Existence is relative, not absolute.
'Existence' is a human concept, and like all concepts requires context in which it is meaningful. The issue was perhaps highlighted my Niels Bohr's argument with Einstein about the existence of 'electrons'.
Bohr argued that there were no 'things in their own right' we call 'electrons', only consistent human 'interactions' with an aspect of the world it was convenient to explain by the word 'electron'. Einstein, perhaps in line with his role in establishing 'the reality of atoms', disagreed.
A current book by Rovelli (the Order of Time) underscores Bohr's view with the phrase 'things are just repetitive events.
This proposed 'relativity of existence' seems to me to render most philosophical discussion of 'ontology' to be what Wittgenstein called Geschwätz (idle chatter).
Any thoughts ?
Bohr argued that there were no 'things in their own right' we call 'electrons', only consistent human 'interactions' with an aspect of the world it was convenient to explain by the word 'electron'. Einstein, perhaps in line with his role in establishing 'the reality of atoms', disagreed.
A current book by Rovelli (the Order of Time) underscores Bohr's view with the phrase 'things are just repetitive events.
This proposed 'relativity of existence' seems to me to render most philosophical discussion of 'ontology' to be what Wittgenstein called Geschwätz (idle chatter).
Any thoughts ?
Comments (1018)
My common sense doesn't.
Sigh...
Are you denying that things existed prior to us?
Simple question.
That's not a thesis. That's an absolute statement. Ironic.
Throwing rocks at fresco...
To me reality is more than just a word. As a word 'reality' is a channel to 'aletheia'. Words have two functions: a) to connect two different, communicating aletheias, b) to connect mind and things in a personal aletheia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aletheia
No, they've just been corrupted by philosophy. (I jest.)
More seriously, I think it's just a switch in ways of talking and hearing. I argued once that in a certain peculiar sense the stars weren't here before we were. Though I had my reasons, I'd no longer feel motivated to give them. It's just not the interesting part of philosophy for me anymore.
All else as relative/emergent/relational, including:
space, time, particles, classical fields, waves, light…
I think of the relationship between reality and the personal momentary impression of utility like the direction of water molecules in the path of a water stream. Each molecule has a direction and is a quantity of water. However, it may or may not be consistent with the overall direction of the surrounding volume of water. And if it is inconsistent, it is likely that it will be altered, numerous times, with the overall tendency to follow the same path as the rest. Or not, but more likely, it will. The surrounding volume of water also may deviate from the total turn of the stream, due to an obstacle, for example. But ultimately, it will probably join with the rest. Or not, but usually it does. And if it does, by the time it does, the stream may have changed direction.
The point is, the water molecule can only account for its own motion. But there is such thing as consistency or inconsistency, and there is impact from the said consistency of motion that usually affects the individual molecule. Knowing this, one is tempted to talk about the shape of the stream bed, rather then the direction of that individual molecules, even if one is granted limited view of the body of water.
To claim that existence is relative is a restriction of scope - of single sentient point of view in a single instance of time. But it is not mandatory to commit to this scope for the purposes of methodological and epistemological analysis.
Quoting fresco
One could similarly argue that conceptualization is extrapolation of form derived from sensory experiences. You might then claim that you don't have concepts, but delusional elaboration of your senses. But if the concepts, sensory experiences, and the phenomena which cause them are joined in through methodical interactions, existence can be claimed in the usual way - through observational verification.
Quoting fresco
Concepts are like self-fulfilling prophecies. In the event of contention, each side assumes it is consistent with the human condition on a larger scale. Each side fights for recognition and self-affirmation, until the "correct" belief is justified if it becomes testable, and compels a wider consensus. Then, the relativistic conceptualization transcends its boundaries. Realism is a statement, that such convergence is inevitable.
I think you are avoiding the notion that all 'concepts' are denoted by 'words' which are socially acquired.
