.

~E1- Existence is a part of all parts of objective reality. My premise above is an elaboration of this definition. Distance examples existence in two modes: a) distance as an interval of spacetime is a material reality; b) distance as an abstract thought is a cognitive reality. — ucarr

This is leveraging E4, not E1. All the examples are relative to our universe. Your prior definition was that it was 'material'.
BTW, distance is a coordinate difference in spatial coordinates, not a spacetime interval. Distance is frame dependent, and an interval is not. Irrelevant to the topic, I know.

b) Existence indexes physics in that it supervenes as context into all material things; c) Existence adds the context of symmetry and conservation to an emergent thing that has properties.

I have no clue how those words are to be interpreted. You wouldn't even define 'eternal' for me, even though I made it a multiple choice question.

Even the ancient Greek folks mentioned on the existence of time. — Corvus

But they also didn't know about the three kinds.

I have been just asking questions to various folks for their opinions and ideas, so I could compare them in order to learn more about it.

That's good. What was learned? I did peek at the tail of your topic when you mentioned it. Why post links to all those time-denial videos? Do you understand any of their arguments? Do you agree? None of that was posted, so all I can presume is that you're using them to promote an opinion of denying it, without even knowing which kind is being denied. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's usually why people post links like that without discussion of them.

Well, you need to have listens to, think and learn about them rather than just be narrowminded and trying to twist everything said.

I don't because I didn't participate in that topic, and this one isn't about time specifically, especially when 'exists' has not been defined when asking if any particular thing exists or not. This topic is about the necessity of doing that, and the justifications or lack of them for the various definitions.

What does Meinong say about the existence of time? — Corvus

Why would he mention that explicitly? He published his stuff before modern physics even gave us words for the three kinds of time, and even you don't know which kind of time you're denying despite not having that excuse.

There are lots of you-tubes claiming time doesn't exist, but I don't watch links whose arguments are not summarized by the posters, so I don't know what they're denying or how they go about it.

Existence is defined as the quality of being real. — philosch

That's just giving a synonym, pretty vague if 'being real' is not subsequently defined.
I called my 6 definitions of 'real' R1-R6 corresponding to my 6 definitions of exists E1-E6.

The OP [of the Ontology of time topic] started with little assumption and open mindedness on the definitions, because it is known to be historically abstract and contentious topic. It was looking for good arguments from different angles for exploration, which could offer us better understanding on the concept of time, and possible solid definitions and conclusions. — Corvus

I still don't know what kind of time is asserted to not exist.

It is a logical contradiction to say that we don't know the true nature of the apple, but we do we know that the true nature of the thing-in-itself is an apple. — RussellA

It would indeed be contradictory.

For example, suppose the true nature of a thing-in-itself is being green, but this thing-in-itself has been labelled pink.

Those are mental perceptions, hardly qualities of the apple itself. The only quality of the apple I'm interested in is whether or not it exists, and which definition of exists is being used when justifying the assessment one way or another.

When walking on wet gravel looking at a coyote, you slip. Simplifying the situation, you walk on gravel and slip. What is the cause of your slipping?

Walking and not gravel - don't slip
Walking and gravel - slip
Not walking and not gravel - don't slip
Not walking and gravel - don't slip

Again you discard my scenario. But you still have two causes: walking and gravel. Likewise, my injury would not have occurred had any of the four causes not have happened. So again you seem to argue support of multiple causes, but denying it all the same.

OK, so you label (cause1 & cause2) as a single cause. That's our disconnect. You reject gravel being a cause despite slipping not taking place in the absence of gravel, and also you cannot know the cause of anything since you don't know the entire list.
Crazy definitions, but at least the disconnect was identified.

Backwards in time, a single effect has more than one possible cause. For example, knowing the positions of the snooker balls on a snooker table gives no knowledge about the positions of the snooker balls on the snooker table at a prior time.

This presumes an epistemic definition of cause, not a metaphysical one.

Q1 The EPP principle is that there cannot be properties without being attached to something existing. How is this principle justified
— RussellA

The Indirect Realist perceives a set of properties in the mind, such as being four legged, being maned, being hoofed, etc.

This is true of far more than just indirect realism, and is also true of both horses and unicorns. Just saying.
The indirect realism is also already a realist of a kind. Starting on that foot seems to already beg a conclusion of which a justification was requested. That's the problem with 'beliefs' instead of reaching the conclusion without ungrounded premises.
All that said, identifying as a kind of realist doesn't define what is meant by 'real'. What is real? In what way is it real (R1-R6)? Some of those definitions have empirical backing and some don't.

The Indirect Realist believes that there is a thing-in-itself existing in a mind-independent world

OK, the bold bit seems to be a reference to either E4. If it was E2, it wouldn't be mind independent. 'world' indicates at least a portion of our universe.
You claim this indirect realist knows nothing about the thing, and yet he holds a belief that it exists in this way. Isn't that irrational? Is the belief just a matter of faith then? I mean, you can count =the apples there on the table, and so can somebody else (common referent), so it's not just a dream. Looks like evidence of EPP (E4) to me. Sounds like an absence of knowing nothing about them.
I can count the horses and the number agrees with the number you count, but the same cannot be done with unicorns. That makes the unicorns distinct by the E2 definition. Not so much by the E4 definition since I've not empirical access to the entire world.

Q2 If there can be properties in the absence of something existing, how do we know that horses exist?

You don't answer this one. You talk about indirect realists, but the question is not addressed. The question as worded is similar to Q3, especially if E4 is used.

Q3 If there can be properties in the absence of something existing, how do we know that horses are in a different domain to unicorns

The Indirect Realist may consistently perceive in their mind the constant conjunction of the set of properties being four legged, being maned, being hoofed, not being horned, not only being in a book, etc. They can then attach the mental concept "horse" to this set of properties.

They may also consistently perceive in their mind the constant conjunction of the set of properties being four legged, being maned, being hoofed, being horned, only being in a book, etc. They can then attach the mental concept "unicorn" to this set of properties.

Short story, by switching to definition E2. I mean, what other evidence is there that unicorns appear nowhere but in a book?


I'm not tearing apart your argument, but rather pointing out that almost everybody uses definition E2 when the say 'exists', but then convince themselves that some other definition must also be the case. I'm not arguing against the fact that we see horses and we don't see unicorns, but that is just a relation between people and the things we say exist. It is completely anthropocentric reasoning, but then somewhere we declare, quite unreasonably, that these distinctions are objective.

Example: You can't dig up earth without creating a pile of earth and a hole that shake hands symmetrically. — ucarr

This is not an example of a definition. If I didn't know the meaning of the word 'symmetrical', I would not know how to use the word after reading that.

This is my definition of symmetry, i.e., transformation without net change.

That wording sounds more like a definition, even if it's not one that is in any dictionary. But that one is not worded as a premise.

Material things vis-á-vis existence describes a part/whole relationship. Existence indexes physics in that it supervenes as context into all material things

This is not E1 at all. It seems to suggest that a thing exists if it is material. A unicorn exists, but distance does not.

Eternal universe existence uncaused is my starting point.

You start by presuming your conclusion directly? It is not going to in any way justify how we know what exists or not if you presume the list right up front rather than conclude it by some logic and/or evidence.

I am more into the idea that space and time is emergent quality from movements of the objects in perception, as in the other thread running at the moment. — Corvus

You mean the "ontology of time" topic. I didn't post to that since time was not defined clearly. I can think of three obvious definitions and yea, some of them exist (depends on definition of 'exists' of course), and some don't. Two of the three can be perceived, including the one I consider nonexistent.

I read not too many posts before it became clear that definitions were not a priority.

Because of the asymmetric flow of information in a causal chain between a thing-in-itself in a mind-independent world and the experiences in our senses, we can never know the true nature of any thing-in-itself. — RussellA

That doesn't mean there's no apple. It just means that we don't know the true nature of the apple. Common referent (the fact that more than one mind can experience the object) is solid evidence that it is there in some form. You can deny the common referent, but that becomes solipsism.

I can say that the thing-in-itself is an apple, but that is not to say that in reality the thing-in-itself is an apple.

Sure you can. You just don't know the full nature of it. That doesn't stop anybody from applying the label or otherwise discussing the thing and not discussing only our concept of it. If you cannot do that, then your idealistic inclinations prevent communication on topics like this.

I agree that choosing to walk, a recently repaved road, a shoulder not properly filled and a coyote in a distant field all inexorably lead to your breaking your hip. — RussellA

So you agree that there are at least four causes to my injury? If not, which ones are not? If you cannot, then your single-cause assertion is falsified by counterexample.

You talk endlessly about indirect realism and information flow, but not how any of that leads to a conclusion of the necessity of a single cause for any effect.

E1 - "exists" may be defined as "is a member of all that is part of objective reality" — RussellA

Yes. The domain is objective in that one.

There is the domain of being within the mind

E2

and there is the domain of being within a mind-independent world.

E4

A horse exists because it has the property of being four legged, being maned, being hoofed, etc. In Meinong's term "exist"

Unicorn then as well, and even square circle, all existent by E3. Meinong certainly does not use E3 as his existence definition.


The question never gets answered. If EPP holds, how is EPP justified? If it doesn't hold, how do we know the horse exists? How does Meinong (somebody known to deny EPP) justify the horse as being in a different domain than the unicorn?

You see the objects and objects in movements, changes and motions, but where is time? — Corvus

If you consider time to be an object, then it is up to you to point to where it might be. I don't, so the question makes no sense. Start off by defining time, something you didn't do in your own topic about it.
My three I think of first are
1) proper time, that which clocks measure
2) Coordinate time, that which dilates
3) Progression of the present, one's intuitive sense of the flow of events.

None of those are objects with a location.

Do you believe a definition cannot be used as a premise? If not, why not? — ucarr

A definition takes the form "I am using the word 'X' to mean such and such in some context". A premise takes the form "X is being presumed here to be the case".

I suppose with some careful wording, a statement can be used as either. The closest example I could think of was the fallacy of using a definition as a premise (actually as a conclusion), resulting in Anselm's ontological argument.
Give me an example of a definition being used as a premise.

Consider: I will use E1 to develop a chain of reasoning that evaluates to a conclusion negating the possibility of predication standing independent from existence. — ucarr

That would be great. Nobody else has tried. You're saying that if definition E1 is used (I think Meinong is using it), then EPP must be the case, something Meinong denies.

Eternal universe uncaused is my starting point. — ucarr

By 'eternal', do you mean unbounded time (everlasting), or do you mean that time is part of the universe (eternalism)? Either way, it is uncaused. If it's caused, we're not including the entire universe, just part of it.

I equate it with existence.

That's begging your conclusion. You need to justify it, not just assert it.

I equate existence with objectifiable reality (public, repeatable, measurable).

It isn't objective if it is confined to being public, repeatable, measureable. That's an empirical definition (E2). It exists relative to an observer. Putting the word 'objective' into a subjective description does not make it objective.

I read E1 as, "Existence is a part of all parts of objective reality."

But then you go and describe a subjective reality. As far as I can tell, there is no test for something objectively existing or not objectively existing. Any test would be a relational test, a subjective one.

We are asking where in the universe, space and time contained. — Corvus

The question seems to ask "what location is distance?" and "when is duration?", both circular. Perhaps you need an example to clarify the question because I have not. The question as you worded it implies that space and time are objects. They're not. They're properties, but so are objects.

And chatbots are notorious for wrong answers when it comes to cosmology.

E4 "Is part of the objective state of this universe" — noAxioms

Poorly worded on my part. "Objectively part of the universe" would be better. 'state' implies a slice of it, a subset of the whole universe. The universe is not a state.

What do you mean by "the objective state", "the universe"

'State' shouldn't be there, especially since a universe does not have a state, but a world at a given moment in time does. One definition is that a thing is present at a moment in time. People exist, dinosaurs don't. That's a reference to state. The universe is all worlds, the entire structure, the initial state of which is what we know as the big bang.
Good question though since there are a lot of other definitions of 'universe', including something like 'all that there is', which renders meaningless the term 'multiverse' since there cannot be other 'everythings'.

