mfbukowski Posted February 11, 2020 Posted February 11, 2020 6 hours ago, smac97 said: Not empirically, no. Since new species are discovered every year, I'd say yes. I don't understand your question. As a living, breathing, person? Who lives at the North Pole? Who is a jolly fat elf? Who flies through the air on a magic sleigh drawn by reindeer? No, I don't think that person exists. In the same sense that Atticus Finch, Gandalf, Captain America, etc. exist. Thanks, -Smac Interesting. My question was in what sense an unknown species could "exist" when we know nothing about it? Which unknown species is it we are talking about? Is it a plant, an insect, a mammal? (the choices of categories here are huge of course) The point is, how can we say our hypothetical undiscovered species "exists" if we don't even know what we are looking for? Do you mean you have faith that unknown species will be discovered, but you don't know about individual ones? What if there are no more? (hypothetically) ? Does their "discovery" constitute their existence? Did you know that there have been many many species unknown to science that have been found in fish markets where the purveyors and their ancestors have been eating them for hundreds of years? It's kind of like "discovering America" In what sense does "America" exist? (just another example) But all your definitions were contextual. Nothing you could hang onto for answers. I also know you know God "exists", no not empirically, of course, but that is the problem. Can we make a unified definition then of "existence" that we can put in a dictionary etc.? So my suggestion do we actually try to define the word, or simply avoid it's ambiguity by defining the contexts that give meaning? The point is just throwing about the word "exists" just clouds the arguments and trivializes them, and it is better to define exactly what one means when one uses the word so that one can make sure that the contextual categories match. A perfect example of this is God. Atheists want to define the existence of God in a way which is objective, meaning, scientifically experimentally discovered. Believers typically define the existence of God in a way that one defines the existence of moral and ethical truths- NOT in an objective way but a way which results from internal personal direction, and yes, the word "feelings" So often believers and non-believers are not using the same sense of important words, and do not recognize the source of their confusion when what it is semantics. I posted this because I felt that was happening here in this particular discussion.
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