In a world stripped of concepts, there is no existence as existence is itself a concept. Therefore, a fundamental prerequisite for existence is the existence of concepts. Concepts however cannot exist without a conceiving entity. Therefore, existence requires consciousness.

The existence of a thing implies the existence of the concept of a thing. If the concept of a thing does not exist, we cannot refer to it in any way and thus its existence becomes a null concept. Thus, the concept of a thing and by consequence the thing, is a mere state of a hypothetical system that is responsible for consciousness or is conscious. I will refer to it as the conscious system.

(1) Constant change implies that there is a never-ending action, because if action would cease to exist, then change would be at some point impossible and therefore it will not be constant. Thus infinity is an inevitability.

(2) The concept of a thing is distinguished by the concepts of other things through the concept of not that thing. Thus, discreteness can exist, so that all experience does not merge into a single point, which allows dimensions to exist.

(3) The fact that a thing is defined by a set of conditions, reflects the state of the conscious system, which further determines the next state of the system but also forces it to never be in (experience) the same state twice, because that would put the system in a loop which contradicts buttonion's first proposition as it would cause a stable organization in the system (that is all that is) and therefore no more change.

Thus far I have asserted that all that exists is an infinite non repeatable experience.

So when we say that a thing exists, we are really saying that the experience of everything that can exist, has existed or will exist if it does not now. Which sucks.

Sparked by this post from a different forum. My take, no. Every time I see the topic of concepts pop up I roll my eyes a bit, yeah we did make this stuff up but so what? I never really see the point of mentioning that, because at the end of the day you still use them to make your point.

To me at least existence doesn't need it, namely because something has to be there to even have a concept or notion of it. And "it" and "existence" and words are concepts but I don't really think pointing that out says anything about existence or consciousness in any meaningful way. It refers to something (and yes "something" might be a concept but again so what?)

A lot of it just reminds me of a rehashing of Buddhist philosophy. But I wanted to know what smarter people that me think about this since I don't fully get it but even I can tell something isn't right about the post.

This is post he references in it:

So...all things (or objects) are,

1. impermanent, temporary, in flux, constantly changing 2. relative in the sense that we can only know what a thing is relative to what it is not (a solid object relative to the background of ?non-that object?, space for example) 3. dependent on a countless number of conditions to be what they are (me- air, money, my mom?s intention to have me, evolution of homosapiens, phsysical laws)


So when you say that something exists, what are you really saying about that thing?