Yes, our universe includes spacetime Space and time are different dimensions of the same thing, so it isn't space and time. The form and nature of spacetime is described in relativity theory, which is beyond my ability to describe to you. By 'contained', I mean what I said above. Spacetime is where everything is. There is no spacetime that is not our universe. That means that the universe does not have a location nor was it a thing created. It isn't an object. That would be a category error. Objects are created at a location and endure for some duration. They are thus contained by space and time.


I do include other worlds in 'universe', as well as distant observable universes, despite their states being counterfactuals. Some people define 'universe' to mean the observable parts of it, but that's more E2 than E4.

I'm defending the EPP. My defense stands upon E1 as its premise: "Is a member of all that is part of objective reality" — ucarr

Well good. Nobody else seems willing to engage with that issue. E1 was the definition (it's not a premise or any kind of assertion) that was problematic with EPP since EPP was difficult to justify. Perhaps you can attempt to do that, but I really have a hard time parsing your posts. Try to be clear.
Nowhere in your post do I see EPP justified given an E1 definition, mostly because you never reference E1 at all.

E1 is objective and mind independent, so talk about intentions doesn't seem relevant.
Talk about conservation laws is irrelevant since they're 1) not objective, but relevant only to our universe (E4), and 2) wrong, as I explained in my prior reply.

You seem to be speaking of some sort of objective conservation law, like there is some external objective time and that the demise of one existing thing leaves 'stuff' for the next. None of this is justified, it's just being asserted.

Everything in existence has been shifted around from some prior, reciprocal existence. When a guy digs a shovel into the dirt, he's got no choice about simultaneously creating a pile of shifted dirt and a corresponding hole of matching dimensions.

You seem to be speaking of material in this universe (E4, not E1). There is classical conservation laws, but our universe has been proven to not be classical.

I think perhaps you are confused and that you are defending EPP using an E4 definition of 'exists'. I actually support that. Denial of EPP using E4 runs into serious troubles.

If you ask, "Why do I exist?" the only answer is, "You exist because you do exist." This sounds like non-sensical circularity; it's because existence can only be examined by a thinking sentient, and there can only be thinking if the thinking sentient exists.

I agree with all this. It's called observer bias, and it references a relational definition of existence (E2,4,5,6).

You've never been dead and you never will be dead.

Excellent leveraging of EPP. Denial of that statement is a subtle denial of EPP. But you also have to explain why it is still meaningful to say "Isaac Newton is dead".

When death becomes an objective reality for you

This is a contradiction. If it's 'for you', it isn't objective.

it won't become an objective reality for you because there won't be any you. Our immersion within existence is weirdly infinite in this way.

Nobody and nothing is alone because our existence is predicated upon an emergence that is configured such that every existing thing, as a fundamental of it existing, emerges as half-symmetry of a pairing across the line of mirror-imaging with the reciprocal partner.

You've never not been known to exist because the cost of your existence has always been a depletion reciprocating your addition.

A notification of orientation to the void the red apple can never transcend, "You will be assimilated resistance is futile." The red apple is the local part; the void is the non-local part. The void seems not to be paired with the red apple because that's the nature of a void. Why death? Because life costs something. What does life cost? It costs the expenditure of energy allowing you to swim above the waves of the void, for a while. Eventually, however, we must be ourselves. We are the void.

This is the sort of poetry that I cannot parse.

You actually exist because we as beings, capable of language, have defined a word "exist" to mean what ever it's definition is. — philosch

Not bad... But EPP principle, as typically phrased, uses the word without definition which meaning is being used.

or I could have said everything is relative

Sounds like me

This leads to an impasse, where a topic is being discussed yet there is no general agreement as to what the words being used mean. — RussellA

There does not need to be an agreement as to what a word means. A great deal (perhaps the majority) of words in the dictionary have multiple meanings. Most of the time the intended meaning can be gleaned by context, but where this is not the case, the usage of the word is either ambiguous or is in need of explicit clarification.

Your Webster definition gives a general but very imprecise definition, mostly only a synonym, although it seems to preclude anything existing under idealism since mental is not part of physical or spiritual.

As an Indirect Realist, I don't claim that there is no mind-independent reality"

But you claim exactly that. "For the Indirect Realist, apples only exist in the mind.". Do clarify this contradiction then.

If there had not been a Big Bang, you wouldn't have broken your hip. It depends whether it is valid to say that the Big Bang was one cause of your breaking your hip?

Since all the other causes (the coyote say) is also caused by the BB, the phrase "one of" implies a sort of redundancy. The BB caused everything in our world, so it's kind of empty (tautological) to identify it as the cause.
Imagine going to court and saying that I didn't cause the car crash, the big bang did. Or determinism made me do it (an argument frequently made in forums).

I notice that you still have not pointed out why my injury didn't have 4 or more causes, instead deflecting to an example that you think comes down to one clear cause, but pointing to one white swan isn't evidence for lack of a black swan. Tell me why my example is wrong, that nothing on my list caused my injury. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I am saying that you're using a very different definition of 'cause', one that you refuse to clarify, which tells me you lack confidence in it.

I think that Existential Quantification E6 points to an important feature of "existing", and that is the domain in which something exists.

Yes. E2, E4, E5, E6 all have a domain. E1 is the only one that lacks it, and maybe not even then. Not sure how to classify E3, since it seems to be a self-referential domain.

Integers exist in the domain of numbers, even if integers don't exist in a mind-independent world. Sherlock Holmes exists in the domain of literature, even if Sherlock Holmes is non-existent in a mind-independent world.

There you go. All different definitions, all valid, especially since the domain is explcit. It isn't at all explicit in the wording of EPP, which is why that wording of the principle isn't very clear.

Where in the universe, are space and time contained? — Corvus

Space and time are everywhere in the universe, and nowhere not in the universe, at least in the 4D spacetime model that cosmology uses. There are some naive models that have the universe contained by time, in which case things like big bang and black holes go away, to be replace by some other interpretation. There is no valid model of the universe being contained by space, which is akin to suggesting that the big bang occurred at some specific location and has been expanding into some kind of void since then.

I cannot explain it much better than that to somebody not familiar with even the basics of cosmology. To say 'in time and space' is no different than saying 'in the universe' and not in something else, some other domain. Hence E4 being the applicable definition to use.

None of the definitions of existence mentions on space and time. — Corvus

Fine, write your own, but also tell me in what way it is distinct from E4. Space and time are contained by the universe, and I see little point in listing the contents in the E4 definition.

The Merriam Webster defines "exist" as "to have real being whether material or spiritual". — RussellA

That is pretty vague since all it does is give a synonym. 'is real' or 'being'. So 'being real' can also be defined 6 ways, which I had called R1-R6, corresponding to E1-E6.
It does say 'material or spiritual', so that kind of eliminates 'mental', so maybe E2 is ruled out by this dictionary definition. I think 'spiritual' was put there so one can say God exists without contradicting the definition.

Don't go to a dictionary to answer definition questions from philosophy or science.
I remember a classic game show "what's my line" where the girl questions three candidates, only one of which is some expert, the other two pretending. The exxpertise in this case was chemistry. She asked each "what is a mole?". End of game. The other two gave the dictionary definition (which, if it's a good dictionary, might include the definition that it's a number).

But why does "exist" mean "to have real being whether material or spiritual" rather than "a woody perennial plant".

Convention (or what you call 'common usage'). If you're going to use the latter definition, it needs to be stated up front because it's unconventional. Likewise, all these philosophers need to do this because your wording doesn't narrow it down to a single one of the possible conventions. This is a philosophical discussion, so a philosophical definition is expected, not a lay definition.

It is not possible to justify why a word means one thing rather than another apart from being asserted by either common usage or government institution.

For the Indirect Realist, apples only exist in the mind.

You're describing idealism. The whole point of realism is that there is a real apple independent of mind, the actual nature of which is a matter of interpretation. For instance, absent a mind, there's nothing out there that's going to label it with the symbol 'apple', but absent any minds, said apple would likely have never evolved in the first place, so go figure.

My argument is that the Direct Realist position towards non-existence cannot be valid, because Direct Realism itself is not a valid philosophical position, in part because of the problem with causation.

No argument from me.


It seems that any realist (direct or not) presumes something is real, that it exists. The only justification for that I've seen so far is a statement of relation. The real thing relates to me, which is idealistic and anthropocentric, and since I don't think the universe was created for the purpose of making humans (or that it has a purpose or was created at all), I have little interest in how it relates to me. What does it mean to have mind independent existence? How much is EPP necessary to justify the stance? If it isn't, then why is it needed? If it is needed, how is it justified?

=======

I break my hip (an effect) because 1) I chose to take a walk that day 2) there was a recently repaved road 3) shoulder not properly filled 4) coyote in distant field......................In all my examples, there are multiple causes, each of which is necessary for the effect. — noAxioms

Specifically, on seeing the colour red, the Indirect Realist accepts that they may not know the cause because one effect may have more than one possible causes. For example, a migraine, a green tree with the light passing through a stained glass window or a yellow field at sunset. The Direct Realist, however, argues that they know the cause was a red colour on the belief that one effect can only have one cause.

All this seems irrelevant. My effect is a physical effect, not an experience. You're talking about the experience of red. Get away from experience. For at least the 10th time, per the disclaimer, I am not discussing ideals.

You make my argument for me in saying that one effect, breaking a hip, can have more than one cause, such as taking a walk, a repaved road, a badly repaved road and a coyote.

How so? You assert only one cause is possible. I list four (with there being more), and you don't counter it. My story contradicts your assertion, which is not 'making your argument for you'.

Once Direct Realism has been set aside, the Indirect Realist approach to non-existence can be further investigated.

I am not discussing idealism, and what you call indirect realism is what everybody else calls idealism.

The Direct Realist believes they can know what exists in a mind-independent world, and the Indirect Realist disagrees.

You contradict yourself again, since you claim there is no mind-independent reality under what you call indirect realism, and in so claiming, you claim to know everything about it. "Apples exist only in the mind" you say, so that's a claim that you know everything about mind-independent apples, which is that there aren't any, so there's nothing to know.

Definitions are really no more than unjustified assertions. — RussellA

That's what premises are. Definitions are descriptions about how certain words and terms are being used. The latter doesn't have a truth value to it. A premise or an assertion does.

Where do apples exist?

That's a different question that 'do apples exist?". Your question already presumes they exist, and in a location at that, thus implying a sort of an E4 definition of exists.

Over-determination is the situation where one effect has been determined by more than one cause.

Overdetermination concerns multiple causes, any of which would have caused the effect. I'm not talking about that. In all my examples, there are multiple causes, each of which is necessary for the effect. Take away any one of the causes and the effect would not have occurred. This is not the case with overdetermination.



I break my hip (an effect) because 1) I chose to take a walk that day 2) there was a recently repaved road 3) shoulder not properly filled 4) coyote in distant field....................It isn't a path, it's a network. I gave four causes of my hip injury which wouldn't have happened given the absence of any of them. — noAxioms

Scenario one
2) You could have walked on the road or through the field. You walked on a road.
3) You could have walked in the centre of the road or on the unfilled shoulder. You walked on the unfilled shoulder of the road.
4) You could have been looking to houses the left where there was no coyote or to the field on the right where there was a coyote. You looked to the right.

I think you just listed 2 more causes, since had any of the alterations you described actually taken place, the injury probably would not have occurred.

Scenario two
You left the house for a walk, slipped on wet grass and broke your hip. You could have broken your hip even if there had been no coyote.

Yes, there are multiple paths to that sort of injury. Scenario 3 is another.

What you didn't do is demonstrate that there is but one cause for my injury, something you assert to be the case.

Why relevant to existance? Do apples exist only in the mind, as the Indirect Realist says, or both in the mind and mind-independent world, as the Direct Realist says?

