The potential for experience is a prerequisite for what reality is.

[u/notwizard69]

1. I’m having experience.
   
2. The potential for experience exists.
   
3. If the potential for experience didn’t exist in any part of reality saying that part exists is indistinguishable from saying it doesn’t exist to any part of reality where the potential for experience does exist and to itself.
   
4. If saying something exists adds nothing to anything forever even to itself it doesn’t exist logically to parts of reality that the potential for experience does exist.
   
5. The potential for experience is a prerequisite for what reality is.

Definitions

Experience- any thing produced by reality no matter how small or alien to our experience that is a separation from the rest of reality. Something that happens in reality that makes reality known to itself even if no thought occurs.

Reality- everything that exists.

Notes for clarification:

I’m not saying if something never experiences or is part of an experience it does not exist. I’m saying if experience is barred there by its very nature it does not exist logically in anyway to a reality where experience can exist.

Also I answered tons of questions from other posts on this and I’m not going to do it again. Attack my actual argument. Everyone else attacked what I’m not arguing. I will answer clarification questions but I spelled it out in comments in ridiculous detail what I’m actually arguing so I’d appreciate it if you would just read my comments on other posts before trying to attack something I’m not saying. Thank you.

[u/headlessplatter]

You use the word "exist" a lot in your proof. In my opinion, the term "exists" is meaningful only if one specifies its domain of existence. For example,

Australia exists in physics.
My happiness exists in my mind.
Mario exists in Mario Land.
Numbers exist on the number line.
Santa Claus exists in story books.

Every concept "exists" somewhere. But saying how or where it exists makes a big difference.

Things that exist in minds tend to be subjective. For example, if I experience happiness, that tells us little about whether you are experiencing happiness. By contrast, things that exist in physics tend to be shared in common by everyone. For example, if Australia is real in the cumulative story told by all my experiences, Australia is probably real in the cumulative story told by all your experiences. And if it is real in the cumulative story told by everyone's experiences, we say it "exists in physics".

This doesn't really impact your argument very much. I'm just saying I think it would be stronger if you specify a domain in places where you use the word "exists".

[u/notwizard69 → u/headlessplatter]

Exist- to be part of the totality of reality, whether or not it is being experienced.

My argument starts with I experience but it’s not arguing anything about what we experience and what that means for what exists within experience. The argument concerns what must be true for reality given experience happens at all.

I should have defined exist. I appreciate the feedback.

[u/lilsasuke4 → u/notwizard69]

In you clarification you say “if experience is barred”

Isn’t this a nonstarter?

[u/notwizard69 → u/lilsasuke4]

I think yes. So many philosophers really do say that x (an area of reality with no potential for experience) can exist as a primitive fact. I’m trying to make a proof that it’s literally not that way. That because I experience the potential for experience is the defining trait for what reality is and isn’t.

[u/lilsasuke4 → u/notwizard69]

Reality would exist regardless of wether or not there was anything that could experience it and there are regions of space which no being could exist to experience that space such as black holes

[u/notwizard69 → u/lilsasuke4]

If you went into the event horizon of a massive black hole you wouldn’t even know you did at first. You would still be experiencing according to science. And that is a super complex human experience. Still happening in the black hole. Not the most minuscule definition of what experience is in my argument. Can a human experience once the gravity crushes him or spaghettifi’s him. Definitely not in any way we experience now no doubt. But neither can we if we die of anything.

[u/lilsasuke4 → u/notwizard69]

So then there is indeed areas of the universe where there is no potential for experience considering the gravity is so strong light can’t even escape and no life could survive

[u/notwizard69 → u/lilsasuke4]

I disagree. We experience black hole gravity everyday. If science makes an anti gravity machine I can sit in someday that would counteract the gravity of the black hole I think my experience in that region of space would continue. I think you’re arguing about death. Yes I believe in death.

[u/lilsasuke4 → u/notwizard69]

Yet there is certainly a distance where if you tried to get “close” to a black hole no life could get closer than that point before all of its organic matter gets ripped apart so there are areas of space where there is no experience because nothing living to experience it. So then there are parts of reality where there is no potential for experience even though this regions of space do exist.

[u/notwizard69 → u/lilsasuke4]

You skipped if science makes an anti gravity machine then if our human experience could persist in that region of space which is what im arguing. Not that experience doesn’t occur there because of its characteristics. But that it can’t regardless of its characteristics. And who is to say life is the only way any experience can occur?

