Are There Nonexistent Objects?

[@AntonioV42]

I would just bite the bullet on the "veil of conception" from 14:30. When I'm thinking about Frank Zappa, what I'm thinking about is the mental construct I have associated to the name "Frank Zappa" based on my prior mental experiences involving that name. Of course I believe this mental construct refers to an actual, existing person, but all I'm doing here is still relating a thought to another thought (my concept of what an "actual existing person" is). There is no escaping that.

[@xiutecuhtli15]

when we mistakenly say "a ghost opened the door", the ghost is part of our internal model of the world. i think that if something is part of a model, it makes sense to make statements about it within that model, or within that hypothetical. just like when we say "7 is prime" when maybe 7 isnt part of the universe. within the model of numbers, it is an object that exists, and therefore within the model of numbers, statements about it are defined. within our model of the physical world that we believe, there may be a ghost, in which case, within that model, statements about it are defined. a hypothetical or story is like a model. within the hypothetical world/alternative world model, like this one but with zeus in it, there are true/false statements about zeus. zeus is a thunder god, and Ǝx: x is a thunder god, and even Ǝx: x is zeus, are all true within that model. in our normal world model, they are meaningless or false instead, and i think the intended message behind "zeus exists", is probably usually meant in the context of the real world model, in which case it is meaningless or false. there is something special about an "x exists" statement. this statement to me seems to be saying that x exists in a particular model, not just generally. maybe the numbers model or maybe the concrete world model or something else. but physical objects aren't in models. instead the concept or model piece is in the model. and the concept of 7 or zeus is an actual existing thing in the real world, which means it can be referred to, so saying that "zeus exists" to mean "the model piece zeus is in this model" is not meaningless, just false, depending on the model. on the other hand, i think Ǝx: f(x) does not necessarily translate to "there exists an x such that f(x)" despite the fact that it is called/pronounced as that. it seems like a fact within the model instead of a fact about a model piece x existing in the model. also, i think "there is" and "there exists" in everyday language mean the same thing, but people can apply them in different ways if they want, and possibly i think "exists" is more likely to refer to the physical world model but each phrase has the same possible applications. for "sherlock is more famous than any detective": within the sherlock fiction model, perhaps he is canonically not very famous, and within our real world model, there is no sherlock. we could say "the concept or story or name of sherlock is well known" but that doesnt seem to work, especially if someone says "sherlock is well known person". technically, the concept/model piece of sherlock is what is well known, and maybe that is what we mean. they are still calling this piece a person when it is not, but honestly something seemed not quite right about the sentence calling sherlock holmes a well known person. it seems like calling him a person and calling him well known are meant/felt in two different ways and anything calling the model piece a human would inevitably not match our intentions. so existing is not the only thing that talks about model pieces. i think the cross-model examples also talk about model pieces in some way, and i think that is how they would naturally be interpreted. when you are scared of a horror movie ghost hurting you, within your imagined model it hurts you, and that fact in the model is a model piece that is in the real world, which causes you fear, and i think that is what we mean. the concept/thought/mental image of being hurt is the source of fear.

[@AlienFetus]

Kane, this is my area of research. Please do continue this line. I'd suggest what I also study: Richard Sylvan/Routley alongside Graham Priest. A video like this, focusing on one simplicial extrovertion, like the famed, tackled here, Jungle. I'd go with Noneism/something else.

[@AlienFetus]

Intentionality then can be tackled "against" intensionality via the hyperintensionals so eagerly investigated today. I'd go with Francesco Berto.

[@AlienFetus]

This could go, since we would be tackling "intention"-focused "metaphysics" with "intension"-focused metaphysics. Not really metaphysics in the analytic sense, but the framework of defense. I'm going with the book "Against Non-Being", where Priest makes a "defense" and "love letter" to intentionality.

[@AlienFetus]

This may lead into another video still tackling reverberances with people such as "constructals", a.k.a Ladyman, people who uso Homotopy Type Theory, for example. etc. May I ask you your specialisation? This seems part of it/it. Following you videos from beginning to end, I mean. Might be a considerable hobby-route, I mean, but I'd guess that'd be either this or philosophy of science focused on biology. What'd you choose primarily as of today? Thank you for the work. Appreciate it.