The topic is about denial of EPP, not the distinction between direct and indirect realism. On that note, the whole digress about how many causes there are to my injury seems irrelevant to the topic.
Things existing only in the mind or not is idealism, a valid view but one explicitly not being considered, per the disclaimer in the OP. Still, I did give it a line in the list of definitions of existence.

Kant says, all principles need arguments and proof why they are principles. — Corvus

Fine. For that, we need criteria that must be met for the word 'principle' to apply, and if EPP does not meet this criteria, then we call it a premise or something else.

How about "Existence is perceptible object in space and time"? This must be the defacto definition of existence.

Depends what you mean by perceptible. If it's the anthropocentric definition (perceived by humans), then E2 applies. If it is perceptible by anything, even in the absence of an observer noticing it, then E4 applies. Both definitions are relational, essentially 'is a member of X' where X is human perceptions (E2) or X is 'is somewhere in our universe' (E4) where universe is anything with coordinates relative to say time 0, Greenwich. Dark matter exists despite not being easy to perceive.

Living dinosaurs do have an E4 existence but not an E2 existence. The same is probably true of unicorns. The number 17 does not exist by your definition since it is not in space and time.

So 17 has the property of being prime, which is predication without existence. Is EPP wrong then?

Existence references the item to the totality. It’s a cataloguing reference to the totality that honors the conservation laws. Matter is neither created nor destroyed. Existing things all come from the same fund of mass_energy and thus are inter-connected all of the time. — ucarr

I made little sense of most of the post, but this seems to reference the E4 definition (is a member of our universe), a relation.

You bring up conservation laws. Mass conservation is a property of Newtonian mechanics. Mass/energy conservation is a property only of inertial frames which do not describe reality. Total energy (meaningful in the right coordinates) is going up, while energy density is going down.

Anyway, I suspect you care little about those nits, but I could not figure out what you were otherwise trying to convey.

Strange, that nowhere I could find anyone describing it as principle — Corvus

Perhaps that is so. It isn't a theory since it does not seem testable. Call it a premise maybe.
SEP calls it a principle, top of section 1 of the 'existence' page.

Could you define and list the types of existence?

I linked to exactly that in my prior post. See the (*). I called them E1-E6, with openness for more.

I can only hope that the reader understands what I mean by saying that "thoughts exist". — RussellA

Given so many definitions, the reader probably presumes his own definition instead of yours.

Given anthropocentrism or idealism (E2), existence is mind dependent, a relation of sorts. Yea, thoughts exist.

Given the various relational definitions E4,E5,E6, thoughts relate to something, or are themselves relations, hence they exist.

The number 17 exists under E3 and E6 and under E1 if you're a platonist.

E1 (objective existence) is questionable since existence is reduced to a meaningless tag. There's zero way to distinguish an existing thing from a thing identical in every way except for it not existing. So given E1, there isn't a test for existence, and thus one cannot logically conclude anything either way.

That's a starting point, and it didn't require a book.

I would hope that few would argue with my saying that unicorns are mythical creatures.

I'm not disagreeing with that. They're mythical to us, sure. We're perhaps we're mythical to them.
What I am doing is driving the definition of 'exists = not mythical' to absurdity.


Causation:

The question is, can breaking a leg be said to cause cancelling a ski trip. ... Breaking a leg may contribute to your decision to cancel your ski trip, but it would be wrong to say that breaking your leg caused you to cancel your ski trip.

It seems you use 'cause' as 'necessarily causes', like there needs to be no possibility of the ski trip not being cancelled. In that case, give an example of a cause and effect that satisfies you, and then explain why no other necessary effect can also occur.

For instance: A family is in a house near a hill when an abrupt mudslide crushes the place flat before they are even aware of the danger. Mom dies. Dad dies. Kids die. House destroyed. TV no longer functions. Mud fills the street. The profile of the landscape is changed.

Plenty more on that list of effects, and all of it necessary. Why are most/all of those not effects caused by the mudslide? I'm especially interested in how you justify that there can be no more than one effect.


Also, what relevance does this quibble have to do with the topic of existence?

=========
One of the accepted meanings of "prior" is "at an earlier time".

Yes, it is very much a valid usage, but if you read up on EPP, the word is never being used that way. Context!

Do you have a source that establishes the principle that existence is conceptually prior to predication to help me understand how the terms have been defined?

SEP article on existence, section 1:
"To be red (or even to be an apple) it must already exist, as only existing things instantiate properties. (This principle—that existence is conceptually prior to predication—is rejected by Meinongians.) Saying it is red and an apple and furthermore exists is to say one thing too many."

What mental constructs are you pointing at when you talk about what you are thinking? — Harry Hindu

Mathematics, logic. Stuff like that. Take the issue of presentism or not. There being no empirical difference between the candidate interpretations, shapes and colors and visual avail you not, but they still can be used to convey language and make charts and such.

That depends on what one means by, "the world is as it appears". If it means that the appearances allows us to get at the actual state-of-affairs, which it does most of the time or else we would be failing at our tasks much more often that we succeed, then what is the issue?

There is no issue with what one means by those words. It may or may not be true, but regardless, we can succeed at our tasks most of the time. That's what I mean by it being a pragmatic stance.
Pragmatically, I'm totally a presentist. I hold that belief an no amount of logic can sway me from it. I (the rational 'I', not the pragmatic 'I') also know it to be wrong, and logic can indeed influence that conclusion, but the empirical evidence just isn't there to make the case. So yes, I hold mutually contradictory beliefs because there is more than one purpose being served in there. I know which one is the boss, and both sides approve of the arrangement.
So I believe that there is no living T-Rex, and I also believe that there is a living T-Rex. Fun, huh? Not a contradiction since it isn't in the same way.

How often have we understood each other's scribbles on this screen as opposed to not understanding them?

With you? More often than with most.

When describing a dragon, you are describing how it appears visually in your mind. Your description is visual in nature.

Yes. The result is an ideal (E2), not a dragon, even if describing something that's in the world (E4).

If ideas can have the same types of properties as physical objects, then what does it mean for lizards to exist but dragons do not exist?

Definition dependent. Under E2 (an anthropocentric definition), there is empirical evidence of lizards but not of dragons. Under E1, what does it mean indeed? That's a question asked in the OP, one that still hasn't been answered. I'm pretty sure Meinong is using definition E1, and for this reason, since the denial makes little sense given the other definitions.

You are talking past me.

I know. I am trying to ask and answer clarifying questions so we stop talking past each other.

That is not what I was saying. Russell was making the point that, from his own position of ignorance, there appears to be multiple possible causes for some effect. He would be projecting multiple causal paths to the same effect when they are merely products of his mind (his ignorance of to the one actual causal path that led to the effect).

Good example of talking past since I cannot in any way figure out how there can be only one actual causal path to a given effect (some subsequent state). It isn't a path, it's a network. I gave four causes of my hip injury which wouldn't have happened given the absence of any of them. But from his post above, Russell seems to require a cause to necessarily (on its own) bring about the effect, and I cannot think of an example of that, so I asked for it.

You could say that the Big Bang is also a cause of your chipped hip.

I would parhaps say that since the hip thing wouldn't have happened sans big bang, but Russell uses the words differently.
On the other hand, the big bang is a state that doesn't uniquely identify this world (except under some specific types of determinism), so the BB does not necessarily cause my hip injury under many quantum interpretations. The thing with the road and the coyote is more of a classical cause.

What is the real dragon? If something looks like a dragon and breathes fire, is it a dragon? — Corvus

Typically more criteria must be met to satisfy a human designation as being a real dragon. Sometimes unreasonably so, falling back to the logic, "there are no dragons, so whatever that is, it isn't a dragon". Not great logic, but frequently employed in other topics.

What does a direct realist do when they say the chocolate ice cream is delicious but someone else says it is disgusting? Is the direct realist talking about the ice cream or their mental state when eating it? — Harry Hindu

Another reason to be a relational stance.

yes thoughts exist. — Corvus
:up: — RussellA

How very well argued. A raw assertion without even a definition of what sort of 'exists' is being presumed.
I am looking for justified statements, not opinions.

I might agree given some definitions, and not agree given others.
E2-E6*, probably yes, I'd agree, some of these by definition. E1 is the problem case, and it seems it cannot be justified without leveraging (and consequently justifying) the EPP principle, something nobody has done.


* Defined here if you missed it

Isn't EPP, Existence Prior to Predication?
...
So is it a principle? Principle is the way something works. Nothing to do with existence. — Corvus

Yes, yes, and no. It's a principle, yes. It does have something to do with existence since it explicitly mentions 'existence', but without specification of what type is meant.

In short, the principle says that nonexistent things cannot have properties, but the wording of the principle leaves 'existence' undefined, so the principle might hold with some definitions and not with others. Without a clear definition, assertions like the one quoted just above are pretty meaningless.
You seem to switch definitions on the fly, not using any one definition consistently.

Hence it is a type of existence such as unicorn or dragon.

No, a principle is a sort of rule, not a type of existence.

We can describe how [dragons] might look

Yes. That would be definition E2: thoughts, and it is hard to think of the properties of a dragon without thinking of a dragon, so EPP sees to be true given E2 definition. However, per the disclaimer in the OP, I am not talking about the existence of thoughts/ideals OF a thing, I'm talking about the thing itself. The principle says that dragons cannot breathe fire if dragons are not real. Thoughts of dragon fire are fine since thoughts of dragons seem to be a necessary part of doing so.

17 is a number. Numbers don't exist in real world. Numbers are concept.

Concepts don't exist in real world? Your assertions are loaded with problems. 17 is indeed a number (E6), but then you call it a concept (E2), and a concept is not a number. That's a contradiction. You reference 'real world' like only one world is real (E1) and all others are not, which is not justified in any way, at least not without leveraging the EPP principle, which would then itself need justification, which is one of the things I'm trying to do in this topic.

Number are thoughts. Thoughts exist. Numbers don't exist. Ouch... I certainly deny the bold part. The other two are definition dependent.

How do we know that horses exist and not just subsist? — noAxioms
For Meinong, the unicorn, being mythical, makes it subsist, rather than the horse, which exists. — RussellA

So things that are non-mythical determines what exists?
E8: Isn't mythical
What if I become a myth? What about something nobody has thought of? That exists because it isn't mythical?

I don't think you meant that, and therefore the question wasn't answered.

More concise wording of the question: Given a denial of EPP, how can the existence of anything be known? First step in answering that is to define existence. Only then can a coherent justified answer be attempted. The answer may very well be different from one definition to the next.

The unicorn is mythical because no one has seen one in the world

This uses an anthropocentric definition of 'mythical'. Is the core of the Earth then mythical because no one has seen it? I'm not even going to list this one, but it seems related to the anthropocentric definition E2.

Yet again, per the OP disclaimer, I am not considering idealistic/anthropocentric arguments for reality.

After all, the Coelacanth had been thought extinct for 70 million years until one was found in 1938.

Being nonexistent and being currently extinct are very different things.

I would guess that half of everyone on the Forum are Direct Realists. — RussellA

Maybe we should let them (in their copious numbers) defend the position then. The description above got pretty implausible.

Some of your comments suggest that you are a Direct Realist

page 2 - 1) a brick hits me in the head. The brick does not depend on our mental abstractions, yet I know about the brick (presuming I'm not knocked out cold).
page 2 - The "brick" is a total mental abstraction. The brick isn't, and the abstraction lets us know something about the latter, but hardly all of it.
page 3 - Unlike red and pain, the brick has a potential of being a thing in itself, not just an ideal.[/quote]I think the middle comment clearly says otherwise, that my concept of the brick does not reflect its actual nature. Secondly, nothing in those three statements indicates that I'm a realist.

But other of your comments suggest that you an Indirect Realist

Indirect, sure. Realist is, like everything else, definition dependent, but I can write an R1-R6 that directly correspond to E1-E6.

If a "cause" has many effects, then by definition it is not a cause.

Perhaps we are speaking past each other. I break my leg. That causes 1) pain, 2) doctor work 3) financial troubles 4) missed days at work 5) cancelled ski trip.

