Can we know that something doesn't exist?

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kennethamy
 
Reply Wed 17 Mar, 2010 01:57 pm
@de Silentio,
de Silentio;140628 wrote:
Maybe you should try to be a little less condescending. It is not very becoming nor a good way to represent this community.

Yes, phenomenologically if I think of the Spaghetti Monster, it exists as an object in a different way as the book that I am looking at. Just as the book I am currently looking at exists in a different way than than this other book that I am remembering. Do you deny that the things in my memories exists as objects of my thought? Like I said in my post, thought is composed of Act -> Content -> Object... Always. You cannot have an Act without a Content, nor a Content without and Act, nor a Content without an Object.

In phenomenology we speak of conscious relationships with objects, different objects have different types of relationships, or in phenomenological jargon, different ways of intending.


There is no condescension, just hard questions you may consider condescending. In just how many different ways do you think things exist? For example, do snakes exist in a different way from muskrats? How do you decide whether two different things exist in different ways or not? I am not sure what you mean by "things in my memory", but certainly I remember things. Do those things exist? Well, some do, and some no longer do. It depends on the things. But if I remember, for instance, having had a sled when young, then the memory exists (if that is what you mean). But the sled does not anymore. If you say something like, "the sled exists only as a memory", then what I understand you as saying is that whereas the memory of the sled exists, the sled does not exist. But there is no reason I can see for thinking that memories and sleds exist "in different ways". Which is not to say that memories and memories of sleds are not different. Of course they are. Lots of things are different from one another, but that is no reason to think that they exist in different ways from one another, just because the things differ from one another. To go back. Snakes and muskrats are very different, but why should that mean they "exist in different ways"? (Whatever that means).
 
mickalos
 
Reply Wed 17 Mar, 2010 09:08 pm
@de Silentio,
de Silentio;140407 wrote:
Phenomenologically, that unicorn you speak of exists as an object of your conscious thought and is thereby known to you. It's known and exists in a different way than, say, this book next to me, but it does exists.

If all conscious thought is composed of an Act, a Content, and an Identical Object in a relationship, then the conscious relationship You have with said unicorn is also composed of an Act, Content, and Identical Object. It seems to me that the content is known to you, an thus the unicorn's existence is known to you.


But when we deny the existence of unicorns, we are not denying something that exists in our heads or our consciousness, at least not in any ordinary use of these terms.

Thoughts certainly have content, but an identical object? I think not. I can think of a horse, and indeed I can think of particular horses that I have seen, which to have objects in the world that correspond to them. Similarly, I can think of winged creatures, and similarly, I can think of particular winged creatures that I've seen that also have corresponding objects in the world. As well as these, I can think of Pegasus, indeed I can think that Pegasus is flying over my house at this very moment; perhaps I'm conjoining simple components of other things I've come into contact with in my life in order to get my idea of him, it doesn't really matter how my idea of Pegasus originates, the point is I have it. Yet there is no object corresponding to Pegasus. Pegasus does not "exist as an idea/concept", because the content of my thought is not a concept or an idea; the content of my thought is a big horse with wings.
 
pondfish
 
Reply Wed 17 Mar, 2010 09:15 pm
@hue-man,
Question should be :

Can we know that something exist but actuality it doesn't exist?

Answer: you and 6 billion humans with beliefs(do not exist).

When beliefs do not exist then anything you manifest do not exist as well. Human thinks he exist , but he does not know he does not exist. Smile
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Wed 17 Mar, 2010 10:59 pm
@pondfish,
pondfish;140787 wrote:
Question should be :

Can we know that something exist but actuality it doesn't exist?

Answer: you and 6 billion humans with beliefs(do not exist).

When beliefs do not exist then anything you manifest do not exist as well. Hue-man thinks hue-man exist , but he does not know he does not exist. Smile


Good thing, because it isn't true.
 
melonkali
 
Reply Thu 18 Mar, 2010 01:30 am
@kennethamy,
kennethamy;132269 wrote:
If we know there are no unicorns, then we know there are no unicorns in some different galaxy.

All knowledge is also belief. We cannot know something unless we also believe it. But knowledge is not only a matter of belief, it is a matter of true belief, and it is a matter of justified belief. Why wouldn't you think that we have true justified belief that there are no unicorns?

Let me add that although I know there are no unicorns, it might turn out that I only believed I know there are no unicorns, but I was wrong. Of course, that goes without saying, since I am a fallible human being.

Hi, Ken. It seems to me that the sentence, "knowledge is not only a matter of belief, it is a matter of true belief, and it is a matter of justified belief," drastically conflicts with your sentence, "although I know there are no unicorns, it might turn out that I only believed I know there are no unicorns." According to the first sentence, it is impossible for you to be wrong if you know there are no unicorns.

