Talk:Existence/Archive 1

message: I added the definition between the first and second paragraphs, is it a good definition? Please edit this section with responses.
What you have used is the existential quantifier \exists  but the analysis could go the other way around. The symbol is explained in terms of the ordinary use of the concept of existing. And one view in free logic is that logic should not be ontologicaly commiting. Personally I think it is to demand to much to ask for a definition of existence. Bur I am not really sure. RickardV 23:12, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Added Definition

message: I've never studied philosiphy, but this seems interesting.  It's just that it seems like the whole thing is about sentance structure and grammar.  What difference would grammar make when talking about such a universal subject as existence.  I'm sure I'm just missing something here, but I think the article makes some huge assumptions about the prior knowledge of the reader. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.219.13.88 (talk) 00:24, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Somebody Explain 

message: I am wondering what is so "unfortunate" about the possibility of discussion about existence beyond first order logic, as is stated at the beginning of the last sentence of the first paragraph of this article.
Is this article actually classable as an encyclopaedia article. It seems to me like a meaningless rant. Especially the comments that are placed throughout, and have been there since the original article. If no one can come up with a good reason for the article I will put it up for deletion. MyNameIsNotBob 09:46, May 23, 2005 (UTC)   <----J.D. agrees, Feb '07
:Putting it up for deletion is not appropriate, deletion is not for articles that are "sub-par", it's for articles that shouldn't be in an encyclopedia at all. What you're probably looking for is Wikipedia:Cleanup or a related page. The material currently in this article is largely derived from a group of documents called Larry's Text, which were lectures given by Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger in courses that he taught at Ohio State University. Larry is a philosophy professor so this is good quality information, but lectures are a different format of presentation from encyclopedia articles so these things usually need a lot of rewriting. Bryan 18:45, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Encyclopaedia Article 

message: I do apologize and I hope it is in the spirit of Wikipedia if I apologize again while saying, I took these out:
The words (and concepts) 'existence' and 'being' are treated in slightly different ways in Western philosophy.  Aristotle pointed out that there are various ways in which a thing can "be" and inaugurated ontology as a field with his notion that there are categories of being, such as substance, attribute, and acting-upon.  Similar claims, however, are not as often made on behalf of existence.  That is, contemporary philosophers at least are wont to treat existence as a univocal, unambiguous concept, as if the only sense of 'existence', or the only sort of existence worth talking about, were the existence of physical objects.  Consequently, some discussions of existence have an unclear bearing on, for example, the sense in which numbers, possibilities, and properties exist (or might be thought to exist).
Even if the ambiguity of 'exists' is sometimes overlooked, oddly enough, the ambiguity of 'does not exist' is not.  That is, ontologists are fond of pointing out that there are various ways in which things can be  nonexistent.
* Sentence 1. The ways are not at all slight.
* Sentence 2. Aristotle did no such thing. Questions of existence go right back to the Pre-Socratics. Those categories are not of being but of substance and accident. The ancients were pretty much hylomorphs (except for the atomists) so you have to understand Aristotle's language rightly. Read some pre-socratics. The formal field, ontology, is later and scholastic.
* Sentence 3. Let's not confuse being, the thing that exists, with existence, the principle by which it exists. No reason to take a materialist view here. Materialism is only one hat in the ring.
* Other sentences. Existence applies to anything whatsoever. Nothing conceivable, utterable, perceivable or imaginable is left out. The "univocality" comes from the binary nature of existence, either on or off. Existence is not a kind of thing. All the modern philosophers are not reinventing the metaphysical wheel but are doubting or trying to doubt or trying to find alternatives to classical metaphysics. If they are confused, it is because they don't succeed.66.30.94.153 20:44, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed paragraphs

message: I'd say an article such as this needs all the attention it can get; moreover, the brave soul who first took it on deserves a medal. It was proposed the first article be dropped, but the editors decided to retain it. So, that decision determined the direction it is going, just like campers telling a round-robin story. It could go in almost any direction. What would you like to see? How do you want it to go? What is most appropriate to Wikipedia? How can we Wikipedize this better? Speak. I'm still game. I love it, but I am not going to add anything new without direction from the public.Botteville 21:47, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Needs Attention

message: In defence of Larry Sanger: he never wrote any of this.  I edited a lot of his work in the early days of Wikipedia after he left, but always tried to keep his material and style.  This is recognisably NOT his work.  Sanger is a professional philosopher.  His style was often informal. 
:Here's the earliest version of the "existence of physical objects" material (some of which has been merged into other sections of the current article) that I can find: . It was placed there by Larry Sanger, so whether he wrote it himself or not he at least approved of it sufficiently to include in Wikipedia. Note that this is neither a defence of the material nor an indictment of Larry, just trying to establish facts. Bryan 15:27, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Certainly Needs Attention

message: I believe I logged in all right. Moreover, as this is a very emotional topic (religion and philosophy always are), I expected some such comment. That's all right. Emotion often drives us to higher things. I would say this to you. Attack the article. Bleed all over it, as they used to say in the editing business. Contribute some agony of your own! I don't mind in the least. Philosophy is an apple. One just doesn't know where to bite. Hack the whole thing away if you want to. Put something in its place.
Larry doesn't need any defence, whoever he is. He gave it a shot. Wikipedia folk didn't like it. Someone suggested it be deleted. Wikipedia didn't like that either. We could either let it sit there indefinitely or try to fix it. Unfortunately it is a pretty big topic. I'm coming from a classical point of view. It has the advantage of giving an established tradition. But, here is what I think. Larry, wherever you are, delete my version. Make your own corrections. Or, Mr. critic, whoever you are, you do it! I invite you to climb higher, as high as you can. Tell you what I will do. I will not touch it but will open a dialog with you on anything. What about this article strikes you as drivelish?Botteville 22:13, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: So give the attention

message: My apologies, that was unkind of me.  I have edited out these comments.  I meant that these thoughts, however good, are mostly your own, and to not represent a summary of other philosophers and authorities.
I have written a completely new article.  Somewhat centred around the Analytic tradition, but I have put a space for the "European" view.
After a decent interval I have just taken a look at it. I like it. I am sure the public will appreciate it better. I know the classical terminology but not the modern. Thank you for your effort.Botteville 03:14, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: I give it the attention

message: The second problem is that both a singular sentence like "Pegasus flies" and its negation seem to imply the existence of a subject. If "Pegasus flies" is true, then something (namely Pegasus) flies. So if the sentence is true, "Pegasus" has a referent. But if the sentence is false, its negation is true. But the negation of "Pegasus flies" is "it is not the case that Pegasus flies". If this is true, then something (namely Pegasus) does not fly, and so "Pegasus" still has a referent. Whether "Pegasus flies" is true or not, "Pegasus" has a referent, and so "Pegasus" has a referent. But common sense suggests that "Pegasus" does not have a referent.
K, what the heck does this mean?  Notice especially "Pegasus" has a referent, and so "Pegasus" has a referent.  I have nothing to say to that but wtf?  Is there actually deeper meaning to this tangle or is it just a stream of words?  Citizen Premier 23:09, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is that the statement "Pegasus flies" is subject to an Existential fallacy.  It makes an unproven assumption, namely the existence of a being like Pegasus.  If the statement is not 'deconstructed' and the underlying assumption shown then you can reach an invalid conclusion by positing only two possibilities:  1) Pegasus flies 2) Pegasus does not fly.  Constructing such a limited set of possiblities is in itself a False dilemma as a third possiblity exists, namely that Pegasus does not exist.  So, if you allow the false dilemma to continue to exist (only those two possibilities) you cover up the fact that there is also an existential fallacy built in.  You also then force someone to agree to the existence of Pegasus no matter which of the two statements they accept as true.  If someone were to harp on the false delema they would (in effect) be employing a Ignoratio elenchi (red herring) to distract you from the presence of the existential fallacy in their statements.  KeyStroke 20:22, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  wtf? 

