Existence

The question of what it is for something to exist is, in some ways, the prototypical philosophical question. It takes a word, "is," which seems quite ordinary, and manages to make it puzzling. The most intuitive answer to the question is to disregard it, perhaps by claiming that the concept of existence is a basic concept, that is, a concept which cannot and need not be explained except by pointing out what does and what does not exist.

In the continental tradition, however, it seems more is said. Heidegger, of course, made the question famous, but throughout the continental figures I think we find a shared conception of being. I do not intend to argue that any particular individual held this view, but rather, here, I would like to focus on sketching it. If theoretical physics loses you, skim those paragraphs, the rest should only be as hard as usual.

First, some background. Kant held that there was only one unified experience, at least in any individual's case. That is, I have a single unified experience of a continuum of space and of time which are tied together, and likewise for everyone else. Thus, everything I find around me belongs to the same space-time. Every object is affected by what is before it in time, affects what is after it in time, and mutually affects what is at the same time as it (See the Critique of Pure Reason I. Division one, Bk.2, Sec.III.3 titled "Analogies of experience"). On Kant's view, these relations are how things get ordered in time to begin with.

This fits well with current understandings of spacetime and relativity on which an object which is unable to have an effect on another object does not stand in any particular relation of before, after, or simultaneous with the other object. On the other hand, it clashes with views of quantum mechanics which permit backwards-causality or hold that events are determined by the boundary conditions, i.e., the conditions at the start, end, and along the light-cone bounding an area. It also has the consequence that if God cannot be effected from without, then he is necessarily in the past. One could, however, strip the claim that the causal relations order events in time, and simply claim that for an object to exist, it must effect other objects, and that the collection of objects effected, mediately or immediately, constitute a reality.

Kant does not hold the view I am seeking to sketch, since he holds that noumena may exist, and that we have no way of knowing how they really are. However, from here, it seems Kant's followers, in seeking to do away with the noumena, wind up holding that for something to exist, not merely for us but at all, it must be related to other existent things in just this manner. Thus, a reality is given as a set of things which interact with each other, whether mediately or immediately. In order to be part of reality, then, an object must somehow have an effect on other parts of reality.

The difficulty with such a definition is that it seems to permit multiple realities, so that existence is relative to realities. Such realities would be incapable of interacting, otherwise they would form a single reality. One might say, then, that existence would be relative to the observer. An observer in one reality would find different existent things than would an observer in a different reality, and each reality would fail to exist from the point of view of the other.

Let us return to the possibility that God effects all of reality without, himself, being effected by it. In order for such a God to exist on this view, the view must hold that an object can exist even if it only effects other objects without being effected itself. However, one does not want realities to be able to branch. If we say that there is only one continuum of time, and that events are ordered in time by how they effect each other, we can avoid branching while maintaining the possibility of effecting without being effected, but at the cost of excluding some quantum mechanical views and likely relegating God to the past (although the later could be handled by holding that God's place in time would always be found just a moment ago, since he acts at all times, and thus he would be found to be at all times).

If we permit events in time to have separate orders, which Kant does not but relativity might, then we can get branching even if relations of what affects what determine temporal order. If objects only affect further objects, however, then some objects are affected. If we exclude for other reasons the possibility of two creators, we can limit unaffected things to God, and everything else will both affect and be affected. This still does not guarantee a unified reality, but it does make it vastly more plausible.

Kant and Aliens

Kant wanted to find a reason why math and physics and such must work. Must-ness, i.e., necessity, implies a priori (reasoning from without experience), thus he went looking for it in reason without experience. His solution was that we experience things as in space and time, and as caused and causing, because that is how our reasoning makes them appear to us. Thus, one might think of space and time and cause/effect relations as the General User Interface (GUI) which we have for living in the world.

We can not conceive of other matrices through which to perceive the world, which makes inventing aliens based on that practically impossible. We can, however, conceive of the matrices being ordered differently. We have space and time as relative to the speed of light, because that is as fast as we can perceive things. What if we perceived things more through some other matrix?

Suppose an alien whose reason makes the world appear to him primarily causally, rather than spatially.Here is how such a being might try to explain his perceptual world:

I don’t see as humans see. I see cause, effect. You see events, one, two, three, and so on. I see this causes that, causes the other. For you, everything is displayed as changing spatial dimensions. For me, it is changing causal dimensions. I can see far ahead what will come, just as you can see into the next room. If I am standing in a room, and there is a switch, I can see what happens if I switch it. I don’t see by light, either, but instantaneously, as far as your dimensions are concerned, by particles which you cannot perceive, nor will you ever be able to, apart from special structures. Because I “see” instantaneously, rather than by light, I perceive no relativistic effects.

Because I see causally, rather than spatially, I can see where every particle which has mass is. Each one has an effect on my own mass, pulling it in various directions, and I can see that. I can’t see each particle all that clearly, though, it is just as if you were to look out onto a field: you would see each blade of grass, but not at all clearly. What you could see clearly is where the grass was thick, and where it was thin, at least the extremes.

I don’t move in time in the same way as you. You are pulled along as if by a current. Because I pass through causality the way you pass through space-time, I can go backwards in certain ways. You can walk into and out of a room, but the room has changed due to time. I can walk into and out of an event, in the same way, but the event has changed in the meantime. For me, everything that could happen, does. I just don’t necessarily go to where it is. If I walk into a room, as far as you see, then I see many different directions I could go: where I knock a vase over, where I don’t. Both events happen as much for me as your kitchen and living room exist for you when you are in the dining room. You don’t experience your kitchen when you are in your dining room, and neither do I experience knocking over a vase when I don’t, but I can see it and what comes of it. Even when I do experience it, I can step back in time. I can knock over a vase, then rewind, by walking back through the choices, and then walk through what happens if I do not knock over the vase, or what happens if I knock it over differently.

What are, to you, alternate worlds, are, to me, akin to the future and the past. You measure time by changes in spatial objects. I measure time by changes in causal objects. Spatial objects are like boxes and wardrobes and stuff. Causal objects are openings and closings and knockings and such. I don’t actually see a vase, I see various possible actions tied to a vase, like you see various objects tied to knockings, rather than the knockings themselves. I just have it the other way from you.