Would you live in VR?

[robvalue]

Uhh...... okay!

And what is imaginary?

[Edwardo Piet]

Imaginary is when something doesn't exist outside your own imagination. So I can think up a bunch of stuff that isn't real, those things are imaginary.

[robvalue]

So... real is something that does exist outside your imagination?

What does exist mean? *brace*

[Edwardo Piet]

Existent things refer to things. Nonexistent things refer to nothing and aren't things at all. When something exists it is something. When something doesn't exist it is nothing at all.

Existent things are the only things. Some of those 'things' are merely imaginary things in your mind, the rest are real things. But both imaginary and real things are existent. All actual things exist. What would a nonexistent thing be like? Sounds to me like a "present absence". Lol.

[robvalue]

Existent things refer to things? I think we're getting self referential... what is a thing?

I'm not trying to be a dick. I genuinely think these are terms which can only be properly defined relatively rather than objectively, or after making question begging assumptions.

[Edwardo Piet]

You're not being a dick at all.

Not everyone defines existence or reality the same way and many philosophers disagree.

I think we can agree what "imaginary" means and I refer to "real" as the opposite of that.

I think many people would define "real" and "existent" as the same.

The way I see it is... when something exists it refers to something present, and when something doesn't exist it refers to something absent. I think that's a bit different to whether something is imaginary or real because your imagination itself can be present or absent too.

Does my imagination exist? Yes in the sense it is present, it is there. I have an imagination. But no in the sense that the totality of my imagination consists of the imaginary which is the opposite of 'real'.

I define a thing as a presence. So things are presences.

I think there are two categories of things: Real presences and imaginary presences. I think all presences exist but some exist in reality and some only in the imagination.

The confusing part is that 'exist' seems to also refer to the opposite of imaginary and not merely a presence of any kind including an imaginary one, but I define it this way to prevent getting bogged down in whether we are talking about whether something is present or 'there' or whether it is real as in the opposite of imaginary.

I hope some of this is helpful... or at least... I hope it gets you thinking.

-Hammy

[robvalue]

I appreciate the attempt

But what is a presence? I fear this is just another term for the same thing. Of course, informally, I know what "real" and "exist" mean. But formally, I have no access to any way of measuring either. I have to make assumptions first. I'm forever trapped subjectively, with no frame of reference.

For example: I define things to be real, then I wake up. Doh! I was wrong, they weren't real. Except they were, to me; so they make up a "reality".

[Edwardo Piet]

A presence is anything present, or in other words, anything at all.

If I had no imagination my imagination would not be present and there would there be no 'my imagination' to refer to.

A presence just means anything at all, it just means there is something that is 'there'.

God is not imaginary but the concept of God is, God himself isn't anything at all, assuming he doesn't exist.

[robvalue]

Something that is "there"? Again... I feel this is just saying the same thing. It's "there"... it "exists"... what new information am I getting?

How can I ever know what "exists" and what doesn't, without making any assumptions?

I can conclude it "exists" in some relative sense, but how can I upgrade that to be objective? I think it's impossible. If all this is VR... do things here exist less?

[Edwardo Piet]

For example: I define things to be real, then I wake up. Doh! I was wrong, they weren't real. Except they were, to me; so they make up a "reality".

They weren't real but they were things

Hehe, sorry I feel like I'm derailing your thread, I don't want to do that.

I'll one final idea:

Everything exists in the sense that every thing exists and every thing is a present thing. God doesn't exist because he isn't anything at all, he is absent. The things that exist as things but aren't real are merely concepts in the mind.

This is just my own way of defining 'real' and 'existent' as separate, the former referring to 'not imaginary' the latter referring to when something is 'there' as opposed to being nothing at all.

It's all very confusing and bizarre but the alternative for me seems to be defining both 'existent' and 'real' with the same meaning, to refer to something non-imaginary, and then having to split that definition in half to also refer to something being 'there', and so any time we talk about something real or existent we have to specify whether we are talking about it existing outside the imagination or existing altogether. Perhaps that would actually be better though because instead I have had to go into explaining how I define 'real' and 'existent' slightly differently.

I think it feels less bizarre when we leave words like 'real' and 'existent' undefined and just use our common sense and intuition to think we know what we are talking about... I think this all becomes very bizarre because I am attempting a clear definition of it.

Okay so the alternative is 'real' and 'existent' are interchangeable and we have to specify whether we are talking about something being something as opposed to nothing, or whether we are not questioning whether it is something and are instead talking about whether it exists specifically outside the imagination

The following question is the one that always gets me thinking: Does the imagination exist?

What would be your answer to that? Mine would be "Yes in the sense that it is there, I have an imagination. No in the sense that it isn't real it's imaginary."