message: Just in case anyone is interested: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nonexistence.  Regards, Ben Aveling 23:35, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: HAHAHA: the only reference to Nonexistance is the "See Also" section, which simply sends you to the top of the page... --HantaVirus 21:12, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: FYI

message: I am new to philosophy, but not this service.  I mean no offense, but the article on Existence is not well written, clear, or helpful.  I humbly request that it be deleted and those of you who are writing about existence, check out the format of other entries and strive for clarity. . . Existence for dummies, as it were.Tszora 02:36, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Deleting would be a step backward rather than forward, surely? WhiteCat 08:27, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Unless there's truly nothing salvageable about a version of an article, it's better to edit what's there rather than starting over. A blank page is usually even less well written, clear or helpful, after all. Perhaps you could be more specific about what you think needs fixing? Bryan 08:34, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I wrote this version of the article almost from scratch.  There have been some changes, but most of it (particularly the opening parts) are not too different.  I have no problem with deleting and starting again.  But would like to hear from readers where the difficulty lies.  I have already agreed with Nortexoid that the references to first order logic are unnecessary and confusing.  The very simple message of the opening paragraph is that existence is what is claimed by sentences like 'there is a bridge crossing the river at Hammersmith', which is equivalent to 'a bridge crossing the river at Hammersmith exists' or 'at least one bridge crosses the river at Hammersmith' and so on.  But please let me have your questions.  Dbuckner 12:17, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Newbie

message: I found something on the UseNet newsgroup sci.math which attributes an existential result to James Harris, a well known UseNet poster. It goes something like this :
There are 3 existential forms or types.
1) That which exists 
2) That which does not exist 
3) That for which existence is indeterminate 
I dont know if that would constitute original research per Wiki, because it has already been published on UseNet. 
Although James Harris did not invent these ideas, apparently he provided inspiration to others who have named the work in his honour.
Harris' Theorem 1.1 "The existence of a Trivial is Indeterminate" 
Here, a trivial is considered to any object which violates the uniqueness of another object. An identical clone of an object is considered nonexistent, but there is no way to determine if the object is itself, or if it is the clone. Hence, such objects are not strictly nonexistent. They are "quasi-existent" because their existence is strictly indeterminate.
Not sure if that would be suitable material for the article, or if it would belong in the research area. 
Also, would be interesting to see something about Ayn Rand. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.194.68.72 (talk) 14:44, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A development attributed to James Steven Harris, "JSH" 

message: The balance here between "general" interest and particularly "philosophic" interest is quite reasonable. We still have a general introduction, so now it is best to scrutinize the body of the text to ensure that each reliable source is accurately reported (philosophy-wise). Newbyguesses - Talk 05:43, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Buridan's edit

message: I've been reading your edits as you make them.  They seem to me hasty, and I don't see that they add anything to the article.  For example, it does not seem necessary to mention more than one of the dialogs of Plato in the introduction, and the Republic is the most well known.  The article does not confine itself to Western philosophy, and so that restriction is unnecessary in the introduction.  A footnote should cite a source, not contain a parenthetical remark.  However, I will do you the courtesy of allowing you to finish, in hopes that the final version will be better than the work in progress. Rick Norwood 18:19, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: the republic is only where the theory of forms is mentioned and some argue that the theory of forms is actually only a theory of epistemology, the phaedo and statesman actually have clear ontological implications  the first paragraph is the western tradition, but it read like all of the world, that's bias, so i put it in context.  later the article goes into non-western traditions, that is fine.  check wp:footnote on the use of footnotes.  have a great day.  --Buridan 18:27, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

text: we should wait for more feedback.  All i did was cut the unrelated referenced material.  as for my comments, try to stay on topic.  as for the ontology comment, go read it again please.  read what it said before, read what it says now, one is basically true, the other is biased toward western presentations.  i should note that I do not dismiss from the outset, I said it belongs in the body, not in the intro.   An encyclopedia is not a populist document, it is not to collect the some total of the beliefs of the readers, but the some total of knowledge.  those are two very differen things.  the god is fine, it just does not belong in an introduction, it belongs in the body, with a thorough presentation of its significance and its problems.  it has to be neutral.   The changes that I made are perfectly addressed to the general audience.  The changes that you made are aimed at a segment of that audience.  why should we serve the segment above the whole?  It is fine to remove referenced material that is unrelated to the topic or the basis of a npov issue.  --Buridan 21:48, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry to have made those changes all together. Keep the lead short is best. The factual material which was rm'd by User:Buridan may fit better somewhere in the body of the article, to avoid arguments. My edit removed references, in fact, from the lead, as a style issue. Any references important enough to be used in the lead sect. are important enough to feature in the body of the article. If Descartes fits better somewhere else, that could also go (from the lead). I am willing to discuss any problems which my edit may have introduced. Newbyguesses - Talk 00:38, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The god material recently rm'd by User:Buridan; concerned the existence of a 'belief' about god creating all of "existence". OK, leave it out then. Newbyguesses - Talk 12:41, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think there could be a whole section on beliefs about the relationship between religions and existence.  I don't think it should be in the intro, as the intro should be universal. --Buridan 12:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Buridan's most recent edits 

message: Has someone tracked down a citation for this bit? Newbyguesses - Talk 02:01, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I wrote that bit.  It is standard logic.  The move from 'Pegasus flies' to 'something flies' is existential generalisation, sometimes called particularisation.  But I can't find a reference in Wikipedia itself for that.  It ought to be somewhere.  edward (buckner) 14:57, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Pegasus flies

message: These reffs need expanding (section 1) Earlier views -
Book I of his Summa Totius Logicae (Treatise on all Logic) (date of publication required)
[Logic, II.3, Buroker p. 82] 
...proved by sentences like "A centaur is a poetic fiction" (Mill) or "A greatest number is impossible" (Herbart). 
Quine's slogan "To be is to be the value of a variable."). 
All quotations should receive proper treatment. These must be easily available, though I am not sure who Buroker is. Newbyguesses - Talk 05:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: All these references have now been supplied - except for Herbart. Thanks Newbyguesses - Talk 11:49, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: supply some references, please

message: Newbyguesses's edit is much less arbitrary than Buridan's edit, but still has problems.  However, since Newbyguesses apparently agrees with Buridan on several points, I'll try to make a fresh start, and come up with something we can all agree on. Rick Norwood 14:09, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Newbyguesses edit 

