Is Everything Real Something that Exists?

Metaphysics & Epistemology
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22

It comes down to the problem of relations (Wikipedia - Relation (Philosophy))

It depends on one’s belief in either Eliminativism, where relations exist in the mind but not the physical world, or Relationism, where relations exist in the physical world.

In Eliminativism, numbers, which are founded on relations, are both real and exist in the mind, but are neither real nor exist in the physical world. Numbers can thereby be explained in a non-reductive physicalist framework.

In Relationism, numbers, which are founded on relations, are both real and exist in the mind, and are both real and exist in the physical world. Numbers cannot thereby be explained in a non-reductive physicalist framework.

In non-reductive physicalism, mental properties, such as relations, cannot be reduced to physical properties.

As there are a number of practical reasons why relations cannot exist in the physical world, Eliminativism must apply, meaning that numbers, which are founded on relations, can be explained in a non-reductive physicalist framework.

23

I think that’s equivocating different meanings of ‘real’. A ‘real danger’ isn’t real in the same sense that a ‘real door’ is real.

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24

You are so right. But the consequences for this supposed question are really quite radical.

I think you may be tripping over a common misunderstanding of how the word “real” works. What it is for something to be real depends on what kind of thing it is. What it means to identify an apple as real is quite different from what it means to identify a danger as real. You can see this if you ask yourself what it means for something to be unreal. An unreal apple is made, let us say, from wood or plastic and may well be completely inedible or taste very different from a real apple.

An unreal danger is something that is not dangerous at all, or is very very unlikely to happen. Rain falling on your car is not a real danger to it, even if someone thinks it is. The possibility of a meteor falling on it is real, but so unlikely that few people will be inclined to take it seriously - and experience bears this out.

You can see the difference because the unreal apple exists - it just isn’t an apple in the ordinary sense. It is a model of an apple or a painting of an apple and exists under that description. But the unreal danger is not dangerous and so does not exist at all. One might argue that even if it is negligible, the possibility exists, so it is real in that sense. But that’s like insisting that the mirage is real even though there is no oasis where there seems to be one.

So, despite our intuitions, although it makes sense to suppose that everything that exists is real in its own way - the existence and reality of apples, dangers and numbers is not the same - many unreal things exist as well, so reality and existence are not synonyms.

25

Two different sense of the word “real”. We often use “real” as a synonym for “existing” (i.e. ontological). But in other cases, we use it differently. A “real danger” refers to a risk that one judges to have a significant probability of occurring, to suggest it’s worth avoiding or mitigating. Similarly, the broader term, “real possibility” refers to something that we judge worthy of consideration.

edit
I wrote the above as a response to your Op. After posting, I read some of the other responses - and I see that several people made the exact same point. I suggest you take it to heart.

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@Ludwig @materialist @FlannelJesus You’re not addressing the argument.

I understand that perfectly well. Compare with the abstract from Charles Pinter Mind and the Cosmic Order:

“Imagine that all life has vanished from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed. Matter is scattered about in space in the same way as it is now, there is sunlight, there are stars, planets and galaxies — but all of it is unseen. There is no human or animal eye to cast a glance at objects, hence nothing is discerned, recognized or even noticed. Objects in the unobserved universe have no shape, color or individual appearance, because shape and appearance are created by minds.” (Charles Pinter, Mind and the Cosmic Order, Introduction)

To whom would ‘the natural world’ appear in the absence of the observer? Phainomenon meaning ‘to appear’.

And I never posit such an entity.

27

I think the concept of “real” is a fairly malleable one, where we might extend it or restrict it to various degrees. Numbers, for instance, are certainly real in the sense that we can even think of them at all. In the same sense, hallucinations are real to. Really, anything that is or happens within the universe is real in this sense. The only things that aren’t real aren’t really things at all, since to be a thing is to take some sort of form.

Of course, we could also restrict our use of the term to things that have physical form in the universe: chairs, cakes, badgers etc. As far as real hazards or real consequences, real just seems to be a way to say it should be taken seriously, or that there’s a decent chance of something happening. Funny how we never hear of false hazards, though I suppose there are false alarms.

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I agree that it’s ‘malleable’, but I stand by the use given in the OP:

The word “real” derives from the Latin res—a thing or state of affairs. Historically, the word emerged in English in the 15th century as a legal term to distinguish physical property or matters (res) from human persons (persona)—a meaning which lives on in “real estate” (and indeed in “reality” ). By the late 16th century, its meaning broadened from “pertaining to things” to the modern sense of “actual” or “opposed to the imaginary”. And this is how it will be used here.