Also, I am confused when you say that you "know there are no unicorns" because you earlier state that if "we know there are no unicorns, then we know there are no unicorns in some different galaxy." How is it that you can know there are no unicorns even in other galaxies if knowledge is, as you say, not only a belief, but also a true and justified belief? Given the vastness and diversity of the universe, I fail to see how you can have a knowledge consistent with your definition that there is no unicorn on any world around any sun of any galaxy in the whole universe.

If indeed you do contend that you can know that there are no unicorns anywhere in the universe, then I must contend that I know there are unicorns here on our planet earth. I'm sure that I can provide justification of the truth of my contention equivalent to the justification of the truth of your contention.

Samm
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Thu 18 Mar, 2010 06:23 am
@melonkali,
melonkali;140830 wrote:
Hi, Ken. It seems to me that the sentence, "knowledge is not only a matter of belief, it is a matter of true belief, and it is a matter of justified belief," drastically conflicts with your sentence, "although I know there are no unicorns, it might turn out that I only believed I know there are no unicorns." According to the first sentence, it is impossible for you to be wrong if you know there are no unicorns.



There is really no contradiction. I can believe that I know that p. And unless p is true, my belief that I know that p, is false. However, if I believe that I know that p, and it turns out that p is false, then my belief that I knew that p is also false. So, although it is impossible for me to know what turns out to be false, it is possible for me to believe that I know what turns out to be false.
Therefore, although it is impossible for me to be wrong if I know there are unicorns, it is possible for me to be wrong if I believe I know there are unicorns.

If indeed you do contend that you can know that there are no unicorns anywhere in the universe, then I must contend that I know there are unicorns here on our planet earth. I'm sure that I can provide justification of the truth of my contention equivalent to the justification of the truth of your contention.

But, if it is false (as it is) that there are unicorns on Earth, then how can you know that there are?
 
HexHammer
 
Reply Thu 18 Mar, 2010 06:28 am
@jgweed,
jgweed;132267 wrote:
Aristotle wrote that you cannot have a science (knowledge) of non-being.
Theory about super strings? Further the statement contradicts the secruity procedure of finding an intruder, in both military, spionage, IT ..etc.
 
north
 
Reply Thu 18 Mar, 2010 09:00 pm
@HexHammer,
we know that " absolute nothing " doesn't exist
 
Akeron
 
Reply Fri 26 Mar, 2010 01:05 pm
@hue-man,
hue-man;131923 wrote:
Can we ever be positively (not absolutely) certain that any particular thing doesn't exist?


In order for everything to be possible, the world would have to be in dynamic flux because in order for everything to be possible, no stable identities would be tolerable.

However, if this is true, then no proper concept can exist because the design of a concept is dependent upon the structure of of its designer. For example, what I conceive as a tree will be different than what you conceive as a tree because our minds are structured differently (whether existentially, essentially, or some combination).

Therefore, nothing that is imagined (or even observed since observations are influenced by structure) actually exists at all because every concept and every object is unique. Where the gray area lays is in pragmatic approximations. For example, it would be pragmatic to acknowledge that your concept of a tree and my concept of a tree are compatible.

However, the practical is not equivalent to the real, so this is a separate issue (unless we believe that reality is only made up of pragmatics, but that results in an infinite hierarchy of empty shells such that no concepts or objects "exist" in the first place beyond the effort exerted by imaginations).
 
SammDickens
 
Reply Fri 26 Mar, 2010 01:32 pm
@north,
north;140002 wrote:
we know that in the Universe absolute nothing does not exist

You got that right!

Samm
 
PappasNick
 
Reply Fri 26 Mar, 2010 01:32 pm
@Akeron,
Akeron;144143 wrote:
In order for everything to be possible, the world would have to be in dynamic flux because in order for everything to be possible, no stable identities would be tolerable.


Yes. As you imply with your comment about concepts, when everything is possible, nothing is possible, except perhaps at some sort of absolute moment, but then it is gone.
 
Akeron
 
Reply Fri 26 Mar, 2010 02:47 pm
@PappasNick,
Well, the point I made was that no two copies of the exact same thing can exist, and similarly (because of the role of structure as previously described), it's impossible for a concept to be the exact same thing as an object. Therefore, nothing we imagine actually exists, but rather only approximations thereof.

Regarding your statement, I'm not quite saying that nothing is possible, but instead, that no pure identities can be isolated. This is because, one, everything is always changing, and two, structure has a role in observation nevermind interaction and how observation always has the potential to be a form of interaction. For example, the double slit experiment and it's counterpart, the delayed choice experiment. As such, everything is possible, but what's impossible is the ability to identify an exact replication of what's imagined.

When inquiring about existence, the proper question is not, "Does this exist?" but rather, "What is the probability of something existing (over a certain area and time period) granted certain conditions?" Furthermore, because of how observation can interfere, we should also ask, "What are the optimal forms of detection and interaction which do not interfere with the target object's emergence?"

This should actually seem somewhat intuitive given the double slit and delayed choice experiments' reliance on electrons on how probability plays a role in quantum mechanics, for probability density if nothing else.
 