message: I've made another attempt at an introduction which is readable, which covers the main points in the article, and which I hope answers the main objections to the old introduction.  Rick Norwood 14:22, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added some references, and (forgive me) weeded out 'epistemological' claims about existence, which are easily confused with issues about existence itself.  With existence itself, we are concerned about what it is, how we define it, whether we can define it, problems that philosophers have had with the very concept itself.  Cartesian questions like whether we can be certain of the existence of certain things, should not be in this article.  edward (buckner) 14:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

text: See my note above on 'Pegasus'.  My memory of modern logic is getting rusty, but I am right about 'existential generalisation'?  Where is it in Wikipedia?  edward (buckner) 14:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Looking through articles like Existential quantification and doing a search through WP suggests that there is no treatment of existential generalization anywhere.  I can hardly believe it.  Perhaps the variant spelling / terminology is the problem.  Would anyone else care to check?  edward (buckner) 15:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I didn't write the not x=y bit.  Existential generalization is the rule that from Pa, infer Ex Px.  Google it and find out. edward (buckner) 15:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

text: The existence of God, or of gods, is part of theology, or is discussed in the Ontological argument article.  The existence of black holes, particles &c is part of physics.  It's not that such questions are not important, the question is what belongs in the scope of the article.  This article is about what it means to say something 'exists', and the difficulties around that.  It's not about specific existential questions like, does God exist.  edward (buckner) 15:22, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  ? Rick I'm not with you.  EG is a standard bit of predicate calculus.  That is a fact.  The point of the paragraph in question is to show that there is a problem with it, applied to ordinary language. edward (buckner) 15:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

text:  Specifically, the paragraph is highlighting a problem.  'Pegasus flies' implies 'something (namely Pegasus) flies'.  It is this intuition that leads to the EG rule in standard logic (in Free Logic this rule is rejected, for the reasons alluded to in the paragraph).  The problem is that 'Pegasus does not fly' implies something (namely Pegasus) does not fly.  I.e. whether the sentence is true or false, something is Pegasus.  It is merely identifying a difficulty (one which Free Logic supposedly solves).  edward (buckner) 15:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm bemused by this.  It's one of the first things you learn about natural deduction.  My undergraduate primer was Lemmon.  Here, for example.  It is sometimes called different names (existentialization, particularization) so maybe that's where the confusion lies.  edward (buckner) 08:13, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  new intro 

message: "Existence is the property of being; that which is in the category of what is."
I've tried to parse this generously, in some way that would give the statement content, but I can't, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask for a reference. 
To demonstrate my problem, suppose this was an article about cats.  Would you begin by saying, 
"Cat is the property of being a cat; a cat is that which is in the category of cats."  I find your definition of existence similarly vacuous.  If you can quote a reputable source for it, I'll stand down. Rick Norwood 18:36, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  The first clause is contentious, because the main dispute in this area is precisely whether existence is a property or not.  The second clause is vacuous.  Existence is in the category of what exists.  edward (buckner) 08:14, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: good luck finding a better opening line.   if you find a worse one, i'll revert it.  i'm open to a better starting definition.  existence is a vacuous notion.  it only means is. x is  is equivalent to x exists or has the property of existence.  if you were to define it in sets, it is the set of things that are or what is.  --Buridan 13:33, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

text: That was not in support of the current first sentence, it is weak, by all means, upgrade it. I meant it as food for thought, and from a mathematical viewpoint, but it would be best to read the whole paragraph by following the link on the articlepage. Newbyguesses - Talk 13:07, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  First sentence 

message: "Existence is the ability of an entity to interact with reality. In philosophy, it refers to the ontological property[1] of being.[2]
This definition ranges from the vacuous to the just plain wrong.  Existence is a fixed concept, not a potential.  If I am awake and have the ability to sleep, it means that I am not asleep, but can potentially sleep. A thing that is in existence does not potentially exist.   One might say that a thing that is imagined can potentially exist, such as the universe potentially existing "before the Big Bang", or the children I am thinking of having potentially existing, but the concept of existence itself cannot be reconciled with potentiality.  Existence is an abstraction, that all existent things and experiences have in common, that which is leftover from any entity when its qualities have been "abstracted out of it".  That is an awkward way to put it, but it is an awkward topic.  It is the very actuality, i.e. non-potentiality, which gives this abstraction meaning. 
Existence is also not about interacting.  Existent things may interact with each other, but to speak of an entity "interacting with reality" might raise two questions; first, what kind of interacting might an entity be doing with an abstract concept, especially reality - exchanging recipes, gossiping about what the One is doing with The Other?
The second question might be, what is there about the concept of "reality" that is not contained in the concept of Existence?  Using a very slippery, contentious, and abstract word such as reality to define another slippery, contentious, and abstract word such as existence, is asking for trouble.
The phrase "the ontological property of being" is truly in need of explanation, at best.  Ontology is the study of existence - how can the study of something be a property of that which is being studied?  ("Existence is the Study-of-Being property of Being")
The two references used for this definition are not much help.  The first is credible, but after reading it a few times, it completely escapes me how the above definition could be extracted from it.  Even if it could, the average reader cannot be expected to go through such a tortuous and arcane exercise to verify that the reference corresponds to what is in the Wikipedia article.  The other reference is in Russian, to a Soviet encyclopedia in Russian, with no link to the referenced article in a said encyclopedia, but rather a link to the Wikipedia article on "The Great Soviet Encyclopedia".  Completely useless, to say the least.
This first sentence is completely meaningless, misleading and does not do Wikipedia credit.  We need a completely new one.  To start off, I would propose:
"Existence is that which is abstracted from any and all objects of experience, and all experiences, separate from their qualities, which makes them real."
or
"Existence is that which all objects and experiences have in common, that which makes them what they are, separate from all of their qualities."
We might consider a few suggestions, and perhaps there is a famous ontologist or two who could be quoted, where English translations are available, that would improve on this.  These two suggestions above don't really need any references, because they are intuitively available to everyone.  
But what seems very clear is that the definition as it is has got to go.
Contraverse (talk) 20:33, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  More on the current (24 May, 2022) First sentence 

message: Dbuckner wrote "nominalist = medieval nominalist."  My understanding of the medieval sense of the words is that "realists", following Plato, taught that abstractions really existed, while "nominalists" taught that abstractions were only names, with no real existence.  Is this really how the words are still used in modern philosophy?  Rick Norwood 12:46, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Generally yes.  But in any case, if you try reading past that sentence, you will find that the section is about 'medieval nominalism'.  Either way, whoever put in the bit I removed wasn't thinking too hard.  edward (buckner) 21:06, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