[@KaneB]

Yeah, I may revisit this. I've always really loved Sylvan's work, though I disagree with him about plenty of things.

[@KaneB]

@@AlienFetus I specialized in philosophy of science. I'm still very interested in that, but these days I'd probably say I focus more on general epistemology.

[@TheoEvian]

My PhD research I just defended in fantastical elements in modern Japanese literature used a lot of fictional world theory and I personally think that people like Lubomír Doležel (especially him), Umberto Eco (in Lector in Fabula) or Thomas Pavel dealt with these problems of existence of fictional beings quite well and I strongly recomend you having a look at it (even though I know you are quite well versed in modal logic). They would (mostly) say that Sherlock Holmes is a detective and does actually exist, just not in our world, but in the world of the book. Some of them might even say that there are many Sherlock Holmes's, one per story or a reader, each with a differing set of qualities (this comes in handy when dealing with adaptations of literary characters or with fanfiction). The nifty thing about fictional worlds as compared to Lewisian possible worlds is that they can be quite easilly stipulated as limited artistic constructs that do not extend beyond the scope of a book so we don't have to deal with all the bagage that modal realism typically contains.

[@whirled_peas]

I'll do you one better - objects don't exist, or at least they are merely conceptual and don't map to anything physical. Objects exist in the abstract of course, and the concept has come about to help our not-quite-monkey brains turn the soup of information that is the universe into meaningful patterns. But it doesn't matter whether they exist or not, an apple is no more real than the mental concept of an apple, Of course functionally one is more useful to us, but in terms of universal truth, they're both just essentially patterns of energy (whether mostly localised within a brain or otherwise).

[@JordanSmith-hh6rb]

"merely conceptual" bro ur brain exists

[@Catroll111]

​@@JordanSmith-hh6rbconceptual as in there is no real point in which a chair is a couch because we as humans define them , not the universe, they exist but the categorization is a concept

[@JordanSmith-hh6rb]

@@Catroll111 the point where it happens in ur brain is a real point

[@Catroll111]

@@JordanSmith-hh6rb tell me what defines a chair, what defines a couch, and imagine the "point" in which a chair is undoubtedly not a couch

[@JordanSmith-hh6rb]

@@Catroll111 sorry yes point is the wrong word, its a dispersed phenomena, but its still a material phenomena

[@italogiardina8183]

The flow of electric current (more precisely the flow of spaces where there are not electrons 'holes') that powers modernisation and its discontents that involve movement of particles (referred to as holes) entails that if I claim to circumnavigate the globe with an electric solar powered bike, I would have done so by the assistance of non-existent objects if movement of electrons are non-existent objects.

[@drdca8263]

Is the absence of an object a non-existent object?

[@italogiardina8183]

If a loved one dies then yes@@drdca8263

[@philosophicalmixedmedia]

@@drdca8263 yes, no, maybe

[@martinbennett2228]

A concept of unqualified existence is ambiguous. Unless existence is qualified as concrete existence, abstract existence, conceptual existence etc. tricks can be used, such as in the ontological argument that slide illegitimately from one type of existence to another. In a sense anything that has a reference or a descriptor exists as an idea, but this is almost a tautology because providing a reference or a description is the source of the existence of the idea. It also means that wrong ideas can exist as well (such as the idea that a whale is a fish). Often misunderstanding and disagreement can be attributed to unshared references and descriptors. I would also suggest a category of synthetic a priori non-existence such as 'square circle' where the definitions of square and circle are mutually exclusive (a line that is curved is not straight and vice versa).

[@drivoiliev1667]

I'm not sure, in a very abstract sense, why should we rule out all logical contradictions (i.e. a square circle, a whale that is a fish) as non-existent. Assuming the law of noncontradiction is useful for making logical arguments (at least as far as classical logic is concerned) but I don't see why we must take it as absolute truth about reality.

[@andrewsauer2729]

You can have a square circle if you're creative enough! In Manhattan geometry, all circles are squares.

[@drivoiliev1667]

​@@andrewsauer2729 That's kind of what I'm saying, yes. When one says that objects that are defined by logical contradictions don't exist a priori they subtly sneak an assumption that certain logical system is exemplified in reality. Just as we now know that the most intuitive type of geometry (Eucledian) is not exemplified in reality (meaning, it doesn't describe spacetime) the same could be true about logical systems.