Plenty more, but that sounds like multiple effects to me, so why didn't my leg breakage cause any of those effects?

Determinism is the philosophical view that all events in the universe, including human decisions and actions, are causally inevitable.

And this is relevant to the point above how, especially since both our comments (causes have more than one effect or not) seem to be relevant regardless of one's opinion on determinism.

In a Deterministic world, which I believe we live in, by defintion, one cause only has one effect.

Not by the definition you gave (I can think of at least 5 kinds of determinism), plus we do not know if the world is deterministic. As I said, we seem to be talking past each other.

Well, most of our information about our environment comes in the form of visuals — Harry Hindu

The naive classical stuff maybe, but not the deep stuff that gets important when exploring the gray areas.

it seems logical that we would think the world is at it appears.

Very pragmatic at least, and given that pragmatic utility, it may even be logical that we think the world is as it appears, but it isn't logical that the world is actually as it appears, for reasons you spelled out earlier.

Seems like a misuse of language to me. How can we ever hope to talk about such things? Why bother?

What? Talking about dragons having properties? That's fine. All of those are ideals, valid things to talk about. The EPP concerns actual dragons having wings, not possible if there are not actual ones. The problem with that reasoning is that it presumes a division into actual and not actual before applying the logic, which is circular logic. Dispensing with EPP fixes that problem, but leaves us with no way to test for the existence (E1) (actuality) of anything, leaving the term without a distinction.

It seems to me that in describing how something exists you would be inherently describing it's properties.

OK. Dragons breathe fire. Therefore, per EPP, dragons exist. That leverages definition E3.

There is only one cause — Harry Hindu

I break my hip (an effect) because 1) I chose to take a walk that day 2) there was a recently repaved road 3) shoulder not properly filled 4) coyote in distant field
That's four causes (there are more) of the hip break (true story). Coyote distracts attention from foot placement. Step off road and fall, instinctively to the side into a roll.

Once again, perhaps we are talking past each other when you say there can be but one cause and I disagree. If I say that each of those things is a cause, I mean the state of my broken (chipped actually) hip is a function of all those things and many others. Had any one of them not been the case, the hip thing would not have happened. Cause C (a system state) is a cause of effect E (another system state) if state E is in any way a function of state C. A state is a system state, however local, like say the coyote.

[EPP] depends whether existence is referring to 1) the existence of the Universe prior to the predication of an apple, or 2) is referring to the existence of the apple prior to the predication of the apple. — RussellA

You seem to be interpreting the word 'prior' to mean 'at an earlier time', which is not at all what the principle is saying. It says that existence is required for predication, and conversely a nonexistent thing cannot have predicates, not even be the nonexistent thing. It is not making any reference to time.

We still can apply several definitions of 'exists' to that principle, some of which make sense and some not. I care, because in denying EPP, I want to know exactly what is being denied.

Existential Quantification

1) There is something x that exists.

No, there exists some integer x that satisfies some condition (being odd). (∃x) (Int(x) ∧ x is odd), where your statement comes down to ∃x which is empty.

So you want to say there an exists an object that is round, sweet and green. (∃x) (x is round ∧ x is sweet ∧ x is green)
Hey, the green ones are tart!

Anyway, that's leveraging E6, a relation. One can say that there isn't an integer that breathes fire.
~∃(x)(Int(x) ∧ x breathes fire).

EPP seems to hold here. There isn't anything that satisfies those predicates, so there's nothing on which those predicates are being hung. Under Meinong, a fire breathing integer has those predicates, and it absists, without contradiction.

Therefore, ∃x A (x)

Works for me.

Therefore, the EPP and Existential Quantification are contradictory

No. You seem to be using the temporal definition of 'prior' to conclude this.

From Wikipedia — RussellA

I've read wiki, which apparently didn't help.

However, the Direct Realist would say that the thing-in-itself is red, rectangular and a brick

Quite the naive view. Does it have significant support?

I put my hand in a fire and feel pain.

How does the direct realist explain that? Is there actual pain in his hand? Injury and pain are quite different, and there's not always injury at all.

We directly experience some things but not others seems to show that the distinction between direct and indirect is simply one of causal complexity - how far removed the effect is from its causes, not a difference in the ontology of perception as we can experience things directly and indirectly. — Harry Hindu

Excellent point. Way too much weight is given to sight for instance, to the point that things arguably don't exist to a blind person.
Do pictures count? What if it's a picture taken at XRay frequencies? Is the resulting false color image what it looks like?

What does it even mean to say something is prior to properties? — Harry Hindu

That something 'nonexistent' (whatever that means) cannot have properties.

If something exists, how does it exist?

Hence the 'whatever that means'. I gave at least 6 definitions, and there are more.

Do properties exist?

Again, definition (of both words) dependent. It seems that everybody keeps saying 'definition dependent, but nobody every tries to make clear how the word is being used before using it.

One cause can only have one effect, in that if one knows the cause then the effect has been determined by the cause. — RussellA

This seems totally wrong. A cause typically has many effects, and each effect has many causes. It's a complex network, not a linear chain as that comment seems to suggest.
It's the old butterfly effect ,that some hurricane would not have happened had butterfly X not wafted its wings months prior. True, but had that butterfly done the alternate thing, different hurricanes would have happened. The butterfly was not the sole cause of the hurricane, nor was the hurricane the sole effect of the wing wiggle.

The Direct Realist doesn't accept this fact, and believes that even though one effect may have several causes, it is possible to follow a causal chain backwards in time.
...
The Direct Realist has the position that they will always know what broke the window. — RussellA

Really? Is this an epistemological assertion? Why then does he not know who shot Kennedy?
Why are not the direct realists in charge of the court system? Why are juries necessary? The phrase 'probable cause' becomes meaningless.

For Meinong, exist, subsist and absist are part of a hierarchy. Round squares absist but cannot subsist or exist. Sherlock Holmes can absist but not exist. Horses can exist, subsist and absist. — RussellA

OK, the crux of it all then: How do we know that horses exist and not just subsist? Both kinds of subsisting things have properties (the same properties, except for existence property), so appealing to their properties does not distinguish the two cases.

From Wikipedia - Bundle theory
Bundle theory, originated by the 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume, is the ontological theory about objecthood in which an object consists only of a collection (bundle) of properties, relations or tropes. — RussellA

This is interesting. I've been saying that objecthood is no more than a mental abstraction, but this bundle theory may be an attempt to refute that. Seems kind of off-topic here, but relevant to some other threads I've done. Something to look into.

Can any objects be EPP, — Corvus

This does not parse. EPP is a principle, and I don't know what it means for an object to be (or not) a principle.

You can ask what sort of objects are inapplicable to EPP for instance. My typical example is that 17 has the property of being prime, yet no conclusion of 17's existence follows from that. EPP seems not to apply there.

Both the Indirect and Direct Realist believe that there is a direct causal chain between the thing-in-itself in the world and the experience of it in your mind.

You see the colour red. Assume that this is not a dream or hallucination, but that there is a thing-in-itself in the world that directly caused you to experience the colour red. — RussellA

None of that would read different if the word 'direct' was omitted. None of it explains the difference between direct and indirect, which is what I expressed confusion about.

Would you say that because you experience the colour red, the colour red must exist in the world?
Similarly, because you experience pain, would you also say that pain exists in the world?

Heavily dependent on definition of 'exist'. On the surface, it seems to ask if I am a realist about mind dependent experiences.

Similarly, because you experience the appearance of a brick, would you say that bricks exist in the world?

Unlike red and pain, the brick has a potential of being a thing in itself, not just an ideal. So not so similarly.

I still don't know the difference between a direct realist and an indirect realist.

For "exist", a horse may exist or not exist in the field.
For "subsist", Sherlock Holmes may subsist or not subsist at 221B Baker Street — RussellA

Here, 'exist' is being used as a relation.

For "absist", as everything absists, there can be no negation.

Oh, I thought it was one of the three things, and not a heirarchy where 'exist' is just a special case of the other two. This contradicts your statement just below

For Meinong, as I understand it, numbers are objects that subsist, rather than exist or absist.

Sounds like numbers don't absist, even though everything absists. Sounds like numbers are objects, despite not having a location.

Just picking apart what seems to be inconsistencies. Actually, I care little about Meinong's actual views since for one he presumes a classical 'reality'. I was just interested in the implications of the denial of EPP, and all these classification details seem irrelevant to that, a derailment.

What is very relevant to my question is the defniition of 'existence' since the word is directly referenced in EPP. It's important, and seemingly unspecified. A horse isn't in the field, so a horse cannot have a tail? That makes no sense. Clearly a different definition of 'exist' is being referenced when asserting that a nonexistent horse cannot have a tail. It doesn't just mean that the horse is elsewhere.

For Meinong, existence is a property. For the EPP, existence is prior to properties. It seems that two senses of "exist" being used. — RussellA

Can't be different senses of the word, else it wouldn't be a denial of anything that some other view held true.

Meining seems to be naming something "exist", "subsist" and "absist" rather than describing something as "existing", "subsisting" or "absisting".

That's kind of cheating, a view that is functionally no different except the meaning of certain words. So the EPP guy says the unicorn cannot have a property of being horny, but one can think of such a thing, so the abstraction exists, and is abstracted to be horny. Meinong comes along and says 'no, that's subsist', and yes, it's horny, so that's predication without existence, but only because he refused to classify it as existence.

I don't think he would have gained any recognition for such a lame argument, so I don't think that's the argument. I don't think it's just a case of renaming the 'exists' label of something with a predicate to demonstrate EPP to be false.

Meinong gives the name "existing" to objects of intention such as a horse.

Sorry, but what is 'objects of intention' here? I looked it up and got morals: Intended results of an action, whether or not those results actually follow.
Anyway, I cannot follow your description of first sense of 'exist' without that.

Sense two of exist
However, there is another sense of exist, that of the Existential Generalization, whereby Fa → ∃x (Fx). If a is F then there exists something that is F.

So a is a round square, so there exists a round square. OK, a is also supposedly (I claimed the possibility above) a contradiction, so a is arguably not F.
What is F? A property? If a has the property of being F, then there exists something with that property, which seems to require EPP in order to follow. A creature is a unicorn, so there exists something that is a unicorn. Yes, that follows under existential generalization (my E6 way above), there is no predication without existence, not what Meinong says, so he probably is not using this sense.


You're numbering your senses of existence the same way I did, but I don't get your sense 1.

When I see someone in pain, are they and their pain not in this same shared world my mind exists in? — Harry Hindu

We directly see the consequence of pain, such as someone grimacing. We don't directly see the pain. — RussellA

What we see seems irrelevant to the question, which was whether the pain of another is in the same world as you (or your pain). I suppose that depends on where you delimit 'the world'.

Suppose I see the colour red. If I were a Direct Realist, I think that I would say that the colour red exists in a mind-independent world. As an Indirect Realist, I say that something in the world caused me to see the colour red, but whatever that something is, there is no reason to believe that it was the colour red.

Hey, that's sort of the distinction I was requesting. To say something (apple) is red is seemingly to say that the apple (ding an sich) is experience, quite the idealistic assertion, and realism only of experience, not of actual apples. Just my take from that brief description.

Yes, I think we're on the same (or closely adjacent) page. The proliferation of definitions/usages of "exist" in philosophy makes it a poor candidate for dispute. Arguments about existence quickly become wrangles over terminology, which is a shame, because I'm convinced there are important things we can understand about metaphysical structure without trying to plug in the "existence" terminology and argue for it, in the hopes that someone will finally agree with us! — J

Lacking a clear definition, let's step back from Meinong for a moment and consider the EPP principle. Existence is prior to predication, meaning something nonexistent cannot have a property. Under what definition of existence might that be valid?
Idealism: Santa, like the apple, is an ideal, and thus both exist and can have properties. The principle is meaningless since if it doesn't exist, it means it is not thought of at all, and so neither has its properties.