text: There is this sentence — Thus Ockham argued that "Socrates has wisdom", which apparently asserts the existence of a reference for "wisdom", can be rewritten as "Socrates is wise", which contains only the referring phrase "Socrates". — Some linking text could then follow on Problem of universals#Medieval nominalism, but there seems enough for now on Ockham and his clever razor. Nominalism, as a school, retains substantial connection to its roots, is my understanding. (There is this recent thread at the humanities reference Desk -  ) - Newbyguesses - Talk 13:08, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  If you want to link to an article that is rubbish, fine.  It has a splendid sentence 'A position subsequently identified as conceptualism was formulated by Pierre Abelard'.  There are two fundamental errors in that sentence.  edward (buckner) 21:08, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks edward. That phrase - The nominalist approach to the question (not to be confused with the scholastic usage of "nominalist") is to argue that ... - had been there for some time. I opened a thread at the Humanities reference Desk on ==Ockham and Existence== yesterday on this, by the time I got it figured out, the "confusing' sentence was already gone! Thanks also for the information on that other article - I must look closely at that sort of thing, it seems one just cannot believe everything one reads, these days. Newbyguesses - Talk 23:10, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  nominalism and realism 

message: I am not sure - if Descartes believes that he exists, then that is ontology; or else, Descartes believes that he exists, and that is epistomology. If this is too confusing, a replacement could be found for Descartes in the leadsect. I think it best to keep a sentence there, rather than just delete Descartes, if there are any suggestions? Is this needed, Edward, otherwise, we can leave well enough alone with the leadsect. for now, it seems to be working alright. I believe I noticed some recent discussion here concerning Descarte's suitability, though I do think it works OK for now, Newbyguesses - Talk 02:21, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My own formulation of Descartes' famous dictum is that the universal set is not equal to the empty set.  But that would be original research. Rick Norwood 13:21, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: From nothing, nothing could have proceeded. Therefore, from nothing, everything must have proceeded. (Being too unlearned and uninformed to be capable of Original, Reseasch, I , must have read this somewhere?) Newbyguesses - Talk 07:56, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Descartes, again

message: There are many problems with the current opening.  Philosophers from the analytic tradition who study existence would get very upset if you called their branch of philosophy 'ontology'.  The paragraph goes on to talk about the questions that arise about existence, but the list given here is of mostly epistemological questions (e.g. does there exist an external reality ...).  Ontology is more closely connected with the problem of Essence, which is a separate article.  Sorry to be negative (that's what I'm best at).  I have some positive ideas but this is a very difficult to present at a non-specialist level in a clear way.
Here's what the opening paragraph should be, in my view.
* Existence is what is asserted by the verb 'exist' (derived from the Latin word 'existere', meaning to appear or emerge or stand out).  The word 'exist' is grammatically a predicate.  Some philosophers have argued that it is logically a predicate, and predicates something called 'existence' of the subject.  Thus 'four-leaved clover exists' predicates exists of the subject four-leafed clover.  Cognates for this predicate are 'is real', 'has being', 'is found in reality', 'is in the real world' and so on.  
* Other philosophers have denied that existence is logically a predicate, and claim that existence is really asserted by the etymologically distinct verb 'is', and that all statements containing the predicate 'exists' can be reduced to statements that do not use this predicate.  For example, 'Four-leaved clover exists' can be analysed into the equivalent statement 'some clover is four-leaved', where the verb 'is' connects the subject 'some clover' with the predicate 'four-leaved'.
* The philosophical question about whether 'exists' is a predicate or not is an old one, and has been discussed and argued over by philosophers from Aristotle, through Avicenna, Aquinas, Scotus, Hume, Kant and many others.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dbuckner (talk • contribs) 11:09, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I noticed your suggestions: your thoughts seem cogent. I'll have to look at the intro and reflect on it. Give me a day or two. Richiar 04:37, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New lead 

message: I have been working a couple of days on taking some ideas from the Miller article, trying to simplify them, and combine them with Ricks paragraph from the section above. There will likely be some editing problems with the sentences, and paragraphs, but I'm putting them here just to include some basic ideas to what we've been working on. Also, I notice some similarities with
what Edward has suggested for the introduction, so we'll probably have to reassess this also in light of that. Give it a whirl, Rick. 
If the ontology is an issue, then it can be worked over somehow.
The new paragraphs I've been working on are below: 
In English the word "exists" and "is" are verbs of being. In discussing existence from the analytic philosophy perspective, therefore, we are concerned with the predicates ‘is’ and ‘exists’.
The issue of the meaning of existence is inextricably intertwined with the idea or word ‘exists’. On the surface one might think that a statement "Tom exists" means the same thing as "Tom is real". This meaning can be called into question however because it is considered from an analytic view as a negation of Tom as imaginary, or Tom as being nonexistent. To extend the arguement, Tom could not be considered as existent in reference to a property or attribue of nonexistence if considered from the point of view of the state of affairs prior to Tom's birth. The idea of existence in reference to nonexistence in this situation is simply meaningless. Thus, a reasonable conclusion is that Tom's existence can't be based based in the idea that it has the same meaning that "Tom is real".
There are some common ways of understanding the meaning of the world "existence". First, it is used to mean existence in the real, physical world, as in the sentence, "Elephants exist."  Second, there is the meaning of existence as "objective principles of truth" beyond the subjective experience, for example, "The existence of five and only five platonic solids has been proven by Euclidian geometry."  Finally, there is the meaning of existence which includes mythical or fictional mental constructs, for example, "Unicorns exist in myth but not in reality," or "Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character created by Sir Arther Conan Doyle, who existes in books, movies, and the imagination."  There have been centuries of debate and research investigating these ideas.
In general (although not exhaustively) analytic philosophers have developed two views of the
meaning of "existence". The first (considered to be the Frege-Russell distinction) is that there
are four different meanings of ‘is’ — a) the ‘is’ of existence, b) the "is" of identity, c) the "is" of predication, and d) the "is" of generic implication (inclusion), The second view can be expressed by the statement "existence is not a predicate".Richiar 04:27, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. I used the word "meaning" which you are referring to in a nontechnical sense, and perhaps you could suggest a better way to express it. I am noticing there are contexts to the three examples you gave above. Go ahead and suggest a more appropriate word. Richiar 05:15, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Extending section of Semantics of Existence 

message: According to Wikipedia guidelines:
::First sentence
::The first sentence should give the shortest possible relevant characterization of the subject. If the subject is amenable to definition, the first sentence should give a concise one that puts the article in context. Rather than being typically technical, it should be a concise, conceptually sound, characterization-driven, encyclopedic definition. It should be as clear to the nonspecialist as the subject matter allows.
The current first sentence, defining "existence" in terms of "exist" (we could then go on to define "exist" in terms of "existence") is about as uninformative as a first sentence can be.  Etymology should come later.  The lede should be aimed at the general reader, not the specialist.
I am going to try to rewrite the lede so that it does not read like a bad textbook.
Rick Norwood (talk) 13:48, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  First sentence. 

