Everything Exists, Even if it Doesn't
Every single human being has a unique mind full of experiences, ideas, and opinions of their own. I liken our minds to our own personal universe where we can interpret the world around us in the comfort of our own conscious. We can even imagine brand new things that no one else knows about. Little kids, for example, create their own imaginary friends that none of us can see, but they have little doubt that these creatures exist. These figments of our imagination may not be physical, but they do indeed exist. A thought does not have to manifest into the physical world in order to be known. Look at fairy tales of dragons, dragons do not exist in the physical world, but they do exist in our minds. If ideas stayed non-existent then many inventions, like the airplane would not be in our physical world today. There is a difference between real and existing: Being real is defined as "actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed" while existing, does not mean that whatever is being discussed needs to be physically present. Therefore, every possible thing that could be imagined, exists, it just may not be real.
Comments (6)
There is indeed a difference between "real" and "existing" in metaphysics, but this is not it. I find Charles Sanders Peirce's definitions especially helpful: the real is that which is as it is regardless of what any individual mind or finite group of minds thinks about it, while existing is reacting with other things in the environment. Accordingly, everything that exists is real, but not everything that is real exists; and purely imaginary creatures like dragons are neither real nor existing, they are fictions.
That said, I acknowledge that "existing" is also employed in logic for anything that is in the universe of discourse. In that sense, Hamlet exists in the play by Shakespeare, and dragons exist in certain fairy tales. Moreover, there is a real play by Shakespeare about a Prince of Denmark named Hamlet; but all of his attributes depend entirely on what Shakespeare's mind thought about him, so Hamlet himself is not real. Likewise, there are real fairy tales about dragons; but all of their attributes depend entirely on what various people's minds have thought about them over the centuries, so dragons themselves are not real. In the metaphysical sense, the play and the fairy tales exist in different physical forms--books, performances, recordings, etc.--but Hamlet and dragons themselves do not exist.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/5901/existence-is-relative-not-absolute
I doubt whether introduction of the word 'real' contributes anything to the understanding of 'existence' once we have defined them both in terms of contextual usage. All we can say is that some 'things' imply physicality, and others do not. Pragmatists reject the 'reality debate' as futile.
If being real is "actually existing," and that's different than just imagining things, then imagined things don't actually exist, do they?
That of course is your own experience. Don't expect anyone else to see things the same way.