Real, Imaginary, and Nonexistent

[Really Weird Person]

I spoke with somebody about the terms real, imaginary, and nonexistent, but I cannot recall who it was. Obviously, it was not Rakib. He made that perfectly clear (so if you see this topic, Rakib, you can disregard it). For whomever it was though, here is another idea. Nonexistent can be thought of as an anti-categorizing term. What I mean is this: If something truly does not exist, how can it be categorized at all? I suppose that if nonexistent is the category it would work.

[psishock]

It was Louigi, if my memory is correct.

[Louigi Verona]

What I mean is this: If something truly does not exist, how can it be categorized at all?

It depends relative to what you perform categorization. If we speak about things that exist and that do not, then I don't see a problem here.

But here is another cool thing for ya. There are at least two types of things that don't exist:
a. things that exist in question but do not exist in particular place or with these particular combinations of characteristics.
b. things that do not exist at all, anywhere, not even as ideas. (perhaps what you meant by "truly does not exist")

So type "a" things, an example being a non-existing teapot on my table, can be categorized, because it is not truly non-existent, it is just non-existent on my table. Thus, I can freely categorize things, that do not exist on my table. In fact, things that can be imagined or made up or invented or generated by mixing properties - all of those are type "a".

However, type "b" things cannot be categorized because they fall out of existence at all, they cannot even be an opposing dark side of existence since that would be an existence in itself. In fact, although we can theoretically talk about type "b" things, we cannot imagine what they are and how can something of that sort be, because they actually, according to our definition, are not existing. In fact, as soon as we start talking about type "b" things, they start to evade us, as instantly what we imagine or what we can talk about falls into the category of things that do exist, into the type "a" category.

Which begs the question if there are non-existent things at all or if one can think of non-existing things. This seems to me an extremely deep and fundamental question, as it touches upon the nature of reality. All I can say is that we operate with things that exist. Anything that does not falls out of our operation. So either it means that our understanding of reality is very limited or else that there are no non-existing things possible.

Confused? Me too.

[Louigi Verona]

Okay, having read a little on the matter and thought about it, I would say that the paradox of the situation is that

a). to think of an object and to think of the same object as existing are just one and the same thing
b). in the above discussion I treat existence as a "real predicate"

I think you would find this article useful, as have I: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nonexistent-objects/

[Louigi Verona]

Having read the whole article and thought on the matter, I would say that most philosophers seem to have nailed it pretty well, but have left a lot of things to think about.
My stance towards the subject is closer to Priest and his "other worlds" theory, which says that a round square can exist in a world where this would not be contradictory.

But I would like to also speak of comprehension here. When we speak about non-existing objects, as i said above, we have to differentiate between objects that we can relate to and say if they can exists, at least in theory, like the golden mountain, or cannot exist, like a round square, and objects that do not exist at all, not even as ideas.

[uncloned]

This all reminds me of the great American philosopher poet and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.


http://www.slate.com/id/2081042/

[Really Weird Person]

round square

I suppose that if one thinks of a circle or a sphere, it is truly a square; however, there does exist such a shape as a rounded square. It is a square, but rather than straight lines, corners are curved or "rounded." As for the types of things that do not exist, I think that I was thinking of the second item indeed.

I am not sure if you know much about computer programming, but here is some code that I came up with that I think suits this situation.

1 using nonexistent as the oppesite of real;
2 Item_X = anything;
3 if(Item_X exists in the world of nonfiction && Item_X does not exist in the world of fiction)
4 Item_X is real.;
5 elseif(Item_X exists in the world of fiction && Item_X does not exist in the word of nonfiction)
6 Item_X is real.; //I think that this can be considered "Confusion: Part 1 of 2" for most people.
7 elseif(Item_X exists in the world of fiction && Item_X exists in the world of nonfiction)
8 Item_X is real.; //This can be considered "Confusion: Part 2 of 2."
9 else
10 Item_X is nonexistent and thus not real.;

[Louigi Verona]

Yeah, well the round square, although it is tempting to try to visualize it as some kind of a 3D trick, is, in fact, a very simple thing that you cannot cheat. A sphere is a sphere and a circle is a circle. I would say that a round square as in shape being a circle and a square at the same time, is not something you can cheat. I would say another example we can come up with is 2=3. It is basically the same thing. Can 2 equal three? What is the reality of a statement 2 equals 3?