message: The only spelling given by my dictionary is "existence", and this is the spelling used in the title of the article.  I've changed "exhistence" to "existence" throughout the introduction, since that changes at least one redlink to a greenlink.  I leave it to other editors: should this change be made throughout the body of the article?  If there is an objection to this, then at least exhistentialism should redirect to existentialism. Rick Norwood (talk) 14:13, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  spelling 

message: First of all, I'm not sure about the following. But I am positive that this is true, although I totally don't know if it's original work and/or can be published on wikipedia without further sources:
If we could deterministically say if something exists or does not exist at all, then nothing can exist "a bit", "sometimes" or "with a certain chance". However, the Uncertainty principle tells ushttp://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0106100 that even in an empty region of space matter and antimatter is created and destroyed continuously ("Created and annihilated, created and annihilated - what a waste of time," said Feynman). But if I'm not mistaken, you can't be sure of what is exactly created if you don't measure it perfectly, so actually all you're measuring is a chance that a certain particle is created and therefore exists for a short time. This would conflict with a deterministic interpretation of existence. Please let a physicist check this first. --Tulcod (talk) 15:11, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you are confusing the statements "x exists" and "we know x exists".  There is considerable discussion about whether a correct statement of uncertainty is "We cannot know the position and momentum of a particle at the same time." or should it be "A particle does not have an exact position and momentum at the same time." Rick Norwood (talk) 15:19, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

text: Your point is clear to me. However, if I'm not mistaken, the latter is already "proven". A particle doesn't have both a precise speed and a precise location. So maybe this goes for existence too. But then again, I'm just an amateur physicist, and there's quite a chance I'm wrong and the uncertainty principle doesn't stretch to existence. --Tulcod (talk) 20:07, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Both of you have views that are not well-represented in the article, because the article is skewed toward philosophy.  While I said in a recent post here that I thought the article should just let philosophy have its way, I'm thinking a disambiguation page is needed.  The word "exists" as it is used in physics (which underpins its usage in all the sciences) is different (perhaps a subset) from the usage in philosophy and in any case, the physicists' views are neglected here, while minor philosophers are mentioned.  That's a problem.--Levalley (talk) 06:12, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Philosophical meaning applied to modern physics 

message: An additional topic I would like to see on this entry is objective existence. There are many things about existence itself, but no information on how to decide whether or not something has an objective existence. I propose an "existence test" for objective existence. 
To have a meaning for the word existence, at least two things must exist. The existence of each implies the existence of the other. For example, in the case of a pen, we can take into consideration two of its states. Namely, an "up" sate and a "down" state(If we only had one state, neither its existence nor its description would be meaningful). States must also be capable of change, otherwise the pen would be forever stuck in one state and the other state would, again, not exist. Hence, a state exists only if it can change into another. Also, by definition, at least two distinct states must exist, as well as change. 
Now, in order to be able to say that a pen exists, we simply have to name a few of its states that anyone would expect a pen to have, show that they exist, and show that the object under consideration is in the states we expect it to be.Psychosmurf.jovic (talk) 04:33, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, but this is OR.Rick Norwood (talk) 15:55, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Except that many people have already published it.  All it needs is are citation.  The physical sciences, which I assume Smurf is referring to, use a different view on existence, very similar to what he's saying.  I suppose it's the science of philosophy rather than the philosophy of science.  But a really good article on existence would do both.--Levalley (talk) 06:14, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Objective Existence 

message: For about two years, Saul Kripke, Gareth Evans, Scott Soames were listed (in that order) as modern experts on the problem.  It seems non-controversial that Kripke is such an expert, and since no one challenged adding Evans and Soames for two years, it appears they are generally regarded as experts as well.  On June 2, 2007, Nathan Salmon added himself as an expert, ahead of Soames.  He references his Wiki, which provides no secondary sources saying he's a modern expert.  I've been in a kind of endless loop trying to wikify some philosophy articles - one wants to understand what a person has to say about Existence, because they're mentioned here, but when you go to the linked page, it's unclear which part of their page is about Existence.  What makes someone notable/worthy of inclusion in this section?  Should that be the order they are in?  I'm following the trail of a few people who have been self-editing their bios, and this trail led me here.  It just seems a little self-serving for Salmon himself to put himself in ahead of Soames.  Any newer people who should also be mentioned?  Going to the Soames article, we find the same thing, passive constructions stating the person is well-known or famous, but without secondary citations.  Something to work on.  Otherwise, to me, there's something odd about jumping from someone like Kripke to the other three mentioned.--Levalley (talk) 03:00, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Addition of new modern experts and the order they're in 

message: I'm going over the histories of several articles, and this one has improved immensely, IMO.  However, the overall subject is still confusing in the lead.  Philosophy doesn't own the word "existence."  Different languages, for example, have different words for existence.  A disambiguation page for the word "existence" seems excessive.  One or two more sentences in the lead, dealing with the word-in-general, and then giving over to philosophy, are in order.  Then, the article needs to trim modern/unsourced philosophers and focus on more views on existence before the 20th century.  This is because the explosion of academic publishing in the 20th century - and the easy target of a concept like "existence" means that the literature is vast, and problems of naming/fictional characters/possible words, etc., etc. are each interesting and deserve expansion before more recent (and repetitive work) is mentioned.  Let's do the basics very well, and leave the "but he also talked about it" in his publications part out of the article.  Original ideas, well-citated, that's my view on how to improve this article.--Levalley (talk) 06:10, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article is improving but... 

message: Was on the right track and makes one believe that something other than analytic philosophy is going to come in, in order for there to be balance.  But no.  No exploration of Dostoevsky's views or other similar views on existence are included.  Instead, the article leapfrogs from Russell (even the Russell part sounds forced and needs more citations - is Russell really an expert on existence?  Let's see the citations, please) to others who appear to be almost randomly linked in.  More connectors are needed.  If this is how the majority of modern experts on existence see the issue, let's see some citations - from textbooks, for example.  Or a well-reasoned argument that they're related, which would do as well.--Levalley (talk) 06:20, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The section where Dostoevsky is mentioned 

message: It especially needs citations.
Also, there are minor inconsistencies in capitalization, punctuation, etc., that need to be cleaned up.  I'll try to do it.  
It seems to hop around from topic to topic a lot.  The lead doesn't work as an overarching place to start the article.  More context is needed.--Levalley (talk) 22:06, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article needs some work 

message: If there is only one physical thing, can it be considered to exist? In other words, when there is no observer assuming all physical things (including air, solid, liquid substances space etc)are one single thing can existence be applied to physical things in its limited context of observer and observed?
is existence different from the defintion of existing thing? can you say a cat exists if there is only head of cat lying on the floor? 
This is because the same word is used to describe different things. Jimmy wales exists as a person. When used in this context it means Jimmy wales exists as something which fits the defintion of person whether in actuality he may be alive or dead or may be some kind of fictional character. Wikipedia exists. when used here it specifically means Wikipedia as a physical\virtual thing conforming to the already accepted notion of Wikipedia. I exist. This statement when used for self description means I exist as physical being in tangible form occupying space and time. God exist. This statement may mean to some God exists as a physical being or God exists as a concept just like Numbers exist, alphabets exist but not occupying physical space or time. In other words, exists as a word is used to in different contexts to mean different things. Some times to refer to physical existence and some time abstract ideas or concepts.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.124.230.149 (talk) 12:26, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Physical existence and Separation