[@scriabinismydog2439]

​​​@@drivoiliev1667​ well, you can go full nominalism in that case and simply claim that no logical system is strictly exemplified in reality, or at least, phenomenal reality. A formal logical system can be used as a tool to describe certain aspects of the thing as it manifests itself. Statements of the kind "a whale is a fish" do not explicitly assert the existence of such objects, they express a property relation between two objects which needn't to exist a priori in order for that relation to be expressed; (one can easily assert a property relation between both non-existent objects and hypothetical ones). A category of impossible objects is useful for creating a consistent ontology; if any virtually constructible object is also actually possible then you're basically playing LEGO's with ontology: there's no categorial and/or quantitative limit to what may exist (there is a qualitative one however and that would be the expressivity of the language you're using to construct objects)... but this just sorta feels like idealism to me. You get caught up in a possible world where all possibilities are effectively actualized, even apparently contradictory ones... but you may as well be a dialethist or a trivialist at that point! I'm not saying it _can't_ be done, but as you point out, it's simply better to choose a logical system that's more apt at describing what (at least seems!) to really be _out there_, at least if you care more about epistemic fruitfulness than ontological constructibility; for example by adopting a 4-dimensional coordinate system to describe relativistic effects (I know, Minkowski spacetime is not a "logical system" but its formulation rests on first-order predicate logic!)... and by the way, classical deductive logic is extremely good at that: arguments by contradiction are extremely easy to formulate, are typically very intuitive and seem to be quite useful in describing what things "are". What I find to be tremendously interesting that's at stake here is the seemingly ineluctable emergence of negation as both a cognitive capacity and something else: is it always-already implicit in every object and/or proposition? In what sense can a negation be "real"? It surely isn't an object. Negation is quite different from contradiction; the notion of contradiction has to do with truth values (which of course aren't binary in system without the law of the escluded-middle), whereas negation seems to point to something more "primary" about the nature of our cognition.

[@scrobblesbyDJGunbound]

Hey Kane, did you know that the number of non-existent songs is greater than the number of existing songs? Hehe! Really glad to see you and Graham Priest together. I would be curious to see you address the approaches/paths that Priest followed when dealing with Eastern traditions - as a consequence of his investigations into these subjects. But one step at a time!

[@danwylie-sears1134]

I think the veil of conception is a genuine problem, just not an insurmountable one. When Priestly devised a method for producing dephlogisticated air, he was thinking about phlogiston pretty much the same way that Lavoisier thought about oxygen. We have theories, which really are about the world. Our theories posit the existence of objects, which we assume to exist in the world. Sometimes we find out that we're wrong. We have to give up two things: (1) the illusion of certainty about empirical fact, and (2) the illusion that our sentences are atoms that can be fully considered without considering the theories they're embedded in. When our theories are well supported, we think we know things; when our theories are correct we do know things. But we only have our theories and the empirical support for them. The only way to be certain that our theories are correct is to water them down so far that they don't say anything at all, beyond a re-statement of the empirical support. The two statements "the air in this jar will remain sufficiently dephlogisticated for the mouse to survive" and "there will continue to be enough oxygen for the mouse to survive" state the same empirical hypothesis about the world. They just state it using different theories. As long as the statement is confined to matters that both theories can handle adequately, you can have a true statement (in terms of its empirical content) that's embedded in a false theory. Embedding is flexible and transparent. You _can_ go meta, and paraphrase the statement in a way that explicitly acknowledges the uncertainly: "whatever theory A is describing by statement S, even if theory A fails overall, that's how the world is". But you never _have to_ go meta like that, just to talk about matters that the theory does handle adequately. You can even leave it somewhat vague which theory you're using, as long as the stuff you're talking about is within the area of overlap of what the theories handle adequately. If you describe an object as having a mass of 5kg with a precision of half a gram, and say that it's moving with a velocity of 2m/s in the x direction with a precision of a tenth of a millimeter per second, near the surface of Earth, you don't have to say whether you're working in Newtonian physics, special relativity, or general relativity. The difference is orders of magnitude smaller than the precision, so you can ignore it. Not only can you decline to say which theory you're using, but you can just talk about the object as though each sentence were an atom, unembedded in any theory. That doesn't mean that there is no embedding going on, just that you can do ordinary discourse without doing philosophy first -- which is as it should be.

