Think about waves on the ocean – knowing what it's made of isn't enough to understand why the wave exists. This is also true for other arrangements, like viscosity or electrical conductivity. We can say that wetness is an emergent property. So it can't be the particles themselves that account for their wetness or lack thereof. Yet they're all made of the same stuff – H 2O. But ice crystals and steam clouds are not. I'd like to divert our attention to something very everyday: water. The reason for that is it's motivated purely by excessive trust in perception. It's Premise 2 I'm going to pick on here. Premise 3 The universe is an object, and I am an objectĬonclusion Existence Monism is false Why the objector's argument fails Premise 2 It is perceptually obvious that I am a distinct object from the universe Premise 1 (Existence Monism) The universe is the one–and–only object Our privileged access to our perceptual experience tells us that this ought to be true, and thus we should be existence pluralists: Surely we want it to be true that tables and chairs exist without need for further qualification? Surely, we exist, distinctly from other objects? Our human condition predisposes us to want our best theories to respect our most obvious intuitions and perceptions. Second, Existence Monism is inconsistent with our perceptual evidence that objects exist independently from each other.First: we (people) have no special ontological privilege and, strictly, do not exist.They correspond with the points the objector made. Our powerful perceptual experience is simply misleading us. In fact though, this is a bullet I think it is a mistake not to bite - it is no genuine bullet, but a fact that contributes to the main substance of the argument. It might seem as if I am biting a considerable bullet here. – is a subregion of spacetime ‘arranged' (or so ’conscious' subregions perceive) x–wise. What I strictly mean when I refer to "I", "you", "tables" – etc. These are both points I will clarify in subsequent passages. The illusion of my existence can be attributed to spacetime subregions arranged such as to produce the emergent property of consciousness resulting in a self–aware substructure-properties which only exist insofar as it is perceptually useful (or unavoidable, in the case of our consciousness) for us to identify them. I believe that when I assert that I exist, I am correct but my assertion was false. Second: I don't think everyday objects exist. Yet clearly you have written this article, which exists, and I can respond.!" You can't have written this article, which in turn cannot exist. "But you just said you don't exist! If what you say is true, you can't have an opinion. "Your opinion?" the pluralist says to me. Two big objections – I can't have an opinion if I don't exist The base case for existence pluralism is just the view that there is more than one object. If you say that tables and pens are (genuine) objects (or that mereological atoms are objects, for the mereological nihilists) then you're an existence pluralist. If it were to have proper parts, they would constitute objects.Ĭompare this with existence pluralism. The cosmos can be said to have a highly varied internal structure, but no genuine proper parts. The cosmos is highly varied on the inside, but no area of the cosmos is itself an object.Ī slightly more technical way of putting this is that the cosmos is a mereologically simple structured whole. What is existence monism?Įxistence monism is the view that there is exactly one object. Nor is it intuitive.īut in this article, I intend to defend existence monism by overcoming some of these highly unintuitive consequences, and by showing why it is in fact better suited to explaining the way the world is. The incredulous stare is attracted by some of the most interesting arguments of modern metaphysical exploration, not least David Lewis' modal realism.Īlmost nobody's first reaction to existence monism is that it's particularly plausible. Philosophers have called this the "incredulous stare". So the existence monist can, understandably, anticipate some funny looks. In a nutshell, that means I believe there is exactly one object, and that this object is the cosmos.Įxistence monism entails that all of the objects with which we are familiar, like pens and tables and people, do not exist. This post assumes some basic prior knowledge of philosophical vocabulary and concepts.
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