PappasNick
 
Reply Fri 26 Mar, 2010 02:52 pm
@Akeron,
Akeron;144195 wrote:
Well, the point I made was that no two copies of the exact same thing can exist, and similarly (because of the role of structure as previously described), it's impossible for a concept to be the exact same thing as an object. Therefore, nothing we imagine actually exists, but rather only approximations thereof.

Regarding your statement, I'm not quite saying that nothing is possible, but instead, that no pure identities can be isolated. This is because, one, everything is always changing, and two, structure has a role in observation nevermind interaction and how observation always has the potential to be a form of interaction. For example, the double slit experiment and it's counterpart, the delayed choice experiment. As such, everything is possible, but what's impossible is the ability to identify an exact replication of what's imagined.


Yes, I think we're largely talking about different things. The actual is not possible - it is actual. The possible is not actual - it is possible. Perhaps "potential" would bring out the meaning more. Your post encouraged me to think along these lines.
 
Akeron
 
Reply Fri 26 Mar, 2010 02:54 pm
@PappasNick,
Yea, I apologize for editing that post, but potential is related to what was added on at the end.
 
adampearson
 
Reply Wed 7 Apr, 2010 05:29 pm
@Akeron,
To me nothing cannot not exist, as if you think of it, then it MUST exist because of the existence of the thought creates the existence of it inside of your mind, prima facie everything exists that you can think of.

however within the material world things cant not exist because of the nature and structure of the world, there is only limited energy, this energy can only be transformed and is never created or destroyed. such creatures as unicorns and mytholigical creatures MUST exist in the mind as we have thought of them, however within the real world depends on our perception; did not the travellers who found the komodo dragon believe they had found a real dragon, which it is still classed as today. perhaps this concept has purely been taken to the next level and unicorns can exist in our minds and if we can imagine them then surely they must exist.
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Wed 7 Apr, 2010 06:49 pm
@PappasNick,
PappasNick;144199 wrote:
Yes, I think we're largely talking about different things. The actual is not possible - it is actual. The possible is not actual - it is possible. Perhaps "potential" would bring out the meaning more. Your post encouraged me to think along these lines.


The actual is not only possible,must be what you mean. Since necessarily, if if is actual, it is possible. On the other hand, of course, if something is possible, it need not be actual. Or, to put it more clearly, actuality implies possibility, but possibility does not imply actuality.

---------- Post added 04-07-2010 at 08:53 PM ----------

adam.pearson;149426 wrote:
To me nothing cannot not exist, as if you think of it, then it MUST exist because of the existence of the thought creates the existence of it inside of your mind, prima facie everything exists that you can think of.



The thought exists of course, if it is thought. But what is thought need not exist. For example, if I think of Santa Claus, the thought of Santa Claus thereby exists. But that does not mean that Santa exists. Do not confuse the thought of X with X. What exists in my mind is the thought of X, not X.
 
HexHammer
 
Reply Wed 7 Apr, 2010 07:36 pm
@hue-man,
To view this topic from a bit different view..

Isn't this excatly why most philosophy/philosophers in general are so little used in buisness, politics ..etc, because they endulge themselfs in utterly useless topics?
 
Pyrrho
 
Reply Thu 8 Apr, 2010 07:21 am
@HexHammer,
HexHammer;149455 wrote:
To view this topic from a bit different view..

Isn't this excatly why most philosophy/philosophers in general are so little used in buisness, politics ..etc, because they endulge themselfs in utterly useless topics?


Amateur online "philosophers" often do such things, and the bad ones among the famous tend to be useless.

However, your test is not a good one. Most businesses do not use theoretical physicists or those in very advanced realms of mathematics, either, so something not being used much in business does not mean that something has no value. And often these things give birth to other ideas later on that do show up in businesses at a later time. When Leucippus theorized that the world is made up of atoms, it was a useless idea. But it has proved extremely useful much later on.
 
HexHammer
 
Reply Thu 8 Apr, 2010 07:38 am
@Pyrrho,
Pyrrho;149567 wrote:
Amateur online "philosophers" often do such things, and the bad ones among the famous tend to be useless.

However, your test is not a good one. Most businesses do not use theoretical physicists or those in very advanced realms of mathematics, either, so something not being used much in business does not mean that something has no value. And often these things give birth to other ideas later on that do show up in businesses at a later time. When Leucippus theorized that the world is made up of atoms, it was a useless idea. But it has proved extremely useful much later on.
What Leucippus said was sientific, this thread doesn't seem sientific ..at all.
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Thu 8 Apr, 2010 07:47 am
@HexHammer,
HexHammer;149455 wrote:
To view this topic from a bit different view..

Isn't this excatly why most philosophy/philosophers in general are so little used in buisness, politics ..etc, because they endulge themselfs in utterly useless topics?


When someone confuses the thought of Santa Claus with Santa Claus, and then thinks that because the thought of Santa Claus exists, that Santa Claus exists, it might be useful to him to point out his mistake. Anyway, it is a mistake, whether or not it is useful to point it out.
 
 

 
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