[@danwylie-sears1134]

By saying "the round square is ...", and treating the whole sentence as an intelligible statement instead of denouncing it as word salad, we're indulging a vague toy theory in which it's postulated that something can be both round and a square at the same time, and we're accepting a promissory note for the clarification of how some predicates in the theory can reasonably be labeled with the words "round" and "square". Because embedding is flexible and transparent, we can do that for the sake of argument, even while suspecting that no such theory will be interesting or useful. (By the way, it seems as though the most natural interpretation of "the round square" is as a right circular cylinder whose diameter is equal to its height: round in one plane, and square in any plane perpendicular to those. That's boring, and it stretches the usage of "square" beyond reasonable comfort levels. But it's coherent.)

[@RigoVids]

To resolve the intial discrepancy is to clarify that the idea of nonexistent objects may exist but BY DEFINITION, nonexistent objects don’t exist. Only the conceptual form, which doesn’t not qualify as true existence, exists, not the actual object itself. This creates a discrepancy of hierarchy of perception where a true world exists outside our minds, however I think this more comes down to our ability to create prescriptive words which are applied beyond their capabilities.

[@davidbrightly3658]

Nice talk! Do you know the work of Ed Zalta's Metaphysics Research Lab at Stanford? Has a nice treatment of nuclear/extra-nuclear properties.

[@PeridotFacet-FLCut-XG-og1xx]

Not sure if this contributes to anything, but I sometime think about statements like "cats are mammals" as conditionals like "If cats exist, they would be mammals". Hypothetically, a meteor could strike the earth and effectively exterminate all life including cats. The conditional statement is still true even after all cats have gone extinct. Likewise, "If Sherlock Holmes exists, he would be a detective"

[@danwylie-sears1134]

Taking that approach means you need an account of counterfactuals, which often gets framed in terms of whether various possible worlds exist. If you just go by ordinary formal logic, if-then statements are automatically true whenever the if clause is false. Under that analysis of conditional statements, the meteor would make "cats are birds" also turn out as true, which we don't want. You can talk about counterfactual statements in ways other than the existence of possible worlds, of course, but I'm not sure it's easier than clarifying the various senses of "exists", "there are", and similar terms.

[@cliffordbohm]

I propose that everything that anyone thinks of does exist. I argue that something like Zuse exists as a figment of someones imagination that corrilayes to a god (a very powerful person). Holms exists as a finctiinal character. When you say holms is the most famous detective, the fact that holms is a fictional chatacter is assumed (or perhaps not adsumed is someone is under the mistaken assuption that holms actually was a real person). Moreover, the figment of thought in both cases that exists in the mind, corrilates with some state in a brain, and that stateful stuff that represents thes ideas is real but in no way, convays realness (real existance?) to thes imagianry objects.

[@TheNaturalLawInstitute]

(a) like most sophistry in what passes for philosophy, it's predicated upon abuse of and ignorance of grammar, framing, and the ignorance of the sciences. (b) objects exists, referents need not. We use references to address referents whether existential or imaginary. As far as I know philosophy like theology is largely out of date in such cases, as between neuroscience, cognitive science, now AI, textual and verbal analysis, behavioral econ, and testimony in dispute resolution in law, we do understand the working of the brain and mind, and it is quite simple - if one possesses the knowledge of those disciplines. This is the 'scienced' version of Kane's usually quite exceptional philosophical prose.