message: "The word 'exist' is certainly a grammatical predicate, but philosophers have long disputed whether it is also a logical predicate. Some philosophers claim that it predicates something, and has the same meaning as 'is real', 'has being', 'is found in reality', 'is in the real world' and so on. Other philosophers deny that existence is logically a predicate, and claim that it is merely what is asserted by the etymologically distinct verb 'is', and that all statements containing the predicate 'exists' can be reduced to statements that do not use this predicate. For example, 'A Four-leaved clover exists.' can be rephrased as 'There is a clover with four leaves.'
This philosophical question is an old one, and has been discussed and argued over by philosophers from Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, through Avicenna, Aquinas, Scotus, Hume, Kant, Kierkegaard and many others. Nagarjuna presents the eastern view."
This phony argument long has been rejected as trivial since its first use in the 20th century. This is not an "old" question and never came up in those philosophers. No matter how you rephrase you cannot get away from "is" ("there is") and whether you say is or there is makes no difference at all. "There is" is identical to "exists" unless you mean only to point out the object (demonstrative use) - oh look, there it is. This is what in philosophy is called a verbal distinction only, slightly different words that refer to the same concept and the same reality. If the argument is going to be included it needs to be below in some sort of special section and needs to be identified with the name of those who proposed it and supported with references. Don't overreach yourself without any historical knowledge of the topic.Dave (talk) 10:40, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The question is certainly found in Aristotle (De Interpretatione) who distinguishes between 'is' predicated as a third element, when it does not signify existence (a chimera is a monster), and 'is' predicated as a second element (buttercups exist) when it signifies existence.  Avicenna is responsible for the distinction between the being of existence, and the being of essence, later taken up by Henry of Ghent, then Duns Scotus.  It was extensively discussed in the middle ages.  Kant famously discussed whether existence is a predicate or not, and so on.  Edward Ockham (talk) 11:20, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Challenge and remove

message: Edward and I have been communicating in the personal message section and he asks that the exchange be continued here. Note that his user page and talk area are a bit misleading. He is NOT a new user but is an experienced user since 2003. As to whether he is a WP officer he has not said. As far as I am concerned, as long as he does not pull rank and use it to browbeat us as so many of them do it makes no difference to me. So far in this article I have seen no sign of it. Maybe his rank is strictly editorial (the best kind). 
A few different questions have come up. Note that, my position is not that of article innovator nor that of pushing any idea of my own. Nor am I plugging any particular agenda although I confess to a predilection for Thomism, which is not what you ordinarily find among Protestants and rationalists. Moreover these ideas are not new to me.
And finally, I got into these articles by observing how unsatisfactory they are from a content and presentational point of view. I view myself as an article fixer. All this means that I do not see myself in confronation with Edward or anyone else. My goal is a run of higher-quality articles in the philosophy section. A few years ago I noted the utter impossibility of doing any philosophy articles on WP due to vandalism and personal confrontationism. The situation is better now due to the WP policy enforcement section and a new willingness to boot people not being serious. Nor am I any respecter of degrees in philosophy. Quite often the degree holder was a specialist and had an agenda; i.e., his point of view was far from neutral and he was not doing his best work here, only slumming around, so to speak. What I do respect is real spoken evidence of philosophic insight, which can only come from extended periods of investigation and thought, and I may add not a little suffering. That has nothing to do with degrees. For example, Boethius did his best work sitting in a jail cell awaiting condemnation and execution. I'm not saying, you need to have done that specifically, but you need sobriety and good intentions. We're not interested in teen-age horn-bucking, which is about all the response I have got in past years.Dave (talk) 12:10, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: "Moreover, although ancient philosophers may have mentioned it from time to time they did nothing with it really; that started in earnest in the age of reason." Why do you say this?  That is almost the opposite of the truth.  Have you heard of the Ontological argument?  Edward Ockham See in particular the section Ontological_argument#Criticisms_and_objections. Edward Ockham (talk) 15:55, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Steering the article with Edward Ockam

message: All right Edward, some philosophers have made a big deal over the use of "is" as a connector of items in the sentence. What do you want to do about it? It seems to me personally the concept is a specialized topic so if you want it back, it should go down lower in the article. Moreover, although ancient philosophers may have mentioned it from time to time they did nothing with it really; that started in earnest in the age of reason. I presume "later" is further down in the article. Now we are considering article organization. Why dont you make a few suggestions, tell us what mergers you might want, give us an article outline or two? Do some work here, give me something to fix or enhance. I personally don't see how the issue can be anything but trivial, as even to consider the use of "is" is to debate the existence of the unity that is the topic of the sentence. You can't debate at all without implying the possibility of non-existence. Language is by nature ontological, even when you think it isn't. Being does not magically appear when you think it should and go away when you want it to. You might not want your "is" to suppose the existence of anything but it does just the same. The universe is notoriously resistent concerning what WE want. This topic of triviality is covered under epistemology by the way. However there is no "right" way to do an article such as this. So, give us some idea, some suggestion, some outlines and when you start work, some references. Fair? So, in summary, here is what should follow here: 1) Merger suggestions after you have perused all the "being" articles. 2) Article outlines so we can start work on these articles or this article. 3) The removed section rewritten so as to include references and explanations of ideas (succinct of course). 4) A suggestion of where in your outline the referenced part should go.Dave (talk) 12:10, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: "Moreover, although ancient philosophers may have mentioned it from time to time they did nothing with it really; that started in earnest in the age of reason." Why do you say this?  That is almost the opposite of the truth.  Have you heard of the Ontological argument?  Edward Ockham See in particular the section Ontological_argument#Criticisms_and_objections. Edward Ockham (talk) 15:55, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: The Triviality, the Triviality

message: * Aristotle's position on the secundum/tertium distinction is explained in chapter 10 of De Interpretatione.
* Avicenna's view that existence is an 'accident' is referenced here.
* Anselm's position is explained in the article Ontological argument and you can find numerous references on the net and in popular reference works.
* Aquinas discusses the question in his famous essay on Essence and Existence.  Any good reference work will contain a discussion of this, e.g. 
* The secundum/tertium distinction was also a topic discussed by dozens of the minor scholastic philosophers in the 13C.  I will locate some references
* The distinction is fundamental to understanding the philosophy of Duns Scotus.
* William of Ockham discusses the issue extensively in his attack on Scotus in his Commentary on Peter Lombard's sentences.
* In the enlightenment period, there is Descartes, who presents a revised version of Anselm's argument.
* Another important discussion is by Hume in the Treatise of Human Nature, at the end of Book I part 2.
* Then there is Kant, whose rejection of existence as predicate is famous, see the relevant section of the Critique of Pure Reason.
* Franz Brentano, followed by C.S. Peirce and Gottlob Frege were the first of the modern philosophers to discuss the secundum/tertium distinction, to formalise the idea of 'secundum adiacens', and to argue that there are not two distinct ideas of existence.  Frege presents this as a solution to the ontological argument (i.e. a way of demonstrating its fallacy).
* Quine's famous assertion that 'to be is to be the value of a variable' is a variant of Frege's position.  
* We should not ignore Alexius Meinong, who believed that existence is a predicate, and that as a consequence some things do not exist. He said that 'there are things, such that there are no such things'.
As you can see there is a lot of material.  Edward Ockham (talk) 16:23, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: A starting point for references