As for your program, it is very generic and does sum up the basics well. I would once more point out that I do not consider truly nonexistent object to be an opposite. I see that you like to say something is an opposite of something else. But if something does not exist, it cannot be an opposite of anything. You still think in categories of things that exist.

To bring a far fetched allegory which I think is admissible to give a feel of a situation, imagine that there is a "+", but no "-" in nature. And so you cannot say that "-" is the opposite of "+" because "-" does not exist, it is not part of reality in any way and thus it cannot be even thought of.

I do clearly see that this is a weird concept and I do not believe any human being is capable of truly understanding that, a nonexistent object is way beyond comprehension, which really comes out of the fact that it is nonexistent. But it is possible to outline a shadow the idea of a nonexistent casts.

The limitation to comprehending the nonexistent is this: when we say nonexisting, we still have to base that on reality. We still define it as something that does not have properties of what we call and feel as existence. Thus, to us it is still something that is not an empty concept. A truly nonexistent object is truly empty, it is not just "not possible", it is outside any possibilities.

Whether this is possible I do not know. It might be possible that everything exists. And I mean - EVERYTHING. That there is nothing that is outside of being and that being is an absolute state that is the only thing that exists. But I guess that there lies a border, beyond which a human mind is helpless.

[Louigi Verona]

And by helpless I do not mean that we cannot get it, I mean we can never "understand" it in words. Words being particulars are capable of taking out only parts of reality. Words are incapable of capturing the reality as a whole. No abstract thought can. Only livING, beING can be an answer, but not in a sense of having arrived at a final conclusion, but arrivING to this conclusion, knowING the answer by livING it.

[Really Weird Person]

Based on these posts, perhaps the conclusion can be drawn that trying to understand this concept that we have been talking about can be likened to trying to understand God's love for humanity in its fullest scope. Although, based on what you used for types of things that don't exist, I think that it can also be safety stated that the following things are indeed real:
1. Things in the world of fiction (such as characters in movies and video games)
2. Fake objects (such as fake fruit, dolls, and play money)
3. Virtual objects (such as e-mail, e-checks, and virtual machines)
4. Not genuine things (such as accessories for video games) (such as the drums, cymbals, microphones, and guitars for Rock Band)
I am not sure if I can think of anything else to say about this concept. Can you, Louigi (That is an interesting spelling of Luigi, by the way.)? Although, that may only be a screen name. Your true (note how I did not use the term real) name may be different.

[Louigi Verona]

I think it is obvious that an email and guitars for Rock Band are real objects. Did you read an article I linked you to?

[Really Weird Person]

I think that most people would disagree with that. Although, I think that this is because most people do not use the real-nonexistent logic. They think of real as being in opposition to fake. I, however, think of fake as a synonym for false rather than a term in opposition to real. An example: fake fruit
The fruit is real due to its existence. It is fake, however, because it provides sustenance. Another thing that I don't think of is real being a synonym for true. This is beause of the fact that fake things are real. Here's a thought for Louigi. All things that are true are real, but not at things that are real are true.
As for articles, I did not read those.
And now it's time for Complex Concepts With Caleb: the part of the post where Caleb comes out explains a complex concept.Today he will explain the concept of dreams.
We all have them. Louigi's might be recoding Modpug Tracker. It might be becoming a construction worker or a firefighter. I have no idea what his dreams are. What I do know though is that they and things in then are real (especially using the logic that this whole topic has been about) (sorry, Beatles). I think of dreams being in the word of fiction prior to coming true, or, using common logic "becoming realities." I suppose that another view could be that the setting and the objects in the dream are virtual. Either view results in existence, and thus, the state of being real.

[Louigi Verona]

seems like a language problem. fake and nonexistent are very different things.
if you did not read the article I gave you a link to, then no wonder you "disagree" with me. "fake fruit" has no relation to what I was talking about.