The ontological status of number is a matter of long-standing debate in philosophy. On the one side, you have Platonism of various flavours, which holds that numbers are real independently of any act of thought. Gödel, Penrose, Frege, and Husserl all defend some form of Platonism. Platonism is opposed by fictionalism, intuitionism, constructivism and so on. But the same time, mathematical reasoning is fundamental to science itself, and there are those who say (Tegmark is an example) that number is at the basis of everything.

So that’s why I chose numbers as the centrepiece of the argument: which is that while numbers may be independent of any mind, they can only be grasped by a mind. Think about that. It’s why I think there’s a real distinction to be made here, which has to be teased apart, even if it’s a controversial matter.

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I can acknowledge all of that without affecting the argument in the original post. I can see that my introduction of ‘possibilities’ at the end of the essay has been something of a distraction. The main contrast I want to make is between objects of sense and objects of reason, such as numbers, logical principles, and so on. This obviously harks back to the distinction between empirical and rational that underlies so much of the history of philosophy, but here I’m attempting to re-frame it.

I agree that within the sensory domain, there are going to be illusions, hallucinations, ropes that appear as snakes, and so forth. They exist, but they’re not what they appear to be. However, it’s not really the point at issue.

30

There’s this paradox of fiction. We emote (crying, laughing, getting angry, feeling compassion, etc.) while watching what is obviously fiction (movies, plays). That it’s classified as a paradox means that we’re being fooled but that seems debatable now, in the context of the present discussion.

31

What argument? I only see assertions (that I disagree with) and questions. I chose to answer one of the questions you asked. Evidently, these were rhetorical questions. My bad.

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32

I’ve often thought about what kind of reality fictional characters possess, and they are real in the sense that their role in culture and entertainment products is understood and shared by many people in that culture. So in that sense Bugs Bunny and Sherlock Holmes exist — as fictional characters. I don’t see anything particularly problematic about that.

The question I’m posing is a little different. Numbers, logical laws, and scientific principles are real - but they’re not existent as phenomena. If I ask you what an object is, you can point to it, ‘there it is’. If I ask you to show me a mathematical proof, you have to explain it. That explanation would be required to help me to understand what the principle or mathematical proof means which requires a faculty in addition to that of sight.

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33

You said:

That is what the OP says, though. A real possibility concerns something that does not yet exist in space and time, but which nevertheless informs our current judgements and choices. The actualized outcome doesn’t exist when the prediction or assessment is made.

This isn’t just true of human decision-making or horse races; it is basic to modern physics.
Consider the Schrödinger equation in quantum mechanics. It does not track a physically existent particle standing in space-time; it calculates the evolution of a wave function—a mathematical structure of probabilities, representing real possibilities for where a particle might be found upon measurement.

So the question arises: does the wave function exist?

  • It has no mass, no spatial coordinates, and cannot be directly observed as a physical item.
  • Yet, it yields the most precise predictions in the history of science.

⠀If we insist that only physically existent items are real, we are forced to say the wave function is an illusion—leaving us unable to explain why it governs physical events. But if we recognize that the wave function describes a real structure of possibilities that precedes physical actualization the paradox disappears - see Quantum Mysteries Dissolve if Possibilities are Realities:

By expanding the definition of reality, the quantum’s mysteries disappear. In particular, “real” should not be restricted to “actual” objects or events in spacetime. Reality ought also be assigned to certain possibilities, or “potential” realities, that have not yet become “actual.” These potential realities do not exist in spacetime, but nevertheless are “ontological” — that is, real components of existence.

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@Wayfarer The paradox highlights the blurring of the fact-fiction boundary. Thought it relevant to the discussion, because of what I perceive is a tendency to treat math, logic as sub-real.

Anyway, I’m on board with the gist of the distinction you’re proposing. Reminiscent of the objections raised by philosophers to logical positivism which invalidated large parts of philosophy by simply defining what is real to a philosopher in a manner of speaking.

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What is the argument?

The ontological and epistemological questions

Consider numbers. We probably agree that numbers exist in the mind.

The ontological question: do numbers only exist in the mind (Indirect Realism) or also exist in the world (Direct Realism)?

The epistemological question: when we observe a number in the world, are we seeing a number that exists in the world (Direct Realism) or are we projecting onto the world a number that only exists in the mind (Indirect Realism)?

The problem is, when we see a number in the world, how can we distinguish between whether that number exists in the world or we are projecting that number onto the world?

I would say that this is an insurmountable problem.