Existence only of 'objects', which doesn't work because 17 has the property of being prime despite not existing by this definition.
So it works for some definitions and not for others. But what I think was intended by the principle is more along the lines of Santa not being fat because there's no Santa to be fat. The concept of santa is of someone fat, but that's just a concept, not Santa. The concept is not fat, but rather of a fat Santa.
It works, but the exact definition of 'exists' is left unspecified, perhaps.referring only to what's on Earth (a relation again).

Why introduce "necessarily"? — Banno

You said "So as long as [...] the set "in Sydney" is not empty - we can't say Sydney doesn't exist.". So conversely, if it isn't an empty set, it must exist. It necessarily exists, because if it didn't, it would violate the assertion above. Perhaps you didn't mean to say exactly that. It made little sense to me. Perhaps you didn't mean any set, but only this 'in Sydney' set. My comment was me trying to understand your comment.
Yes, I introduced the word 'set', which seemed fitting with your introduction of 'domain'. Also, 'set' as opposed to 'that which is in Sydney'.

... and sets are not predicates - treating them as such causes problems.

I was treating membership within sets as predicates. The ontology of the set becomes a predicate if EPP is denied, else I agree that the contradictions you indicate result.

I accept your notational differences as being more clear than my ∄(x)(x is pegasus) since your notation allowed distinction between two different interpretations of the statement.

Pegasus is a mythical horse, is it not?

That is its relation to humans, sure. That doesn't mean that there isn't one out there in some 'possible world', for lack of better term. If there is such a thing, that still wouldn't change our reference from being a reference to a mythical thing. So in the sense intended, there is indeed no such thing as Pegasus. If the intention (the definition of there being such a thing) is broadened, then we might conclude that there are possibly creatures that match the description of our myths. They wouldn't be mythical at that point.

Santa is fat, hence, there is something that is fat

Santa is fat
∃(x)( x is fat). (Existential generalisation) — Banno

Something went wrong there, since if EPP holds, 'Santa is fat' is not even wrong, but 'something is fat' is true. ∃(x)(x is Santa & x is fat)

That is, not everything that exists is physical.

Depends on one's definition of course. Meinong's definition seemed to suggest otherwise, but I didn't like his three categories.

For Meinong, the target of a mental act, an intentional act, is an "object" (Wikipedia - Alexius Meinong) — RussellA

Seems to contradict the 'physical object' definition I got from another (not particularly reliable) source. The target may or may not be an object (doing arithmetic is not an object target), but the thought itself does not seem to qualify as an object itself, but they sometimes occur in a confined spatial region.

That the object of thought has a property doesn't mean that my thought has a property.

Thoughts do have properties, but pyramid thoughts are not often considered to be 'heavy' thoughts, and it would be a different definition of 'heavy' anyway.

In the context of Meinong, all our mental intentions are of objects, meaning that there cannot be any absence of objects.

An object to instantiate the thought. Kind of presumptuous, but I'll accept it. The wording above suggests that the thought itself is an object and is not simply implemented by one.

As an Indirect Realist, I don't know that some mind-independent thing-in-itself caused by experiences, but I believe that they did. — RussellA

Is there a typo in there? Because a mind independent thing being caused by experiences seems to be a contradiction.

I want a definition consistent with a model, and not based on the knowledge that led to the model. — noAxioms

Are you saying that on the one hand you want a definition of "existence" consistent with your knowledge of what you experience yet on the other hand you want a definition of "existence" not based on your knowledge about your experiences.

Hmm, it does seem to say that. I think I meant 'biased on the knowledge ...", trying to take observer bias into account, something easily omitted.

In your mind the "brick" is a mental abstraction, a concept. When you see a brick, you are directly observing an appearance. You are not directly observing the thing-in-itself that caused the appearance. You are directly observing one particular instantiation of your concept of a "brick".

OK. I never really got the distinction between direct and indirect realism. Sure, I know what the words mean, but 'direct' makes it sound like there's not a causal chain between the apple and your experience of it.

I thought I knew what was happening until I started to read www.ontology.co/meinonga.htm — RussellA

Sorry. I only read parts of it, trying to find definitions mostly.

I assume that "reality" is being used to refer to a mind-independent world

By who? Does Meinong define 'reality'? I'm no realist, so I don't advocate any particular definition. Something being mind-independent doesn't necessarily make it real, more real, or less real. Any of those four cases is possible given the right choice of definition.

As for the three classifications, subsist and absist seem identical except for the whole 'logically possible' distinction. Two words, both to describe ideals, and only one for everything else. Hmm....

What is "has a negation"? I don't see that on the site I linked.

Where does combustion fit in? Not the idea of it, but the physical process. It has a location, but being a process, it isn't really an object. It does obtain in this world.

Meinong said that existence is a property. However, this leads to a contradiction in sense 2 of subsist. As Bertrand Russell pointed out, an object that subsists doesn't exist, but it still has properties, and if existence is a property, then this means that an object that doesn't exist must exist.

I don't follow this. Something that subsists by definition doesn't exist. It might have properties, but existing isn't one of them (per the definitions given). I don't see a contradiction.

Asking the location of the universe is a silly question, like asking the for the location of reality. — Harry Hindu

Totally agree, and yet many treat the concept seriously, suggesting say that the universe might be bumping against the nearest neighbor reality or something.

You could say that the universe is the set of all locations, or the set of all relations.

I like to use the word to refer to our particular bit of spacetime,places where the laws of physics are the same and any location can be given relative to another. That's far less than 'all locations', some of which might be in say a realm with 5 spatial dimensions and has no location relative to 'here'.

I still prefer to tie existence to causation

Now you sound like me, with ontology being defined in a way that only makes sense in a structure with causal relationships.

Thanks to all for the active discussion. Plenty to digest here.

Extensionally, Sydney just is the set of stuff that is in Sydney. So as long as there is stuff in Sydney - the set "in Sydney" is not empty - we can't say Sydney doesn't exist. — Banno

So the set of integers necessarily exists because the set isn't empty?
Pegasus then also necessarily exists because of his list of parts isn't empty. Maybe I'm just not reading you right, but the existence of x in a set does not make the set exist, no? It seems a funny criteria.

Is Pegasus in the domain, or not?

Sounds circular, since the domain in question here seems to be 'things in the set of things that are members of objective reality', as opposed to say 'in Sydney', something to which we have more empirical access.

we ought not to expect to meet Pegasus while out shopping.

I don't expect to meet aliens either, but that doesn't imply (by most definitions) that they don't exist. Pegasus doesn't expect to meet you, so he questions your existence. OK, granted that if there is something that satisfies the description, it probably doesn't share the particular identity of the myth. It's just a flying horsey thing that happens to be named Pegasus.

Is a lack of properties a property? — RussellA

As I already posted, it seems that there cannot be a finite list of properties of a thing, or at least not a finite list of self-referential properties such as that one. Paradoxes result, just like with the liar paradox. You point this out.

For Meinong there are three types of objects. Objects that exist, such as horses.

By what definition of 'exist' does the horse exist? I listed several, but E2/E6 seems to be the one being leveraged here, which is a relation. The horse exists because I see it, and thus relates to me. My experience defines existence. Leads to solipsism at worst and anthropocentrism at best. If not that, then what definition?

Objects that absist such as the round square.

Does an absisting thing need to be contradictory? If not, then why not pick a less contradictory example such as Tom Sawyer?

Therefore, for Meinong, everything in reality is a kind of object. There is nothing in reality that is not an object. All these objects have properties. Therefore there is nothing in reality that doesn't have a property.

More to the point, he also says that there are things not in reality that nevertheless have properties. A square circle is round for instance. Hence it not being trivial to test if something is in reality or not.
I can make a square circle BTW. 4 equal nonzero length straight sides, 4 equal angles where the sides meet, and it's also a circle. Just got to think a little outside the box.

Everything we know about the "world" comes from our experiences. From these experiences we can make a consistent model of the "world". But this model originates from our experiences, not from what has caused our experiences. — RussellA

It originates from our experiences, which in turn originate from what has caused them. This wording presumes that our experiences are caused, already a bias. Something to not forget.

I agree when you say "I am after a consistent model, not proof of any ding-an-sich" but this is at odds when you say "Such an argument requires an epistemological/empirical definition of existence, and I am attempting a discussion on a metaphysical definition."

Yes, I want a definition consistent with a model, and not based on the knowledge that led to the model. So we have to recognize for instance a strong observer bias, which can be very misleading.

The "brick" is a concept, a mental abstraction.

Totally agree. The "brick" is a total mental abstraction. The brick isn't, and the abstraction lets us know something about the latter, but hardly all of it. I am laying no claim that abstraction is not involved in knowing anything.

Can there be existence of properties where there is absence of object? For instance, time? — Corvus

Not sure how Meinong would classify time. Subsist? I agree that time has properties, as does space (especially since they're arguably the same thing). So non-objects can also have properties. In some universes, there's no meaning to 'object' anyway. His classifications seem very much anthropocentric.

Objects have properties. — RussellA

You didn't say that only objects have properties. All your examples are of things with properties, including 'things' that subsist and absist.
You brought up 'thoughts', a good example. They're not objects, nor are they distinct. They do have properties. How would they be classified? Imagnation? I don't imagine my thoughts, I utilize thoughts to do the imagining.

Therefore, in the absence of objects there will still be properties.

Good, We agree on that.


Sorry to butt into a conversation, but...

In the case of EPP, could we say, X doesn't exist, could mean it doesn't exist in entity with mass, but it still exists as an EPP with the property of nonexistence. — Corvus

Under EPP, existence is not a property. If it doesn't exist, it has no properties. EPP is the principle that says this. Meinong denies EPP, and I'm exploring the implications of only that, not necessarily everything else Meinong says, such as his classification into 3 categories.

What does it mean to exist or not? — Harry Hindu

I gave 6 different meanings to the word 3 posts back, E1-E6. More have been suggested. Meinong seems to confine the usage of the word to things designated as 'objects' that have a property (among others) of location.

Concerning that: What is the location of our visible universe? It's not like it has coordinates. If I was to mail a letter to myself from outside the universe, what could I write that would get it here? Can't be done since there is only one origin (big bang) and that totally lacking in spacial location. There's not a place where it happened, so what becomes of the 'location' property? It too becomes a mere relation.

Is not one property of Santa is that it is an imagining and it exists as an imagining? Things exist if they have causal power.

The statement (that he is an imagining) seems to presume his nonexistence. OK, granted that Santa is self-contradictory and so is not likely to logically exist, but some imagined things are. My example was of Pegasus imagining you, without every having any empirical contact with a human. Does that mean you don't exist?

Just look at the causal power of Santa the imagining around Christmas time

It can be argued that only the concept has those causal effects, as intended. It is God for children after all, purpose being to herd sheep, very much cause-effect going on.

Joe defines "bachelor" as "unmarried male", while Mary defines it as "a fir tree". In ordinary usage, we would say that Joe is right and Mary is wrong. — J

Mary's usage is entirely non-standard, and if she chooses this definition, it needs to be stated up front, else she is indeed just plain wrong. She is not communicating, perhaps deliberately so. The problem occurs more often when words have multiple valid definitions. I have a physics background and often see the lay definitions of words like 'accelerate' and 'event' used instead of the physics definitions, which probably needs to be explicitly stated somewhere to the lay person, even if not necessary in a discussion with those that have a little physics background.

In philosophy, words like 'exist' might have more definitions than you'd find in a dictionary. I listed several relevant ones, and explicitly reference different ones when I mix their usages in the same post.


And BTW, a bachelor is a device to sort a large collection of laundry into workable batches of like colors that fit in the wash machine.
The term is also used in the old mainframe days, a process to submit batch jobs to the mainframe at a pace that it can handle.
Sheesh, don't you know anything?? :)

Been too busy to reply quickly again.