message: Fine, Dolhenty is a good source. However, he has his own presentation, which should not be presented as "the way it is"; that is, "the three criteria." His presentation is not the general philosophic one. It appears as though he has cooked something up from the transcendentals. I'm not saying, he should not have done that, and I'm not saying it isn't valid, but, it's his and not generally the way it is done. So, I took out the three - the first - well, I agree, it is logically the first, is generally considered so and the argument is in fact the standard argument. Another way to go would be to tag the view as his: according to Dolhenty ... but then that would make it appear as though he did NOT utilize the transcendentals but innovated it all himself. It's only his presentation that is innovated, but we can't find fault with that as every single one of them (the metaphysicians) has his own mode of expression.Dave (talk) 14:37, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Dolhenty and the three

message: The entire introduction, body, and conclusion are about what people think exists and how people know what exists.  None of the article addresses existence as a stand-alone concept, independent from the observer. If we consider the etymology of the word exist, a better method of adding content and organizing it arises.  The first definition "to appear" amounts to something being observable.  Mind you, not being observed, being observable.  So, the first section of this article should discuss what the minimum criteria are for observation.  This should be the basis for this article, observation and interpretation.  So much of this article is semantic in nature that it resembles a crash course in rhetorical logic and reasoning.  Really guys, is there no way that we can go from "to be" to "what is"? 72.191.34.52 (talk) 23:32, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You (and I) think so, but that's not exactly the usual way to think of "existence" in the history of philosophy. Now consider a system where "thinking" is just a way of "perceiving the abstract reality", then the modern distinction between presence of an object and our perception of the presence of an object disolves, because our perception is then not a system independent from reality. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 07:04, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Content of this page 

message: The fourth sentence in the intro:
:Materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter, ...[snip]... Supernaturalism, on the other hand, holds that other things exist (or may exist) in addition.
This is not a proper contrast, f.ex. modern mathematical platonism might hold that numbers are real existant objects, but doesn't automatically contain so called "supernatural phenomena" such as miracles, incorporeal spirits, avatars of Vishnu, or flying carpets. AFAIK, materialism contrasts with idealism, with a "soul-matter dualism" inbetween. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 07:04, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, don't understand you. I would have thought that the problem is the other way round: in views of the world in which numbers are not a part of nature (I think I'd agree with that) you end up appearing to assert that they are supernatural, which isn't right William M. Connolley (talk) 19:44, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Late answer: three categories in my mind: A. material world, B. platonic ideal types, C. spirits, supernatural, flying carpets and stuff. Plato did claim that B was the ideal world. Whether to set B=C or describe C as an intermediary between A and B, or perhaps put A=B, is not predetermined by the Platonic original idealism. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 07:18, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Bad dichotomy

message: There seems to be some disagreement as to whether the tags are still needed William M. Connolley (talk) 18:15, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: was unnecessary provocation. Your assertion about truth not being the same as existence is based on a false premise.  When you remove information based on you own assumed premise, this is the basis of pushing you own POV about truth and existence as separate.  Please have faith in the source provided, there are others.  Please do not remove further material until this issue is clarified. Please self-revert now. We are here to build Wikipedia, there are good suggestions on how to address this article in the talk above.Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 15:32, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Please do not remove further material until this issue is clarified. - if the issue in question is my assertion about truth not being the same as existence then the issue needs no clarification. Truth is not the same thing as existence. It is you who labour under a false premise. If you doubt me, I suggest you propose a merger of the truth and existence articles and see how far you get William M. Connolley (talk) 17:43, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Your proposal would be a waste of time, the articles require expansion and categorization, the topics are so foundational. These two are an example of Wikipedia ignoring real substance for pop issues. Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 22:05, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ah, good, you have now accepted at the very least that wiki will not agree with your assertion that truth == existence. In that case, can you please stop raising this dead issue? William M. Connolley (talk) 09:10, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tags? 

message: So many issues. I'm a little dubious about the removal of:
: Supernaturalism, on the other hand, holds that other things exist (or may exist) in addition.
(though happy that In other words, matter is the only substance has gone, as it didn't help). That seems to me to be trivially true: supernaturalism (or religion, though the supernaturalism article is coy about identifying religion as supernatural) pretty well by defn involves things supposed to in some sense "exist" beyond the natural world William M. Connolley (talk) 22:49, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The article requires restructuring to breakdown how existence is approached in each categorization.  The remove was an attempt to push out a valid categorization from existence. Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 15:36, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I think supernaturalism is not the natural opposite of materialism, it foremost contrasts with naturalism. Materialism contrasts with idealism, I think. Supernaturalism is topical, somehow, but elsewhere, than contrasting to materialism. It's about discourse structure... Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 07:22, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Supernatural 

message: This bit seems all about logic, not specifically about existence. Who defends it? William M. Connolley (talk) 20:59, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: What are you looking for to support it? Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 04:04, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  The early modern treatment of the subject  

message: Subjects have predicates. Subjects are objects. I am not sure that Frege can be interpreted to say what our article states. I am not a scholar re the cited Frege source, but might I suggest "Frege says existence is not a property of things". ParkSehJik (talk) 19:51, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Predicative nature - Frege, object, property 

message: Surely, at several levels, this question cannot be answered as a direct consequence / example of Gödel's incompleteness theorems ?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.174.63.216 (talk) 09:38, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Existence of existence".  