[@horsymandias-ur]

I have limited confidence in claiming so (since I am not a specialist in the listed field), but my mother is a practicing pediatric neurologist, has been for over 20 years, and her testimony might be in tension with yours. It is her perspective that neuroscience is still greatly lacking in explanatory power, and that a good deal of her practice consists in a sense of utility of the techniques/practices/medications involved, but that the knowledge ends there (and maybe this is a moot point if you think the only point of theories is to predict rather than explain). My father is an ER doc + toxicologist and he has great knowledge of how to keep one from dying but there is still a great lack of a *positive* theory of what consists health… Kane has a video on dietary nihilism (an extension of thoughts regarding medical nihilism) that I think explicates some of the thoughts of the more pensive medical professionals/specialists

[@horsymandias-ur]

-though I would like to add that, Yes, I think modern philosophy seems to lag behind the other fields over which she has historically been queen #slay #slayqueen

[@TheNaturalLawInstitute]

@@horsymandias-ur Yes, but this remains a problem in neuroscience, that is not present in those of us working in artificial intelligence and cognitive science for decades. An operational description of the brain is quite simple including the six major circuits, as is explaining the origin and constitution of all experienced phenomena. But, that is different from 'fixing' broken people. Why? because while, like in all descriptions we can categorize the underlying complexity, that underlying complexity (meaning the current set of relations between neurons , axons, and dendrites) is, as is the relations between episodic memories and their components (locations, places, spaces, objects, almost certainly permanently unmeasurable. We can't even introspect upon our artificial neural networks which operate at a much more abstract level of precision. So there is as much difficulty with examining the brain at the very small as there is with the rest of the universe at the very small for the same reason: instrumental limitations.

[@marcomoreno6748]

​@@TheNaturalLawInstitute we've had definitive ai since the 1600s. So I immediately cringe at anyone claiming to work in "AI". The problem is the former is a hyperobject. It's existence is unapparent to anyone but those who study it rigorously. Even then, it's through the oculus apparatus.

[@marcomoreno6748]

*much like climate change. The shape and size of the Earth is almost a hyperobject.

[@BzBuck]

Can the titular question just be solved by explaining basic semantics

[@Mai-Gninwod]

31:18 I would say there is a difference. I can think of the apple as something that I know is really somewhere in the world. Not just some apple I have conjured up

[@lucio_a]

Can't we just extend Russell's description ad infinitum to always get a valid one?

[@InventiveHarvest]

The concept of extra-nuclear property is a good example of how to make a degenerate research programme - excluding ideas by definition instead of incorporating the ideas in a way that progresses the programme.

[@KaneB]

Yeah. There are other strategies for dealing with the problem but they all feel to me like epicycles that involve drawing arbitrary distinctions.

[@InventiveHarvest]

@@KaneB it seems like a modal approach would work - if we are talking about the mathematical world, then 2 exists. If we are talking about a fictional world, then Sherlock Holmes exists.

[@tudornaconecinii3609]

31:00 the first thing that immediately came to my mind was, I imagined the first as an apple, and I imagined the second as an apple followed by its geographical coordinates. Truly, the map is not the territory XD.

[@KaneB]

Imagine a spacetime containing an apple, now imagine an existent spacetime containing an apple...

[@tudornaconecinii3609]

@@KaneB So like, this is the thing, right. Seeing both sentences, my imagination immediately goes to possible world stuff, where the first thing I imagine within possibility and the second within actuality. If they're presented separately, then sure.

[@KingJorman]

The question assumes as a basis that there are existent objects. But that is a mistake. There is only a seamless universe, and individual objects are human nervous system parsings of that seamlessness. From that perspective, the answer to the conundrum at hand is resolved.

[@drdca8263]

Can we maybe suppose that there is both a legitimate and reasonable sense in which it is true that “there are no non-existent objects”, and also a legitimate and reasonable sense in which it is true that “there are non-existent objects”, without these two claims contradicting, because of the words being interpreted in different ways?

[@Manigo1743]

How about objects that did at some point exist, but don't anymore? For instance you could own the only copy in existence of a stamp, and that stamp will have some properties like color, size, denomination etc. If you then were to burn that stamp, so it doesn't exist anymore, you could still talk about it and its properties just like it did exist. Would this be a nonexistent object? Is there a difference between objects that don't exist and objects that can't exist? The stamp clearly doesn't exist, but it could. In fact it did exist at some point. Does nonexistent mean that it doesn't exist now or does it refer to any point in time?

[@peterkeleher]

Meinong's Jungle is a good band name

[@ostihpem]

I have not seen the video yet but the title alone is provoking me to say: you simply cannot talk about non-existing objects in a consistent way. Like the object z & ~z does not exist and you cannot say anything about it, but the statement "z & ~z" is an existing object we can talk about and therefore the first part of this sentence made sense because it is talking about the statement as an object.