Let's have a quick look at the sort of reasons we have for not treating existence as a predicate. One example:

From

Circular Quay is in Sydney

we infer

Something is in Sydney

And write
( ∃x) (x is in Sydney) — Banno

This usage of ( ∃x) (x is in Sydney) is existential quantification (my E6 above, a couple posts back), a form of a relation, stating that x happens to be a member of the set of <stuff that is in Sydney>

Sydney seems not required to exist (E1, almost a platonic definition) for this to be true, just as the number 91 does not require 13 to exist (E1) for it to have the property of not being prime, but it does require 13 to exist (existential quantification) in order to have the property of not being prime. So for one, we seem to be referencing more than one defniition of existence, and E1 seems to be a property.

There is no such thing as Pegasus

we do not infer:
( ∃x) (there is no such thing as x)

If we were to treat existence as a predicate, [this] second inference would be valid. — Banno

Yes, it is valid if we deny EPP, else wrong form, and wrong definition I think.

So instead of parsing "There is no such thing as Pegasus" as Pegasus not having the property of existence, ~∃!(Pegasus), we pars it as there not being any thing that is Pegasus: ~∃(x)(x is pegasus)

I'd write (∄x) (x = Pegasus) (same thing?) This seems to reference a predicate of 'being', but the ∄ part is still existential quantification, no? It isn't a relation to Sydney this time, but more of an objective E1 sort of membership. Nothing in reality 'is Pegasus'.
This presumes a sort of reality with a list of stuff that is part of it, and there not being Pegasus on that list. Meinong might say that Pegasus has a property of not being on that list, and somebody more like me might deny the meaningfulness of that list altogether since there is no way to test for it. e.g. How would Pegasus conclude his own nonexistence? We are letting Pegasus ponder this because we're considering the case where predication does not require existence.

Could you provide links to the resources you consulted before writing your OP? I'm trying to understand where you are coming from. — Leontiskos

Quite a few, and I'm not pushing any particular view, just running with the denial of the one principle.
I looked at parts of SEP on existence, and more recently the 'object' section at https://www.ontology.co/meinonga.htm

I don't think that it is grammatically correct to say that a lack of properties is itself a property. — RussellA

That one I very much did get from one of the articles, but self-referencing properties have always had the potential for paradox, in this case, any property that references the count of the properties, which is arguably never finite.

Meinong said that there are three types of objects, those that exist, those that subsist and those that absist. — RussellA

News to me, showing how much I actually dove in, so thanks for this since it seems relevant.
Exist: Is a physical object, contained by both space & time, a relation to our universe, or more in particular, a relation to a collapsed state of our universe. Meinong would never have used those words since the universe was still considered classical back in his day.
The universe is not something that exists by this definition, but it might not be how Meinong would qualify it. People (especially those embracing classical notions) don't like saying the universe doesn't exist.
I might be getting this wrong, but this definition seems to be a relation, not anything objective. A thing not part of our physical reality might be part of a very different physical reality.

Subsist: Seems mostly abstract: Numbers, mathematics, and such. Meinong seems to give them a sort of being of their own, mind-independent, so the word isn't idealistic in nature. Still, is subsistence prior to mathematical truths? What would he say?

Absist: Imaginations: Santa for instance, not requiring logical consistency. For reasons of my OP disclaimer, I am not worried much about this one.

Objects have properties. In the absence of properties there must be an absence of an object. In the absence of an object there must be an absence of properties. — RussellA

This presumes EPP.

For Meinong, the lack of properties means the lack of any object, which means the lack of any property. — RussellA

Really? He allows predication on nonexistent 'objects' such as Santa. The whole point of this topic was to explore predication to things that lack existence.

But how can you know about the properties of a thing-in-itself if you have no knowledge of the thing-in-itself? — RussellA

I have clues and can glean a fairly good picture from incomplete access. Maybe. It is said that reality is stranger than can be conceived, and I get that. I am after a consistent model, not proof of any ding-an-sich.

Metaphysically speaking, how can we know something that doesn't depend on our mental abstractions? — RussellA

Two ways to parse that:
1) a brick hits me in the head. The brick does not depend on our mental abstractions, yet I know about the brick (presuming I'm not knocked out cold).
2) How can we know that something doesn't depend on our mental abstractions? This is the idealism vs physical-reality debate: Answer, we can't know since neither view can be falsified, even if there's significant evidence. Evidence and proof are different things.

I've seen some discussions with regards to whether math is "real" or just subjectively descriptive but extremely precise and so very useful — philosch

Human math is limited, but yes, very useful. The vast majority of actual real numbers out there (say the distance between the CoM of moon and Earth) is a value that is utterly inexpressible by any means other than the words I just used.

I can do 6th order differential calculus in my head, real time. Thing is, I do it with the fast efficient part of me, not the slow digital part that got educated by the schools. The hard math is done analog (sort of), not digital (again, sort of).

You've given me something to dig into further, I'm not sure what to think about this just yet. Very good stuff!

Why primes for cicadas? So the different species have as low as possible chance of coming out at the same time as some other species. Non-primes might have common factors, increasing the frequency of the overlap. We just had such an overlap by us a couple years back. Every 221 years, they both come out at once, but we have so few of the 13 year guys that I didn't notice the difference.

Re: Meinong's predication (OP), the definition I think is more useful – less ambiguous – in this context is (a) 'exist' indictates a non-fictional, or concrete, object (or fact) and, by extension, (b) 'existence' denotes the (uncountable) set of all non-fictional, or concrete, objects (and all facts). I'm open to any definition more useful than mine — 180 Proof

'Fictional' already begs an existence state. 'Concrete' leverages E2 (epistemic definition) or E4 (relation to same).

Meinong seems to allow predication of nonexistent things, but he still sorts stuff into existing and not existing (fictional for instance). Per the argument in my OP, I'm unconvinced that such sorting is a valid thing to do. I guess it is since 'existence' seems defined as a mere relation, but what if we're the fiction of something that actually exists? How would we know that?

Why doesn't a definition have a truth-value? — J

Don't see how it could. I defined 'EPP' in my OP. That's a definition since I could not find an official term for the principle. Is 'EPP' the correct term? It might not be what is used elsewhere, but it's not wrong.

If two people have different definitions of some word they're both using, they will end up talking past each other, but with neither of them being wrong.

So do you agree with my claim that the term is meaningful if and only if arguments over the meaning of existence are meaningful? — Leontiskos

Hard to parse that, but you're apparently claiming that the meaningfulness of arguments is what makes a definition meaningful. Not sure if I can agree with that since no argument is necessary at all if ambiguities are dispelled by careful wordings.

I assume we agree that by removing the word “exists” you did not remove the concept of existence from the proposition.

Not removed, just worded more carefully for clarity sake.

I don’t think Quinian Actualism is defensible.

I had to look that one up. It all seems to be a bunch of synonyms that are not clearly distinct. X exists. X is being X. X is real. X is actual. X is. X relates to ...
These are all supposedly different, but the exact distinctions are rarely spelled out.

Sure, but I would want to remember that we can always think of a definition of "exists" in which that proposition is made either true or false. But if our definitions are arbitrary then it makes no difference,

Definitions should never be arbitrary. They're sometimes context dependent. The dictionary is full of words that have different meanings in different contexts,. but 'X exists' needs more context than that.

I don't know what you mean by a proposition being 'made true/false' as opposed to it just having a truth value, known or not.

For an example of an arbitrary definition, we could say that "exists" means "able to be conceived," on which definition it is false that <Numbers do not exist in the same way that tables exist> (given that both are able to be conceived). But again, arbitrary definitions are of no help in resolving real questions.

That did not seem to be an arbitrary definition. It was 1) specifically chosen so that the proposition could be false, and 2) it was far less ambiguous than the usage of the term in the thesis posed. BTW, your definition was very close to the one I chose for the same purpose, and it is quite an idealistic definition.

Suppose two scientists are arguing over whether the Northern White Rhino still exists (which is at least an endangered species). The thesis in question is <The Northern White Rhino exists>. — Leontiskos

Different thesis since the whole temporal reference has been dropped.
The thesis <There is a living NWR presence on our Earth at some implied moment in time>, which leverages a specific definition of 'exists', and there plenty of alternative definitions, as you seem to point out. So I left the word out of my version of the thesis statement.

I looked at the reading group thing. Interesting, but better to participate in parallel while it's going on and not a month later.

I get the prime number claim but is that really a predicate that is outside of the human notion of prime numbers? — philosch

I use it as an example of a real predicate. It can be (and is) independently discovered (and not invented) by anything with rudimentary math skills. It, like Fibonacci numbers is found in nature. A pine cone always has rows and columns that number a pair of adjacent Fibonacci numbers. There are many species of cicadas that come out every X years, and the various species have various cycles, but the cycles are always prime numbers (and for a reason). The 17 year ones are numerous where I live now, but we have some 13 year ones as well. Cicadas rely on a real predicate of some numbers being prime that has nothing to do with human concepts. I actually don't know the purpose served by the Fibonacci thing, but it's found in so many places. It has something to do with being an integer approximation of the golden ratio (another non-human-ideal predicate).

<Numbers do not exist in the same way that tables exist>

Does that proposition have no truth value? noAxioms? — Leontiskos

The obvious answer being 'yes', so I instinctively look for some definition that allows them to exist in the same way. Both are arguably mental assessments. That's a similarity, but the former is arguably not just that, so I still fail.

When two philosophers offer two different accounts of existence, it is hard to discern who is correct (if anyone).

I care little about who is correct. I picked a position where predication does not require existence (with 'exists' not clearly defined). I am looking for a contradiction arising from that premise, a contradiction that does not beg the principle that such cannot be the case.

I can think of several definitions of 'exists' that one might use, but some possibilities:
E1 "Is a member of all that is part of objective reality"
E2 "I know about it"
E3 "Has predicates"
E4 "Is part of this universe" or "is part of this world"
E5 "state X exists to state Y iff X is part of the causal history of Y"
E6 "existential quantification", where 51 is not prime because there exists an even divisor that is neither 1 nor 51.

There are probably better wordings.
E1 is kind of an objective wording, and 17 being part of that seems to come down to Platonism. There seems to be no way to test for E1, rendering it pretty useless.
E2 is idealistic, and essentially solopsistic, but not necessarily non-realist.
E3 is a converse of EPP. Santa exists then? Unclear since it isn't clear if Santa can be fat.
E4 is closely related to E2 in that reality is what we see/infer and not what something else sees. Yet when asking if the northern white rhino exists, it seems to be an E2/4 sort of question.
E5 is relational (as opposed to objective) and applies only to states within a causal structure. So 17 doesn't exist, not being part of a causal structure. E5 has nothing to do with epistemology.
E6 is like E1, but just a different set than 'reality'.

E7: I welcome other definitions to add to the list.

It's a bit like saying, "The Riemann Hypothesis has no obvious truth value, therefore ..."

Why does the truth value need to be obvious for there to be a truth value?

It seems, that the word "prior" is not the correct word in relating the existence of something with the properties it has. Perhaps the phrase should be "existence requires predication"? — RussellA

Different answer: Anything requires predication, since a lack of properties is itself a property, and a contradictory one at that.

But what do we mean by "properties". You raise the problem as to how we can know something that is outside our experiences. — RussellA

A thing having a property is an entirely different subject than something's knowledge of a property. Whether the property is conceived of or not seems off topic.

However, you present an impossible task when you say "Good point, as long as "properties isn't confined to your experience", in that how can we discuss something that we have never experienced.

Given that abstraction is itself experience, I agree. Talking about something is experiencing it, or at least experiencing the abstraction of it the same way that we experience only the abstraction of something that actually (supposedly) exists.

Kant made the point when he said that we cannot discuss things-in-themselves, as they are the other side of anything we experience. Something outside our experiences is an unknown, and if unknown, we cannot talk about it.

Kant's concludes the ideals (the experience) is all there is, and all that is talked about. So fine, abstract something, and talk about that, but with the realization that it's not the experience that's the subject being discussed, only the means of doing so.
Going down this path is once again why the disclaimer is there in the OP. I see no productivity to it.

