everything exists

Either as a material object, or as an idea, or as a word or symbol.

I may need more categories here.

Any thoughts?

To say the everything exists as an idea is only to say that those ideas exist. I understand your point, but this sloppy way of expressing it leads to metaphysics.

I think I’ll go get drunk now.

This site is wacky today.

Your are right, maybe not only one form, i don’t know.

Why not post about this in realunoriginal’s thread ?

Or better yet not at all ?

Pour me one, brother!

“Everything”, as in anything we can imagine, “exists”, in that it has a temporal character.
Fascinating.

I think we’ve just proven God.

Hallelujah!!

I guess to clarify, (maybe), it’s easier to account for our observations and intuitions and for the things that we know we don’t know if we grant everything existence, or possibility, then go on categorizing things as they properly should be based on the information that we have,(or don’t have) of them.

I really just pulled this out of my ass, and some of you can probably tell. Either way, I think it’s an interesting point. Deconstruct it if you want. I’m all ears.

Dude, I just want some of whatever you’re smoking.

Easier, huh.

That’s what philosophy is, the easy way.

I know, I know. You’re bored.

Maybe you, me and Satyr really should get together and drain a few.

Oh God, what clever ways we find to excuse our mental farts.

I apologize. I was all wrong about you.

Anyone remotely associated with philosophy or pretentious enough to use this word in reference to himself is…LAME!!!

Back to hockey games and pussy, with a beer in between.

The modern man is upon us!!!
The anti-intelelctual intellectual.

What do two negatives give you?

Come on Faust. How about a little charitable interpretation?? I’ve already admitted that I pulled that out of my ass. Why not try and make the argument as strong as possible so we can find out where the real holes in it are?

The real holes are that an idea is an idea and a fire hydrant is a fire hydrant. The former has no length, height, or width and the latter does.

I’m going to try to find a seven-year-old to explain the whole thing.

I get it. You’re bored.

So am I.

It’s really time for me to twist up a fatty and drive to town to watch football with a bunch of paint-stained schooner rats and fat ugly women.

An idea exists as an idea, a fire hydrant exists as a material object. What’s the problem with that?

btw I think I’m about to do the same thing, at least the 1st part.

But the fire hydrant is a thing out of “everything” and the “whole thing” is also a thing along with every.

But it’s not the idea that exists, like the idea of the fire hydrant, it is actually things and fire hydrants(which are things)that exist.

Kay, little Johnny, run along now. You’ve explained to the grown-ups how to recite the abcs. :smiley:

[size=75]I’m bored, too!! I should take a walk.[/size]

Does the fire hydrant (as an idea or material object or whatever) exist before anyone invents it? If so, we have metaphysics. If not, the fire hydrant has not existed at a certain time and thus the argument is defeated.

I think I’ll need a few just to make all of this interesting.

Vodka cranberry for me.

A word or a symbol is just an idea, isn’t it? Even if they don’t have another idea, being that which they symbolize, attached to them, they are still just ideas.

I’d say everything exists either manifestly or potentially. A physical thing is manifest, a thought is potentially manifest, but equally as real.

Or perhaps we could say that everything that exists is either matter or form.

Or then again we could split things into form and idea. The form of a chair may exist, but If I don’t have the idea in my mind of ‘chair’ to apply to the form, is it a ‘chair’, or just a lump of matter? If I use a chair as a table, is it a table or a chair?

Haha, yes. I’ve never thought of that. You can rightly say “God exists,” just like you can say “a unicorn exists”, and be correct.

So, wait, your thoughts aren’t “real”? You best stop talking to us then, because in order to talk you have to think.

If it doesn’t exist, how can you think about it? Everything that can be thought exists in some manner. The flying sphagetti monster is a construct in your mind. You have constructed it out of things that exist. You cannot construct it out of something which does not exist, because that which does not exist cannot be thought.
This is the amazing thing about the mind, it can generate ‘potential’ realities. But this thing exists in my mind, and is that which exists in my mind not real?
You said that tangible reality was the only kind of reality, this is the comment that I objected to, for surely a mental construct is a reality. If I do a drawing of this monster, is that drawing real? But the monster itself is still not manifest. Clearly then, a ‘potential’ reality is a reality just like a manifest one is.
You might rightly point out that a thought of a monster and a monster itself are not the same. This is true. But both are ‘real’. The question rests on mind. How is something created in my mind? Do you believe that only what is material is real? If so, you believe that the things existing in thought are not material. What are they then?

I see, so you are a dualist. Well, that’s alright then. So you believe that only matter can be called ‘real’ and not energy?

Vodka cranberry - how very current of you :smiley:

…I’ve been at the Port this evening :smiley: now I’ve just finished weight-training my legs: so I think I deserve more Port + it’s my birthday in just over an hour :smiley:

You know I’m not above the bourgeoisie masses, dear.

I sometimes, even buy into the pseudo-altruism that passes of humanism.

Plus I like the vodka sweetness contrasting agaisnt the cranberry bitterness. It reminds me of life.