How can we know what exists in the world independently of our observations of the world?

What is the relationship between the mind and the world

Non-reductive physicalism is one theory about the relationship between the mind and the world.

If it is an insurmountable problem to know what exists in the world independently of our observations of the world, then also it will also be an insurmountable problem to know the true relationship between the mind and the world.

Non-reductive physicalism will remain a theory, one amongst many.

36

Don’t numbers exist in the dictionaries? Because numbers are words describing the amount of objects. It seems misunderstanding to say numbers exist in your mind or in the world, because they don’t exist in your mind or in the world.

What you see in the world would be the signs for numbers. They themselves are not numbers. The signs of numbers denote numbers.

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I wouldn’t necessarily agree with the way you’ve expressed it -I think you’re posing a false dichotomy.

If I know there are six of some object, then I know a fact about the world. But that is represented by the numeral 6 which as a numerate being I’m able to understand.

I don’t understand numbers as objects, except for in the sense of being ‘objects of thought’, so in that sense, they’re not ‘in the world’ as are objects such as stones or plants. And they’re not naturally-occuring phenomena, are they? So they’re not ‘in the world’ in the sense that objects are. But in my view, neither are they simply inventions or creations of the mind. I’m of the ‘numbers are discovered not invented’ school of thought.

In saying this, I acknowledge that the question ‘what is number?’ is actually a very difficult philosophical question which many great minds have wrestled with, and nobody has satisfactorily resolved. So I’m not trying to solve that problem or present an answer.

What I am claiming is that numbers are real in a different sense to material objects. Why I think that is a challenge for philosophy is to ask what it means to say that numbers can be real in a different sense to objects. I think that’s the interesting philosophical question.

I do spell that out in the essay that the OP is discussing:

"you can point to a numeral, say “7”, but what you’re gesturing towards is a symbolic representation and one which can take many forms:

7 - Arabic numeral
VII - Roman numeral
111 - Binary code
Seven - English word
七 -  Chinese - Japanese word
सप्त - Sanskrit word

In each case, symbolic form varies, but the value does not. In grasping a number, we are recognizing a quantitative and logical relation that has a specific value as a matter of definition. They are the same for any mind capable of counting.

38

Yes, that sounds making sense. The signs of numbers can be anything in drawings or writings, and some folks seem to think them as numbers existing in the world or mind, which is not the case.

The signs for 7s just denotes 7-ness for whatever amount of objects in the world making up totality or counting for 7-ness.

We know numbers and use them for counting or denoting, however whether to say numbers exist sounds arguable. If we know and use something, does it mean it exists? Could we not just say we know them or they are known to us, rather than they exist?

39

Suppose we had no language and look at the world. In the world are apples.

Either we perceive no relation between these apples, in which case we would have no concept of numbers, or we do perceive a relation between these apples, in which case we would have the concept of number.

Our concept of number is founded on our ability to perceive relations between things.

Structural Realism discusses this idea.

The unknown is whether the relations we perceive exist in the world, or only in our mind.

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40

Real - but not existent.

41

……as well done as usual. Some relevant comment:

Regarding your note on the use of the term “object”, in the Guyer/Wood translation of CPR, there is a plethora of footnotes…..like, dozens…..indicating how the author wants “object” to be understood, as interchangeable with “thing” on the one hand or as predicate in logical relations on the other;

If the root of the concept of reality is “real”, and the definition of reality is that which is susceptible to sensation….mustn’t then “real” be a physical/material condition?

And speaking of concepts, insofar as existence and reality are both pure conceptions of the understanding, which, in transcendental philosophy are related to empirical conditions alone, albeit in different classifications thereof, then it stands to reason the concept of “real” should relate only to the empirical as well, and that objects constructed by and for the use of the intellect instead of “real” are merely valid.
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I’m reminded of your predisposition for the notion of “perspective”. It seems to me that the disturbance between real and existent obtains precisely from that perspective which relates each to its proper domain. And because that perspective is the human intellectual system, it follows necessarily that the content of it is not real, else contradiction is unavoidable with respect to affected sensory apparatuses.

So it is that everything real is something that exists, but it does not follow from that alone, that everything that exists is real, which is to say not everything that exists is an appearance.

Which may satisfy the request for distinction between epistemology and ontology: that which is real is immediately knowable; that which is existent is only possibly knowable. Another way to put it, there is no need to think a perceived thing as real but it is perfectly valid to think an existent thing without any accompanying perception of it.

Not so sure about this as an insight, but it is nonetheless thought.

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