[@micell826]

Sometimes I worry that I'm wasting my life. Then I remember there are ppl debating whether there are nonexistent objects.

[@uninspired3583]

Lol debating? We have a bloody history of killing each other over these things

[@metaphonyenjoyer4386]

If it brings a person meaning and joy then it isn't wasting. Productivity isn't the only "proper" way of spending time

[@DomLaBeau]

Congratulations. You’ve let your material culture completely beat every curious and inquisitive muscle you had left. You are now a level 10 consumer. Accepting everything everyone tells you, because “that’s simply the way it’s always been, and there’s no use asking questions”

[@uninspired3583]

@@DomLaBeau religion isn't about asking questions. It's about giving made up answers to questions we can't deal with.

[@DomLaBeau]

@@uninspired3583 This video discusses philosophy, not religion.

[@einwd]

when the scope of your vision is broad enough everything non-existent turns out to exist.

[@tovialbores-falk3091]

Wdym?

[@einwd]

@@tovialbores-falk3091 God will turn out to exist when you look through your perceptions and look further and further but by then it doesn' matter

[@einwd]

You see peter hitchens is quite right actually

[@tovialbores-falk3091]

@@einwd I'm sorry I still don't understand. How do we look past our prescriptions and why won't it matter?

[@einwd]

@@tovialbores-falk3091 You just "acknowledge" that your "perception" isn't complete and doesn't make a complete difference,and either build up a higher perception or remove all perceptions so you can just melt and roam around the supernatural and your psyche

[@CMVMic]

I will disagree. Saying there is something does not imply its existence for e.g. An event can be considered the behaviour of an existent. If thoughts are events of existents then thoughts dont exist. Also, Meinongianism seems to assume platonism if it is inferred that properties exist.

[@Siroitin]

And still the nonexistent object moves you?

[@CMVMic]

@@Siroitin I am part of a single event that is grounded in the substance of reality.

[@CognitiveOffense]

How long does existence endure? I recently imagined a thing that did not exist, thereby granting imaginary existence. However, I've since forgotten everything about that idea and am left only with a pointer to it once having existed for a bit.

[@cunjoz]

no. thank you for coming to my ted talk

[@GottfriedLeibnizYT]

To be is to be a value of a variable.

[@smdb5874]

Commenting for engagement.

[@onion4062]

why can't talk of 'non-existent' objects be about objects that exist in other possible worlds? like "Sherlock Holmes" refers to the entity Sherlock Holmes in some other possible world

[@91722854]

are nonexistent object contigent on objects that do exist?

[@KaneBsBett]

What about this argument from an ontological pluralist position to meinongianism: P1: There are different ways of being, one of which is to not exist P2: Some objects don't exist C: There are some objects that don't exist ?

[@legendary3952]

Begs the question doesn’t it

[@KaneBsBett]

​​@@legendary3952 Well begging the question is quite complicated. Some arguments clearly beg the question, others don't. If one of the premises of an argument is identical to the conclusion, that argument probably begs the question. But arguably our notion of question begging should be tighter than this. But not too tight, because that threatens all sound arguments becoming question begging. For my part I don't really give too much relevance to whether an argument is question begging. Rather, I identify the premises I disagree with and ask for further arguments.

[@legendary3952]

@@KaneBsBett yes I think the first premise has the conclusion in it. The rest u said was gibberish to me

[@KaneBsBett]

​@@legendary3952 How is the conclusion contained in the first premise?

[@legendary3952]

@@KaneBsBett _one of which is to not exist_ is just another way of saying some things don’t exist.

[@yyzzyysszznn]

I hate how wittgenstein never existed so we still have to treat these questions as meaningful...

[@KaneB]

This is never going to be Wittgenstein channel. This probably won't even be the "occasionally talks about Wittgenstein" channel. It won't be the Aristotle channel, the Aquinas channel, the Hegel channel, the Derrida channel, etc. either. If that's a problem, well, nobody's forcing you to engage with it.