Convergent consensus may be inevitable, but only to the extent that human language users have large parts of their physiology in common. Now, it may be, that an 'uncommon physiology' like the brain of Einstein, can deconstruct previously 'useful' concepts like 'time', thereby triggering a paradigm shift with its associated 'concept/language revision'. But there is no theoretical limit to such potential deconstruction , and hence 'reality' recedes further into the distance like the carrot on the end of the stick.
An absolute Totality is complete in itself (not infinite), and so it must be finite and have a boundary, but Zero/'Nothing' cannot be, and thus Zero cannot be outside the boundary; thus, an absolute One of Totality is not possible, either, leaving all to be relative?
Quoting fresco
They have a lot more in common, like culture, economy, ecological factors. Delusions are frequently part of the majority point of view. But they must still be acted out in ways that remain practical. Without practicality, a delusion will be self-destructive. As the technological and anthropological needs of a society increase, prior delusions lose practicality and are removed from majority consensus. New delusions appear in their stead, but reality does gradually settle in.
Quoting frescoEinstein did not invent special/general relativity, just to break the mold. There were good and eminent physical reasons to do it (such as the relative consistency between the speed of electromagnetic waves and the rate of other physical phenomena in all reference frames), and there was already a vigorous debate concerning the meaning of time and space, before Einstein. Similarly, there were discussions about the wave and corpuscular nature of light prior to QM. There was of course conservatism, resistance to change, etc, but in both cases, empirical data prompted the developments in the conceptual model, not aesthetics.
If there isn't anything absolute, then we are relieved of an unmakable, unbreakable eternal substance, and onto to the conclusion that all is temporary, without anything permanent, except change.
Once a virtual particle is created it would have to change because the effects required for it to be created as it is, creates other effects that must destroy it, as a closure that makes for compositional parity. Absolutes wouldn't follow those rules. Quantum fields cannot be zero, for that is a definite state and disallowed, so there is fluctuation/change.
Apparently, neither complete vacuity nor total solidity can be, leaving the indefinitness of the quantum uncertainty type or random outputs without inputs to result from the limit of the unreachable two nonexistent absolutes of None and One. I conclude that relatively the universe exists, but absolutely it doesn't.
Thus, a temporary reality ever becomes and then ever gets erased, somehow, as kind of akin to a faux presentism, given no absolutes. 'Light' is some kind of a clue, since from its viewpoint 'space' shrinks to a point and time does not pass. Somehow, 'light' gets slowed down from its pure all-at-oncesness of no time and its everywhereness of no space to broadcast a temporary reality of a here and a now.
I Interpret the concept of 'absolute existence' as the negation of such contextual restraints about usage.
'Commonality' viewed from a nested systems pov, takes on semantic issues of different 'levels of discourse'. So refering to the Einstein scenario, at the neurological level we might consider 'structural uniqueness' as a factor. And at the social level, we might consider Einstein's patent office duties examining time keeping inventions as a factor. And then of course we have the scientific zeitgeist in which paradigms operate...etc. All these are possible contributory factors to the shift in the utility of the concept denoted by the word 'time', that shift being expressed by modifying words like 'local time'.
But at the end of the day, I suggest all those levels of discourse culminate in observational criteria (aka evidence) regarding the utility of the concept and 'observation' is basically a physiological act.
As an aside, my neurophilosophy thread discusses 'evidence' of brain functioning which might correlate 'paradigm dynamics' which might indicate further 'physiological reductionist' possibilities.
Yet, for Relative Totality, there is neither an Absolute Existence nor an Absolute NonExistence, leaving but a relative in-between, as relative to neither or as relative to both, but what could that mean?
Absolute Totality vs. Relative Totality
None isn’t ‘outside’ nor can be in here,
Nor can Finite One be, with None outside;
Thus, there is no absolute One or None,
Which forces a relative ‘in-between’.
‘One’ as an Absolute Totality Fails Even More
Thus, we can’t step into what isn’t there,
Nor can a One expand into a None,
Nor can there be spacers of None
Within the arena of a One.