Would you live in VR?

[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