[@yyzzyysszznn]

@@KaneB Fuuuuuuuuu

[@aaronhaskins9782]

excuse me, Zeus actually does exist, he was a real person, his grave is on Crete, he was a King that existed near or around the time of Abraham according to historical records.

[@MrAdamo]

Are nonexistent objects different from concepts?

[@silverharloe]

I'm 26 minutes in and instead of paying attention, my brain is busily trying to formulate a theory based on a predicate of fiction. Sherlock Holmes is fictional, so he does exist as a concept, but he eas never physically instantiated as a real person. We can even say that he came into existence precisely when Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about him the first time. At that point and thereafter there existed an x such that detective(x) and name(x, Sherlock Holmes) and fictional(x). Now because this is a Dr Baker video, I expect in the next 40 minutes to find out someone already developed this idea properly and it turns out to not be a good idea because of some list of flaws.

[@silverharloe]

watched a bunch more and would like to say that my fictional predicate does not lead to ontological promiscuity because it only admits existence of things which sapient beings have created in stories. also, if plain language is useful at all, there is a plain language understanding of the fictional predicate. "Sherlock Holmes only exists in fiction" is a coherent sentence most people would understand even though it asserts the existence of Sherlock Holmes. If I say "Sherlock Holmes doesn't exist" the listener would either ask what those nonsense syllables I started my sentence with mean, in which case my statement is true, or they would recognize the name but think I'm asserting that he is fictional. But if they recognize the object that I'm asserting is fictional, that's a kind of existence. Which is to say that I need to dig deeper and work out whether I think we can only communicate about existing ideas or not.

[@GregoryPrimosch]

As a philosophical amateur, I get frustrated by these arguments because the answer seems a question of unstated assumptions, but I lack the erudition to say if this is addressed by the arguments put forward. In the question of Sherlock Holmes existence, you could be saying something like “In the stories written by Arther Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes exists as a character” or you could be saying “in the physical world, Sherlock Holmes never existed as a real person”. Both answers are true once you define the context. The problem only arises when we use the word “exists” without defining the context.

[@GregoryPrimosch]

Sherlock Holmes is easy because he is physically non existent by definition as a fictional character. Zeus and ghosts are trickier because some people might believe they do physically exist, but you can always qualify your statements by clarifying your assumptions that they do exist. “Assuming that ghosts exist, a ghost opened that door” or “In the Greek myths, Zeus threw a thunderbolt”. Both statements can be true and refer to things that exist within the domain defined by the grounding assumptions. If your domain is the physical world, then it is not even certain that these objects are nonexistent, so the most you could say is you are uncertain.

[@GregoryPrimosch]

Some objects are conceptually impossible, and so cannot exist in any conceptual domain, such as a circle with vertices or percentages of a whole greater than 100%. In that case, you might confidently state that there are no objects that are nonexistent in all domains. For an object to be coherent, there must be some domain or set of grounding assumptions in which it makes sense.

[@JamesSmithereen]

My 5 year old daughter was crushed when you said there were no unicorns

[@JudeLind]

I feel so honoured to be the first view

[@einwd]

14 hours before upload

[@KaneBsBett]

​@@einwd Bro is cheating!

[@einwd]

⁠was it premiering?

[@JudeLind]

@@einwd I was just looking through his playlists and saw an unlisted video

[@KaneB]

@@KaneBsBettI usually wait a while before making a video public, because I want to check the HD processing and that advert placement. So I keep it unlisted, but those videos are visible on the playlists.

[@azophi]

Jesse what are you talking about No they don’t exist

[@bubblegumgun3292]

No, the answer no just because someone strings a incoherent string of nouns and adjectives doesn't mean they exist including in this plutonic sense

[@env0x]

Is literally literally literally?

[@rath60]

X is an idea. There is nothing in the world that satisfies X. Y is an idea. Y is a thing in the world. I'm not sure that to say there exist without saying to what set it belongs doesn't make sense.

[@InventiveHarvest]

The tao cannot exist because existence comes from the tao.

[@howtoappearincompletely9739]

That usage of the verb "king" sounds wrong. Is that Russell's original phrasing?

[@KaneB]

I honestly can't remember, but Russell's article "On Denoting" is available for free online, so you can check if you're interested. That's how it's often phrased in philosophy of language intros. But nothing important hangs on that phrasing, so we can just say: "there exists exactly one x such that x is present king of France" instead.