message: Existence        darrylpenney.com    dwpenney2@bigpond.com
PROOF 1: Descartes was both right and wrong in stating that ‘I think, therefore I am’, which makes his remark a half-truth, and perhaps he should have said, that ‘we evolved reality out of the possibility of existence’. That we evolved reality is simple (until we delve into it), but the ‘possibility of existence’ needs explaining.
Occam’s Razor states that the simplest explanation is probably the correct one and has been around for centuries. It is not logic because it is imprecise, but it has staying power and must be true to a certain extent. It is actually a solution in the style of the Mathematics of the Mind and is a half-truth and not precise, useful most of the time, but not to be relied upon but should form one pillar of a solution. In other words, ‘that 
we do not exist’ is the simplest proposition, but we are real, as we know, but we are real in ‘the possibility of existence’! In other words, probability space! To simplify, existence is a half-truth (we may or may not exist), but the probability of existence is a truth because it is continuous and all-embracing. 
The Multiverse has been suggested to hold the infinity of universes with all the different combination of ‘natural constants’, and it is considered that ours is one of them because all of the constants are ‘right’ for our existence (in probability space). Whilst this is un-provable, a moment’s reflection suggests that this is possible, and likely, because all of these universes are in probability space and do not exist! But, Life (on earth) has evolved a reality out of this probability space.
PROOF 2: Previously, it was derived that ‘we evolved reality from the probability of existence’ by using the Mathematics of the Mind. The derivation of the probability of existence, is strengthened by approaching it from another direction. The more directions from which something can be derived, the larger the number of predictions that can be made from it and the ‘better’ the theory.
Our universe is a closed system and we would consider that the Law of Conservation of Energy, would apply and indeed it probably does, but what is this law? ‘In physics, the law of conservation of energy states that the total energy in an isolated system cannot change – it is said to be conserved over time’. (Wikipedia, Conservation of energy) Also, it has one dimension, which is time. (Wikipedia, Conservation law)
It is strange that under this law, our universe would have one dimension (time) and this presumably reflects the logic that we cannot ‘see’ inside that universe and that it is, thus, indeterminant to us. Current thinking is that our reality operates under space-time and we have to logically live in a ‘conserved’ universe, else it would run out of something eventually. So, where do we find a theoretical model for a conserved space that has the dimensions of space and time?
On the other hand, ‘in quantum mechanics, the probability current (sometimes called probability flux) is a mathematical quantity describing the flow of probability… It is a real vector’. (Wikipedia, Probability current) This isn’t very helpful, but shows that it is used and the dimensions of the Conservation of Probability are ‘total probability always = 1, in whole x, y, z space, during time evolution’ (Wikipedia, Conservation law, conservation of probability, number of dimensions)
This Conservation of Probability aligns with our universe in that we have ‘in whole x, y, z space, during time evolution’. Its not quite space-time because ‘time evolution’ is the same as the ‘time passing’ that I have used previously, and it is not an interval of time. Time interval is man-made, as is space interval in ‘whole x, y, z space’. I want to point out here that we have found a ‘complete’ mathematical ‘statement’, and our world appears to satisfy part of it, but I maintain that by Occam’s razor the simplest and most logical system will probably apply ‘best’, and that is the mathematical system, and is a Truth. So, how does our view of the universe (world O) compare with the mathematical form, and if it differs, why have we complicated things?
The ‘total probability always = 1’ aligns with Conservation of Energy, plus has the logic that every point in the space contributes to the sum and it must do so instantly to avoid local violations. So, every point is ‘entangled’ with every other point in the space constantly and instantly to provide a constant sum of energy. How can this be? The answer is, as we derived previously, what we call gravity, which affects EVERY particle-particle, particle-energy and energy-energy reaction in the universe according to the Law of Conservation of Energy because of a simple attraction that must exist for us to exist (out of the multiverse). 
To logically satisfy the law, instantaneous accounting must be kept, and that is done automatically because there is only a constant amount of energy/matter, and photons and matter continually change their energy, as we have seen (Pound-Rebka experiment) to keep the total energy at 1 to satisfy the Law of Conservation of Energy. 
So, gravity is the mechanism to provide a universe that we can live in, and that attraction of gravity (between matter, energy etc.) provides a source of energy which is part of the limit 1, Conservation of Energy sets the Conservation of Probability limit of 1, and a set limit of 1 requires instantaneous velocities to be attainable, so that the limit equals 1 at all times. This effect is ‘entanglement’. 
101.171.170.169 (talk) 12:36, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  We Evolved Reality from the Possibility of Existence 

message: language is nowhere near precise enough to come up with an accurate description of such concepts as existence. since this is an encyclopedia, not a bible, we can simply repeat what others have said, in their own language. too many of our articles on abstract concepts use too much abstract language. we should strive to not be too postmodern here. what would the average reader want to see here?Mercurywoodrose (talk) 17:29, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: relax

message: Materialism is ancient classical, and it refers to things that can be grasped by touch. Things that are only seen are not necessarily material !
Physicalism is both ancient and modern and has evolved with the cultural and technological advancement of physics. It refers to what is evident in public, empirical science. That means that "energy" which is a purely mathematical construct is physically "real" or "evident" but due to its multiplicity of 'forms', all of which express 'potential' energy, it cannot coherently be said to "exist". BlueMist (talk) 22:56, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Materialism]] and [[Physicalism]] are two very different notions

message: 06:32, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not the place to publish original essays, irrespective of their merit. Rick Norwood (talk) 12:41, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Existence A commonsense explanation   

message: 06:38, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Existence A commonsense explanation   

message: I don't exist. Serendipodous 10:45, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Um, according to the definition at the top of this article...

message: It goes without saying that a fair number of the edits on this page involve "philosophy game" vandalism, and it can get annoying, especially when people do it so unsubtly that it destroys the flow and sense of the lead. I do not think it unreasonable to attempt one of these two solutions.
# Protect the page in some fashion so editors don't need to swing by and fix philosophy vandalism. 
# Edit the leading line to work with philosophy game.
Option 1 is pretty straight-forward. Option two is a little less, but looking deep into the annals of the edit history (not really I only went back a couple months), it seems that there is at least one viable lead line that works for the game-lovers and does not detract (and in my opinion, it adds) to the understanding of the reader. Link "being" to the being page, and for good measure, "real" to real. I actually take umbrage with Bonadea's edit that "being" is used in its everyday sense because in the next sentence, the importance of what, exactly, existence is is proclaimed a central topic of "philosophical study of the nature of being...". "Being real" is the central crux of what existence is, and in Wikipedia:Overlinking editing guidelines, it specifically says that "Everyday words understood by most readers in context" should not be linked. Since "being real" is the context of what existence is, "being real" cannot be understood in context (because excepting tautology, something cannot give context to itself). 
I edited it for now - please revert it if you believe it is needed. Azertygod (talk) 07:05, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The thing is that the auxiliary "being" is simply a linking verb, a present participle associating "real" with the noun it describes, namely "existence". The sentence does not talk about "the state of being", but "the state of being real", and so wikilinking "being" makes no sense. It is a function word, not a content word - in the following sentence however it's a content word, and could be linked there. In that sentence, both "being" and "existence" are used to explain the term "ontology", so your quote above is a little misleading. As for "real", it is certainly used with its common meaning. I am very much against manipulating Wikipedia articles for the sake of a game (and to be honest I would also think it'd ruin this game to artificially create paths - surely the whole point is to see if there is a path or not!) --bonadea contributions talk 07:26, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have to agree with you, even when I don't want to (RIP philosophy game). It seems like you and  Just plain Bill seem to have the protection of this page pretty solid (20 min response time!) - so I'm assuming that's why you haven't requested semi-protection on this page. Thanks for the (incredibly) quick response! Azertygod (talk) 07:42, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead Section (and Philosophy-Game vandalism) 

message: In my edit to the article, I started to redo the intro paragraph but before I finished I lost interest, but I thought that my edit was still an improvement so I published it. After that somebody undid my edit and said something about getting to philosophy but I have no idea what that means. Can somebody please tell my what it means and why my edit was undid? Tommy bombyy (talk) 23:37, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe it has something to do with me not finishing with the intro paragraph and the other edits I was planning on doing? I'm not really sure. Tommy bombyy (talk) 23:56, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I undid your edit because it did not seem like an improvement. You used "refers to" twice in the first two sentences, and "arguably" (a common weasel word) in the third sentence. Wikipedia:Getting to Philosophy sometimes prompts disruptive edits to this article, twisting the text around so the first link starts a chain leading to the philosophy article. Hope that clarifies it a bit. Just plain Bill (talk) 00:08, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand now, but why not just let the chain exist? (see what i did there?) Tommy bombyy (talk) 00:15, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Get to philosophy? 

message: Was just looking into some old Wikipedia history, and ran across a complete archive of all "recent changes" which were made on April 4, 2001. See , its only two pages!  On there we can find that Larry Sanger created this article on that day, with the comment "The start of an article on one of my favorite subjects."  Collapsed below is the actual text of that first edit, almost 18 years ago, extracted from the August 2001 Wikipedia edit archive.  Cheers!--Milowent • hasspoken 18:03, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Existence of Existence on Wikipedia