I have zero experience of Santa, yet I can discuss Santa and his properties. I have experience of say an image of Santa, but the image is not Santa, nor is either the image or the experience of it the subject of the discussion..Properties of Santa are not properties of either the image nor any of my experience.

We only know about properties because of our experiences. Because we have experienced the colour red, we are able to talk about the property of redness.

I can talk about colours that I've not experienced. There's plenty of colours out there that say a bee can see but we cannot. Point is, I don't see personal experience limiting what can be discussed.

A property is a description in language of something we have experienced. A property is not something that exists independently of the human mind in the mind-independent world.

We definitely differ in this opinion. I do not define a property, nor existence, in any anthropocentric way. Human (solipsistic) epistemology works that way, but not metaphysics.

I have admittedly been slow to reply to the topic as I am busy looking up pages and trying to not just give flippant replies without thought.

Things that exist I would say have real predications and fictions which are constructs of the mind have predications also, but those predicates are every bit the imaginary construct that the fictional object is. — philosch

OK, but this concerns mental abstractions, something I am trying to exclude per the disclaimer at the bottom of the OP.

Sure. abstractions themselves have predications, as potentially do the things being abstracted. But I am trying to avoid any anthropocentric definition of existence that centers itself on human epistemology and/or experience.

That said, an apple being an apple is a mental construct, as is its redness. It is actually difficult to identify a predicate of anything that is free from human abstraction. OK, 17 is prime, and while being a human discovery, it is not a human designation/predicate.

Santa is another case: Existing only as a mental construct and not in any way that is free from contradiction. Santa is not a possible thing AFAIK, so any predicate of Santa seems necessarily to be a reference to an ideal, not to a Santa. I acknowledge this unavoidability.

Thank you for your input. I have to agree with much that you post.

(à la Meinong)^ — 180 Proof

This got me down the pipe of sosein vs sein. Still not sure if I get it since the difference seems to hinge on a prior agreed state of existence or not, but nobody seems to have answered how that distinction might be made. Who am I to declare the unicorn to not exist? Pretty sure the unicorn doesn't consider me to exist either, so we're even on that score.

A typical sein statement might be "Bob is hungry", which apparently translates to "There exists an x such that x is hungry" which seems to invoke a sort of existential quantification definition of 'exists'. But that definition seems to mean "x is a member of some implied set", a relation.

That is, apart from usefulness in laying out a metaphysics, is there a truth of the matter? — J

I suspect no truth of the matter, and the best one can reach for is utility (usefulness). I am trying to explore the options since I find little utility in the typical realist position.

Joe offers a particular doctrine about existence, Mary offers a different one. Is there anything either can appeal to, in order to determine whether one is correct? — J

That I can answer with 'no'. Yes, there might be a truth (maybe), but if there is one, is there a way to determine it? I think not since multiple valid interpretations will always be avaliable. The best appeal one can make is to logical consistency and simplicity.

What does prior in "existence is prior to predication" mean? — RussellA

It seems to mean that predication requires existence. The rejection of the principle that says this is what I'm trying to explore here.
If this holds, the existence itself is not a predicate, but if it doesn't hold, then yes, it becomes just another predicate.
Your SEP quote seems to answer your question, but the temporal definition is not the one being leveraged here.

...The first is Hume and Kant's puzzlement over what existence would add to an object. — SEP - Existence

With the EPP, existence becomes redundant and adds nothing to a statement. Without EPP, existence needs to be more clearly defined to have meaning, but it seems to be inherited. Existing parents beget existing children, but nonexistent parents beget nonexistent children. The two worlds seem disjoint, but other than that, there seems to be no obvious way to tell the two worlds apart.

It cannot be the case that an apple exists and at a later time the property "is red" is added.

Got news. Apples turn red after a while and don't start that way any more than I started out as cynical.

We can only know about the existence of something in the world by observing its properties.

OK, but I'm not really concerned with knowing about something's existence since I'm not using an epistemic definition of existence. I'm explicitly avoiding it since it's a different path.

In what way does the existence of something take precedence over its properties, when that something cannot exist without properties?

Good point, so long as 'properties' isn't confined to your experience. This is a good quote for something like aether theory or Russel's teapot. It has properties, sure, but none of them are experiential.

Looking at it the other way round, in what way do the properties of something take precedence over the existence of that something, when there would be no properties if that something didn't exist?

This statement doesn't follow if EPP is not presumed, and I'm not presuming it here.

Perhaps the phrase should be "existence requires predication"?

Which gets me hunting for a counterexample of something existing, but with no properties.

Being an apple is a predication in the same way that being red is a predication. — RussellA

Agree. Not-being also seems to be a predicate, so it is true that I am not batman, but not true that Santa is not batman, at least if EPP holds

Should one say existence is prior to predication or existence is contemporaneous with its predication?

You're contrasting this with 'prior', right? It is not an assertion of temporal ordering. That just means that predication cannot apply to a nonexistent thing, not that the predication has some sort of temporal confinement to the duration of the existence. Some things don't exist in time. Is 17 prime? EPP says only if 17 exists. 'Contemporaneous' says only during times that it exists, a fairly meaningless concept.

Meinong says 17 is prime, period, regardless of its ontology. Santa is fat. Prove Meinong wrong.

It was invented by Albert Einstein. — Arcane Sandwich

Invented or discovered? Maybe a quibble, maybe not. — RogueAI

Neither invented nor discovered. It was popularized by him, but it was there before him. Poincare for instance said it before Einstein did.

The formula is a special case since energy is frame dependent.
A more general version is E = mc²/√(1-(v²-c²))

Thesis
I think that the formula is true.

Lead in
Do you agree, or disagree with it? — Arcane Sandwich

Do I agree that you actually think what you claim to think? Seems to be a shallow question.

The truth of the formula seems to be related to the working of our physics and not something objectively true, the way the question is worded.

Most people intuit why you would multiply a Time by a Speed. That makes intuitive sense. Why a mass? — flannel jesus

mv is momentum, something reasonably intuitive. KE is half mv², which is also intuitive to some, and is the same units as the mc² thingy. But those two formulas (momentum, KE) are newtonian concepts that work only at low v. c is not just another speed, but a universal constant, and mc is not the momentum of a rock moving at light speed. So we're back to exactly what you're trying to convey: What does mc² mean anyway? People (without understanding) say "ooh, that explains why such a big bang when mass is converted to energy", since c seems to be a pretty big number. But in natural units, c is 1, reducing the formula to E=m which doesn't sound very bangy at all. Energy is proportional to mass, but has different units.

I didn't read the whole thread. After a whole page+ of posts I could not figure out what the OP was trying to say that was any deeper than "hey, the sum of 3 and 5 is said to be 8, do you really believe that?".

Quantum indeterminacy is irrelevant because at macroscopic levels all the quantum weirdness (e.g. quantum indeterminacy and superposition) averages out. — Truth Seeker

Only sometimes, but not the important times. There are chaotic systems like the weather. One tiny quantum event can (will) cascade into completely different weather in a couple months, (popularly known as the butterfly effect) so the history of the world and human decisions is significantly due to these quantum fluctuations. In other words, given a non-derministic interpretation of quantum mechanics, a person's decision is anything but inevitable from a given prior state. There's a significant list of non-deterministic interpretations. Are you so sure (without evidence) that they're all wrong?

Anyway, it's still pretty irrelevant since that sort of indeterminism doesn't yield free will. Making truly random decisions is not a way to make better decisions, which is why mental processes do not leverage that tool.

The program is not able to generate any other results — Fire Ologist

Neither are you. Only one choice can be made, free will or not.

Or you didn’t explain the distinction you see well enough for my thick skull.

Choice: Having multiple options available and using a natural process to select among them.
Free Choice: Having multiple options available and using a supernatural process to select among them.

It kind of comes down to your beliefs concerning the nature of your process. I have no idea why the latter renders one responsible for the choice made and the former does not. That makes no sense at all to me. It just sounds better. "Hey, the one is called 'free', so I must have it, right? Right??". The other one sounds compelled to me, despite the opposite being the case. The former is the thing in question making its own choices and the latter involves the thing being compelled by a demon that has possessed the entity, overriding what it would have otherwise chosen. That gives the demon free choice, but it takes it away from that which it has possessed.


I generally agree with most of what flannel jesus says. He knows how to apply physics to philosophical issues.

what does it mean to hand him to me? — flannel jesus

I think he means that he is essentially parroting the teachings of Schopenhauer in his reply. I wouldn't know, I don't know the teachings of almost any of the well known philosophers. The vast majority of them do not know how to apply physics to philosophical issues, even those that were around during the 20th century when so much changed.

We make voluntary choices (e.g. my choice to post on this forum was voluntary) but we don't make choices that are free from determinants and constraints (e.g. my choice to post on this forum was both determined and constrained by my genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences). Do you understand what I have said? — Truth Seeker

I suppose. A frog (or a banana) would have made different choices, even if positing if some sort of 'I' was one of those things makes no sense at all.

Please tell me more about the 4 different kinds of determinism. Thank you.

I actually came up with six, but the first four are the important ones.

1) determinism.as not-dualism
I googled 'determinism' and got this: "all events in the universe are caused by prior events or natural laws ". This is probably the primary definition used when asserting a dichotomy between determinism vs dualistic free will, the latter being defined as choices made by supernatural causes. The word, used in this way, seems to be a synonym for naturalism.
This sort of free will is required to be held responsible by any entity not part of the natural universe (God). It is in no way required for internal responsibility (to say society).


There are a couple that come from science, two from quantum interpretations, which is deemed deterministic if it doesn't involve fundamental randomness or 'god rolling dice' as Einstein put it.
2) Bohmian mechanics:
This is a hard deterministic interpretation that says that the universe is in a defined state at a given time (few other interpretations accept that), and that subsequent states yield one inevitable result. The state of the entire universe matters including future states since retrocausality is not ruled out. It posits hidden variables to resolve conflicts.

3) MWI
Everett's postulate is that a closed system evolves according to the Schrodinger equation, which is a fully deterministic equation. Thing is, this results in all possibilities existing, so technically an agent makes every possible choice, not just one.

4) Block universe
This view says that all events share the same ontology and thus there is no sorting into ontologically distinct categories of past, present and future. If all events exist equally, there is no way the evolution of events could be otherwise, thus every state is an inevitability.

5) Classical physics
Classical physics (Newtons laws, basic mechanics) is fully deterministic since all the equations are time reversible. There is no randomness to it anywhere. This one can be discounted because it has been proved that our universe cannot be fundamentally classical.

Edit: Wrong! Classical physics has actually been shown nondeterministic, hence should not be on my list at all.
Norton's dome is a demonstration of the indeterminacy of Newtonian physics.


6) Omniscience:
If there is an omniscient entity, then what it knows is technically an inevitability or the entity wouldn't actually be omniscient. The church has a way to explain its way around their assertion of these seemingly contradictory concepts, perhaps very similar sort explanation that discounts your suggestion above that choices made via naturalistic processes constitutes them being constrained, something with which I do not agree.

how can anyone say this yet to be determined thing called “choosing” is “doing the exact same thing” as anything else? — Fire Ologist

But you're implying that it must be the case that it is fundamentally different when you say "I see calling what the program does “choosing” as personifying the program". That was what I was balking at. Empirically, if I cannot see my opponent, I cannot tell if I am playing a human or not (hence 'doing the exact same thing'), so the usage of the word 'choose' is appropriate in either case.

In order for the program to make a move, it needs to have been given its programming; there need be no agent inserted into the program so that the chess pieces move.

All true of yourself as well. Besides, most chess playing programs don't move physical pieces, and if they do, it's an add-on (a sort of assistant), not part of the process doing the choosing (wow, just like yourself again).

Maybe the same is true for people. But then there is no such thing as choosing (because there is no agency).

Ah, so 'agency' is another one of these anthropomorphic words that is forbidden to other entities. I cannot base logic on such biases.

When a program is done calculating, it has no choice but to display the answer or make the move. Choice is something else than the calculations that might precede it.

