Metaphor and Existence

[noirxbleu]

Can total nonexistence exist, can it even exist conceptually, and can it ever be understood by beings of perception?

:)

[MissDyingBride]

Have you got lipstick on?

[LordImmolation]

NO! - What the hell? - Look at my other videos...my lips are just like that!

[Rybot9000]

Isn't it all just linguistic semantics?

When yous aid "REALLY exists" I think we all realized what you meant. No sane person believes that numbers REALLY exist either.

Sure there are ways to fool the mind with linguistic trickery, but does that have any influence over what REALLY exists?

[theosophers]

How does Quine demonstrate that numbers exist externally and independently of the mind?

It seems like complete nonsense to me, but this is apparently what he believes.

[HaleyMary]

Great video. Good question too of asking what is there rather than what exists. Hadn't thought of life or the matter and energy in the universe like that before. Going with otonanoC's thought about heat, could people even ask if the senses exist, or if they all are just an interpretation by the brain and nothing more.

[theosophers]

"Good question too of asking what is there rather than what exists."

What distinguishes one from the other?

[theosophers]

I just watched five videos in which Quine was interviewed. It was all illucid BS.

[ksol000]

Personally, I think Quine is the most overrated "philosopher" in all history. I don't think he's even a philosopher.

[theosophers]

Well, I know nothing of his credentials other than that he is a philosophy professor at Harvard.

Everything that he said in the interview was so convoluted that it could not be interpreted.

Philosophy is so elite that fails to be valid.

[ksol000]

Academic philosophers are people who ask questions that wise men answered thousands of years ago.

[YawadrahWred]

Who's to say what a few wise men said is all there is to say? Knowledge seems to have a trend of growing with the passage of time. Why stop and say "You've reached the peak." when the fog of accomplishment is hiding the infinite climb to "enlightenment" or attempted understanding?

[ksol000]

Scientific knowledge grows, yes, but not wisdom - and not philosophic understanding.

[YawadrahWred]

How can the three be independent? Wisdom, as I understand, is the ability to apply knowledge. How does philosophy not advance, or at least change to better suit the time and place? Surely new questions arise from the contemplation of the new knowledge.

[ksol000]

All empirical knowledge is the same in essence. The only difference is in the details. Wisdom and philosophy aren't interested in the details, but deal with the broader issues, and so these don't change. They just need to be understood.

[YawadrahWred]

While I still don't agree, I lack the where with all to counter that statement at the moment. Thanks for showing me an area of study to further. Have a pleasant day.

[otonanoC]

Does "heat exist"?

Or is heat just nothing but a "framework interpretation" of Brownian motion of molecules?

etc.

[wonderist]

My view on existence: What it is is what it does, and vice versa.

All knowledge is metaphorical and is an interpretation of experience. Perhaps this is the fundamental 'game' we all play. In that case, maybe Quine can still be right. We have built within us a 'framework' that everything we 'know' relates to. We cannot escape it. And so, it still makes no sense to say that we can know something exists outside of our fundamental experiential/metaphorical framework.

[wonderist]

But then again, I do think it makes sense to say that things actually do exist outside of our framework. The point is that it is a question of 'existence' vs. 'knowing of existence'. For a philosopher to ask, "Does it really exist outside of any framework?" misses the point that even if it does really exist, we may never be able to know.

Existence exists. That's axiomatic. But what we know of existence is limited by our fundamental framework of knowledge.

[wonderist]

In other words, if tomorrow all sentience were wiped out, the sun would still exist, but there would be no one to know it. In all of our discussions, in all of our philosophy, we are fundamentally limited to talk about what we can know. And to know requires that we can experience. And to experience, the thing must exist.

Thus, all things that we know exist, do exist. And all things that we cannot know exist, we have no way of knowing, so the question is meaningless to us.

[sssswwwsssss]

Excellent video,Kyle. Where can I find the Yablo arguments? Cheers.