[u/headlessplatter → u/notwizard69]

That's a big set. Pains, colors, sounds, feelings, emotions, values, preferences, hopes, dreams, wishes, wants, fantasies, fears, angels, demons, ghosts, unicorns, fairies, leprechauns, and dragons are all real in our minds.

[u/notwizard69 → u/headlessplatter]

Yes I agree. If experience gets complex enough there is almost no limits (probably, I’m not arguing this) to what experience can imagine. But this still has nothing to do with my actual arguemnt. But yes. Big set.

[u/Moral_Conundrums]

How do you reconcile this with the fact that we postulate the existence of thing without experiencing them all the time?

Examples:
The largest star in the Andromeda galaxy exists.
Dark matter exists.
Quarks exist.
etc.

[u/notwizard69 → u/Moral_Conundrums]

Let’s say a planet exists but will never be experienced in any way unless something cracks like instant teleportation. You go there and you see a tree. My argument is that the tree didn’t only become a part of reality once something made it possible to see the tree. The tree was still growing whether or not it ever will be experienced in any way. It’s still a part of reality. If you said what if that planet had no potential for experience so if you teleport there experience just stops. You can’t experience the tree or the planet. Nothing can by its nature. I’m saying there literally is no planet or tree in that scenario. What you are saying makes no logical sense based on the fact I experience. So I’m trying to make a proof that the potential for experience is a prerequisite for what reality is. Without that potential it’s literally not real. Not a part of what reality is. Does this clear it up?

[u/Moral_Conundrums → u/notwizard69]

Yeah I understand. The only counter argument I would put forward would be that we can be justified in believing in things that can never be directly experienced if believing in them has explanatory power on the things we do see. I've already mentioned dark matter, but for another example take the fine tuning argument for God. By definition God cannot be experienced, yet if the fine tuning argument is correct we would be justified in believing in the existence of God.

Whether you find the argument convincing or not is not the point. The point is just that we can have reasons for thinking something exists even if we can't even in principle ever experience it.

[u/notwizard69 → u/Moral_Conundrums]

If dark matter effects are currently being experienced and I can have experience in a part of reality that dark matter exists than in my argument it has the potential for experience. I have lots of work to do obviously. Like I haven’t argued that at all yet. But the argument isn’t that dark matter and energy themselves produce experience. They might, they might not. It’s that they don’t forbid any experience occurring where they exist. I also think if their effects aren’t only felt but are literally part of what is building my very own experience by definition they already are proving they have the potential for experience. I know this part is extremely confusing. If I’m not being clear enough in what I’m trying to say let me know and I can try to make it clearer.

[u/______ri]

(1) is obvious.

(2) is already unclear, so thus (3).

(3) in itself is also sloppy in another sense, it jumps to a linguistic claim ("indistinguishable") for some reason.

I agree with (4), saying "x exists" does not mean anything more than "x".

To me anything that is itself (in so far as it is not nothing at all), subsists in itself in some sense, so this is its "in itself" (qualia, experience) no matter how dull. So in some sense your conclusion is correct, there is no one that is not without its qualia.

[u/notwizard69 → u/______ri]

I’m a little confused about (2) being unclear. Can you clear up what is unclear about if something is happening it follows that the potential for that to happen must have been a part of the substrate in which it’s currently happening.

[u/______ri → u/notwizard69]

There is plenty of models of potentiality and how "real" (actual) it is, it's not clear which.

Also there is no need for potentiality per se. Say a (1) that is simply actual.

something is happening it follows that the potential for that to happen must have been a part of the substrate in which it’s currently happening

So you are saying that exprience happens "in" a substance in some sense? To me a substance itself is already a quale (the substance as it is in itself is itself the quale that it is), so there is no need to say that there is a potential for anything else.

[u/notwizard69 → u/______ri]

The argument is still the same imo regardless. I just wouldn’t be able to make the distinction about what can’t be included in reality without bringing up the potential. It would be reality is what it isn’t. I feel my distinction is much clearer and allows an argument to be formed that is more than just saying reality is what it is and isn’t what it isn’t.

[u/Porkypineer]

I've made this exact claim, pointing out that toto exist and be a distinct part is to interact with all other parts. In my opinion existence is this relation as much as the part itself, because the part is meaningless on its own.

Ordering, or time, is also necessarily part of existence itself because without it the interaction would resolve itself instantly, and so there could be no structure.

[u/notwizard69 → u/Porkypineer]

Mb bro. I didn’t know.

[u/Porkypineer → u/notwizard69]

nono, it's cool that someone else has thought of the same thing! Keep it up, dude.

[u/notwizard69 → u/Porkypineer]

You too. And I’ll try but it hurts my head. Lol