Agree. The choice seems to be the result, possibly the output of the process, especially when it is cleanly delimited such as a chess move. A machine could choose not to display its choice of move, but that would be a bad choice since it would lose, so it seems optimal in most cases to make the move quickly. I can think of exceptions to that, but they're rare. A human is more likely to make that choice than a machine. I even witnessed exactly that a couple days ago.

I still don’t see a distinction between what a choice is, and what a free choice is.

Of course. You chose your definition that way.

But if we have the ability to make a choice, we must be a free agent in some sense.

Ah, you use the word 'free' despite the word having no distinct meaning to you. Why didn't you just say "we must be an agent'? You already put that word on the human-only list above. Now you say 'free agent' like that is distinct from just 'agent'. Be a little consistent if you're going to take this stance

For example, if I had the genes of a banana tree — Truth Seeker

Nothing can be illustrated by proposing a contradiction: 'if X was not X' is a contradiction. Unless of course you think there is a second thing that could 'be' either a person or possibly a tree or a shadow or whatever. Just trying to make syntactic sense of a comment like that. The wording implies a sort of bias of the existence of something that you are 'being', the same sort of implication of the lyrics "I wish that I could be Richard Corey" (Simon & Garfunkel), the latter of whom is a reasonably close neighbor of mine.

If aliens kidnapped me when I was a baby and placed on the surface of Venus, I would have died from the heat.

Better example. Not sure what it illustrates, but at least it's not a contradiction. The point being made is still illusive. Your choices are a product of those variables, yes. It is also a product of your reasoning, which is the variable that makes you responsible for them and doesn't make the shadow responsible for depriving a plant of sunlight.


Concerning your poll and why I didn't vote:

Could anyone have made a different choice in the past than the ones they made? — Truth Seeker

Unclear question. Are you asking if determinism is the case, and therefore the choice made (I don't believe there is a 'the past' as distinct from 'not the past') is an inevitability of some initial state of the universe? Or are you perhaps asking if the agent that makes a different choice is still considered to be the same agent as yourself? Or asking something entirely different?


About definitions: I have proposed a small list of definitions of 'free choice' as distinct from choice that isn't free. I've also claimed at least 4 different kinds of determinism, but have not listed them in this topic. You've not clarified which ones are what you're talking about or not.

If I had the genes of a banana tree instead of my genes — Truth Seeker

I answered that query as best I could. It makes no sense to ask (if X happened to be not-X, what would happen?). So of course a tree doesn't make the same decisions as a person, but I don't see how that's relevant to the topic.

I am trying to work out if anyone deserves any credit or blame for their choices.

Of course they do. Free choice is not needed at all for that. Common misconception. It is only needed for external responsibility (like responsible to some entity not part of the causal physics), but it is not needed to be held responsible by say my society, which IS part of the universe.

If the choices we make are the products of variables we didn't choose e.g. genes, environments, nutrients and experiences, then how can we be credited or blamed for anything?

Because it's not those variables that made the choice, it is how you process them into the chosen selection that matters.

The OP raises whether or not it's possible to 'change the past' of the actual world (i.e. retroactively making a choice different from the choice that already has been made) — 180 Proof

I didn't read it that way. No explicit mention of retrocausality, only the proposal that it might have possibly evolved differently from some given prior state. That answer is, as I said, a matter of interpretation. BTW, any non-local interpretation allows some retrocausality, but does not allow information to go back. So some occurrence might be a function of some event that has not yet happened (interpretation of delayed choice experiments), but a message cannot be sent to the past by such a mechanism, and to 'change the past' would seem to require the latter ability.

imo counterpart choices in 'parallel / possible worlds' are not relevant to the question at hand.

It is a different evolution of some same initial state. I find that relevant, but since that person in the other world is arguably not 'you', then 'you' didn't do the other thing. You can't both have chosen both vanilla and chocolate (twist is a third choice, not 'doing otherwise').

I have a science background, so I approach philosophy with that in consideration at all times.

What determines who chooses what? If the choices are determined by genes, environments, nutrients and experiences, are the choices free? — Truth Seeker

Are we free agents or are our choices determined by variables such as genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences? — Truth Seeker

Depends on one's definition of 'free'. A compatibilist would say yes even if physics is fully deterministic, but a compatibilist might have a completely different definition of 'free' than somebody wanting to rationalize a different view.
A better definition is 'not compelled by something not you'. Nothing in a deterministic universe compels a different decision than the one you want. Hence compatibilism.

OK, your second quote there implies that 'free' means at least "not determined by that list of variables", in which case probably not, but why in the world would you want that kind of 'free'? Sounds like a formula for horrible choice making.

If I had the genes of a banana tree instead of my genes, could I have typed these words? I don't think so.

Your genes influence your general makup (what you grew up to be), but are for the most part not consulted in any way for making a particular decision.
If you were conceived with banana genes, then you'd have grown up into a banana plant. But if your human genes were all suddenly switched into banana genes shortly before ordering ice cream, you'd probably pick the same flavor, and only later get sick and die because you are failing as a banana plant. Not a biologist, so I don't know how fast it would happen, but it would very much happen.

If I had the genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences that you have, would I not have typed your post and vice versa? — Truth Seeker

To me, that sounds like 'if nothing was different, then would anything different happen?'. What exactly is different when you say those words? You seem to have left nothing out. What is being swapped here?

What I am exploring here is whether our choices are inevitable or not. — Truth Seeker

This has to do with which interpretation of physics (if any of the known ones) happens to be the case. In some, yes, all inevitable.There are several definitions of 'determined' and several of them need to be not the case for the sort of 'free' that you seem to have in mind. Most non-deterministic interpretations are alternatively fundamentally random, which doesn't allow any more freedom than a non-random interpretation. Rolling dice is a very poor way to make decisions that matter, which is why there are no structures in human physiology that leverage natural randomness. And there very much would be such structures if there was useful information to be found in it. Evolution would not ignore any advantage like that.

I think a better way to think of it is that the real world is run by randomness constrained by deterministic processes. — T Clark

No idea what that means.

I never think we can clarify a human behavior at issue, like choosing, by analogizing this behavior with some other type of entity’s behavior (like a chess program). — Fire Ologist

I on the other hand avoid the anthropocentric view and broaden my list of examples in order to better understand. I find the chess program to be fundamentally no different than a human in this respect.

I don’t see any substantial distinction between a choice and a free choice.

I noticed, which is why you couldn't tell apart those two very different definitions of choice. I do see a substantial distinction, and so the word 'free' becomes meaningful, and not just redundant.

In your example of what the computer is doing before it makes a move, why call that a “choice” at all?

Because it met your definition of it. I explained how when I brought up the example.

It is operating on inputs to determine the only move it must make.

No, there are many moves that it can make, and it is not compelled to choose any particular one. It evaluates each in turn and selects what it feels is a better one, all the same steps that a person does.The action (the evaluation and the selection) influences the outcome, just as your definition requires. If the choice were compelled, the program would not have influence over the outcome and would thus be unnecessary and the move would make itself, and those chess programs would be ever so much faster, and then it would not meet your definition.

It is not choosing, but calculating.

False dichotomy. Calculating (pondering, whatever) is part of the process leading to the eventual choice. It is not this or that, but rather this that leads to that.

You said yourself its next move is determined just as it is for the other 19 identical programs.

Computers tend to work best with deterministic components, even in the face of a possible non-deterministic physics. There is no 'select randomly' instruction such as is utilized by the cat in my example above. Human physiology is similar in this respect. There seems to be no components that amplify randomness or otherwise produce output that is not a function of prior state.

There is no agent
...
I see calling what the program does “choosing” as personifying the program.

Ooh, anthropomorphism again. Apparently many words only apply to humans and not anything else when doing the exact same thing. The racists used the same tactic to imply that people not 'them' were inferior.
A chess program makes its own moves, so it very much is the agent in those selections.

A really good chess player is effectively calculating just as well, and his or her moves may not be choices either.

Are we changing the definition again? Does a bad chess player make some sort of actual choice when the good one has no agency or something? Your definition wording doesn't seem to support that.

Can you clarify the difference between a choice and a free choice

Well choice is as you define it: The thing in question needs to influence the outcome (be part of, (be the primary) cause of it, given the relevant variables in the input state.

Free choice (as typically defined) means that the primary cause of the outcome did not follow from physical prior state. There is way more than one definition of free choice, but that's a common one, and it is quite distinct from your definition.
The OP doesn't mention the word 'free' at all, but does mention "could have done otherwise" which is an informal alternate definition of it.

Present comes from our live perception happening now — Corvus

Actually it is impossible to perceive the present. You speak of the fairly immediate past, which is what is typically in our active perception at any given time.

You can only make choices for now.

Choosing is a process, and thus cannot happen in an instant, so choosing is spread out over some interval of time regardless of whether you assign unequal ontology to those moments or not.

Could anyone have made a different choice in the past than the ones they made? — Truth Seeker

Unless the universe (of determinant forces and constraints on one) changes too, I don't think so. — 180 Proof

Under any nondeterminist interpretation, one 'could have chosen differently', or even might not have faced the choice at all. It also works under some fully deterministic interpretations like MWI where all possible choices are made in some world.
The key seems to come down to the word 'anyone'. Is that person in some other world that chooses otherwise the same person as you? The answer to that is yes if you're the same person you were last week (different state of course), and no if there is no persistent identity, in which case it is hard to argue that anything makes a choice at all.

Yes, I agree with you on this. If we're right, it seems to me the whole question of free will vs. determinism becomes trivial, pointless. — T Clark

1) Determinism has little to do with free will since the typical definition of free will doesn't become free if randomness is the case instead of determinism. Determinism also has at least 4 different definitions, so that is also unclear.
FW seems to be central to the dualist argument because they way choices to be made by a supernatural agent despite the fact that neither deterministic nor random physics supports that.

Would you like a bit of sloppy toppy Frank? — flannel jesus

Not sure what sloppy toppy is, but it sounds like a bonus they put on your hot chocolate.

OK, I looked it up. Way off.

A choice, by definition, has to involve multiple variables and a deliberative agent whose action influences the outcome among those variables. — Fire Ologist

That's a different definition, and one with which I agree. From that definition, this doesn't follow:

If I “cannot make a different choice” then there is no choice. — Fire Ologist

For example, a chess program has countless variables to ponder (at some length), and has (is) a deliberate agent whose action influences the outcome. If there was no chess program, the action would not be taken, so the influence is clearly there.

But...

given 20 identical programs with the exact same initial state, each will typically do the exact same thing.
They have choice, but not free choice since they can consider, but not actually make a different move. Your assertion presumes not choice, but free choice, which has a different definition (the one the OP uses).

Now take Schrodinger's cat (and a presumption of say Copenhagen interpretation). Given 20 identical cats in boxes with the exact same initial state, about half will die and half not. The cat thus has free choice (could have done otherwise), but sadly has no actual choice (no deliberate agency in the outcome). See the difference? One can have neither, both, or one but not the other.

You seem to be attempting to combine the two into one, with no distinction between the cases, in which case choice and free choice do not mean different things.


The OP (where's he gone?) seems to be leveraging the 'could have done otherwise' definition, not the definition you give, a 'deliberate selection from multiple options'.

Maybe the last word of this post has been predicable for ten thousand years.

I assure you otherwise. Too many people equate 'deterministic' with 'predictable'. The former is interpretation dependent (metaphysics), and the latter is very much known, and is part of fundamental theory.

Past cannot be changed, so you couldn't have made different choices for the past. But you are free to make choices for now and future. — Corvus

This presumes an ontology where events are sorted into past, present, and future. Fine and dandy, but sans an empirical difference, I don't see the point.

But that's one version of determinism: All events share the same ontology, which means the Corvus in 2026 is no more capable of making a 'change' (as the word is used above) as the Corvus in 2020.

The usage of 'change' also implies that some future event is one thing, but later that same event is a different thing. That syntactically makes no sense. It isn't change if it was never something different.