[@micahbelew8129]

Hi Kane, send you an email. Wondering if you received it. Thanks.

[@MrJamesdryable]

He received it.

[@immanuelchrist7482]

Rather listen to this than play a video game

[@KaneBsBett]

🦄🐉👽🕳️

[@Faehen]

All of thoose exist

[@horsymandias-ur]

Those literallt exist idiot

[@OBGynKenobi]

Well, what is "existence?" Also, "Zeus" is a mental state which can be objectively verified as real. So the idea of Zeus is real in that sense. But there is no tangible "Zeus." Here's an interesting question. Does the number 5 exist?

[@raydencreed1524]

No. There are no things which do not exist, only names which do not have things to refer to. Any definition of what it is to exist on which there are things which do not exist is just not a definition I’m ever gonna care about.

[@anoncentur]

There objective is there's no object

[@unitheverse5581]

memetics provides a simple answer. its a meme

[@luszczi]

Now this is what all clickbait should be: it's enticing, it's clever and I'm pretty sure it will deliver on the promise it implicitly makes.

[@andrechaos9871]

Maybe nothing exists at all...

[@t--w5203]

Yeah my girlfriend

[@EvenTheDogAgrees]

Sure there are. A sober Irishman over the age of 12, for one... 😂

[@privatecitizen4001]

So bill Clinton was right. It depends on what you definition of is is

[@chullupa]

The only nonexistent object is philosophys practical purpose

[@RogerCurtisFriddle]

Physics is philosophy.

[@KingJorman]

Ha ha

[@annaclarafenyo8185]

This is nonsense masquerading as thought. You need to learn real analytic philosophy, i.e. logical positivism, and then this nonsense evaporates.

[@KaneB]

I'm pretty confident that I've forgotten more about analytic philosophy, including logical positivism, than you'll ever know. But thanks for the advice.

[@annaclarafenyo8185]

@@KaneB You haven't learned anything, because your intuitions are not informed by actual mathematical training. That means you can use a word like "exists" without understanding that it doesn't have inherent meaning. The arguments about the existence predicate, and whether it is a predicate, are never substantive, as you cannot define meaning of such an abstract word without an "I do this, and then that happens" definition, and you don't know how to do that, because you have never been trained to think properly. Philosophy is not rigorous, mathematics is. Philosophy doesn't reason about the world successfully, physics does. Philosophy doesn't build anything, engineering does. So if you want to make your reasoning solid, you need to be familiar with technical knowledge. Your video is an hour of nonsense. I skimmed it, it was depressing.

[@annaclarafenyo8185]

@@KaneB Philosophy is trivial enough that it is impossible to forget anything.

[@KaneB]

@@annaclarafenyo8185Lol go away

[@annaclarafenyo8185]

@@KaneB Dude, just make a proper analysis. When you say "X exists" in science, you can mean "I can stretch out my hand and touch it", you can mean "I can examine a photographic plate on a telescope to verify it is there", "I can dig in the ground and find evidence that it left a trace in sedimentary deposits" or "I could build a gigantic accelerator which would produce it if I had infinity money". That's the scientific sense of "X exists". It depends on how you gather evidence. The word "exists" is ambiguous because it is complex, depending on the exact data you use to verify what it means. When you say "X exists" in mathematics, you could mean "I have a computable representation of X", or "I have a proof that 'X does not exist' is inconsistent with an accepted set theory", or "I have a feeling that X is consistent with the usual axioms of set theory". Those are three different meanings. When you say "X exists" in logic, you just mean a formal quantifier with formal quantifier rules. These senses are not compatible, and all the discussion of this video is taking one sense of "There exists" and conflating it with another, and showing that there is a paradox. Instead, you can discuss the actual meaning of "X exists", in the positivist sense: either you have sense data that leads to confirmation of the hypothesis of "X exists" (as in science) or you have computational or proof data that leads to the consistency of "X exists" with axioms, as in mathematics, or you are just talking about existence formally, without any sense behind it, as in formal logic. If you specify what you mean more precisely, all the paradoxes of this sort disappear, showing that they aren't deep, they are just manipulations of language.