Can something exist halfway?

Question

Traditionally, either something exists or it does not. But could there exist something that is between existence and non-existence - e.g. if we take an existence function that returns 0 when something does not exist and 1 when something exists, is there anything we can plug into that function to get a value between 0 or 1? And what about values outside that interval?

The closest thing to this I can think of is a state of an unobserved particle wavefunction, because upon observing it the wavefunction collapses onto a certain state out of sheer chance - so if observing the wavefunction has a 69% chance of returning state A, then wouldn't it be fair to say that a wavefunction in state A has an existence value of .69?

I know this sounds ridiculous, but there's no way I'm the first person to take this idea seriosuly.

Answer 1

This idea sounds pretty much like fuzzy logic: something can be true or false or somewhere in between, usually on the interval [0,1]. It is used frequently in programming when there is uncertainty to a statement (at least, in my experience).

As for the specific quantum example, it would be improper to say that this wavefunction W represents a particle that exists 0.69 in state A. Rather you’d say that it exists 1.00 in state (0.69A+0.31B)/sqrt(2) or something of that shape, which is meaningfully distinct from both of the original states.

Answer 2

Some medievals and early moderns seem to say that existence comes in degrees. For example, in IP9 of the Ethics, Spinoza says: "The more reality or being each thing has, the more attributes belong to it".

How can existence come in degrees? Here are some possible answers:

• Existence just is causal power. The more causally powerful something is, the more existence it has.
• Existence just is determinacy. The more determinate something is, the more existence it has.
• Existence just is perfection. The more perfect something is, the more existence it has.

Check out this paper for more: https://www.krismcdaniel.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/DOB.pdf

Answer 3

An object which "has an existence value of .69" would suggest to me that if you put 100 of these objects into a box, you would in some sense have 69 fully real objects in that box.

We might interpret this as a fractional part of an object, e.g. an apple which has been 31% eaten or a glass of water which is 31% empty are respectively 0.69 apples and 0.69 glasses of water. An object with an "existence value of 2", which "exists twice", is then two of that object.

You could also read this as a probability. If you own a raffle ticket which has a 0.69 chance of winning a prize, then you expect that you have 0.69 prizes (and if you have 100 such tickets, your expectation is 69 prizes).

I know this isn't really what you meant. There are edge cases of things which have some of the properties of existence and not others, such as the quantum particle you mention. Consider abstractions and social constructs: "Sherlock Holmes" is a fictional character, but he has a recognisable appearance and he lives at 221b Baker Street which is a real place. "The Principality of Sealand" describes a physical place (an offshore platform), but most people would consider that it is not a real country. These are examples of things which only partially exist. You can't meaningfully rank them on a scale of 0 to 1 though. You'd describe them in terms of which properties they have (tangibility, objective reality, sight and sound and smell, etc.) and which they don't.

Answer 4

If there are multiple conditions for existence, then anything satisfying some but not all conditions exists halfways.

As an example consider a complex phenomenon like a pandemic (COVID). To say it exists as a pandemic could require a certain number of people infected, a certain incubation period, mortality rate, spread over a minimum of countries... (Maybe this example is not correct for the word "pandemic", but I think you get the point).

Answer 5

People with faith believe that God exists. People such as myself do not believe God exists. Does God exist for them but not for me?

A common gut reaction is "No. Either something exists or it doesn't". This is a reasonable extrapolation from our experience, which is entirely based on things that exist. Jung believed that things pop in and out of existence. I think he is probably wrong, but it is hard to prove, particularly when things pop back into existence only when you are not looking.

Answer 6

A well-known example of "something that is halfway between existence and non-existence" is the so-called Schrödinger's cat:

a thought experiment concerning quantum superposition. In the thought experiment, a hypothetical cat in a closed box may be considered to be simultaneously both alive and dead while it is unobserved, as a result of its fate being linked to a random subatomic event that may or may not occur.

This thought experiment was devised by Erwin Schrödinger in 1935 to illustrate what Schrödinger saw as the problems of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. According to Schrödinger, if we believe that QM gives, in principle, a complete description of the physical world, not limited to the miccroscopic level, the QM formalism applied to the above situation assigns a finite probability to both states, forcing us to conclude that the cat "cover" a mixed situation where it is both alive and dead.

If we apply Fuzzy logic to the composite statement "the cat is alive and dead", we can get - using rule: x ∧ y = min { x, y } - that the truth value of teh "existence" of the cat is 1/2.

Discussion and research regarding the applicability of QM at all scales, including that of observers are still on-going.

Answer 7

I feel most answers are referring to properties, rather than physical existence.

Being cloudy, being a complete house, being a pandemic; these are states of being. States most certainly are nonbinary spectra, in every single case. Alive, dead, me, you, all are states of being, and there are fuzzy grey boundaries over even the most apparently-binary things.

Similarly, concepts can exist or not on a spectrum. "Tomato as a vegetable"? "Invisible pink unicorn"? "February 31st"?

In a philosophical sense, then, it's possible for things to have an ambiguous state of being/unbeing.

For things which have physical existence, though... I can't think of a moment of creation which is grey, but can we find a point at which a thing falls into a grey area of unbeing?

Certainly we can transform things between two states: grind a stone into sand and at some undefined point it stops being a stone and becomes "all sand", but exactly which swipe of the grinder finished that task may not be rigorously definable.

But what about transforming a physical, tangible object between the state of being and non-being, rather than the state of being a complete thing to being something else?

We can burn it, of course, but that's just another conversion between states. It continues to exist, just as gas and ash and photons and thermal energy.

In a physical-object sense, then, so long as we don't define photons and energy as things that have being, it may be possible to have an ambiguous state of being.

Antimatter annihilation? An electron and a positron meet. They collide. But even here, they don't merely cancel out leaving nothing in their place: they transform into a quasi-atom of positronium, then annihilate into two or three gamma-ray photons.

We know that "energy cannot be created/destroyed", and we know that mass and energy are interchangeable from e=mc^2. So we can't make something out of nothing, or vice versa.

If we accept photons and energy as things that have being, it's not possible to convert something into any ambiguous state of not-something.

We could extend our concept of unbeing to mean "not in this universe any more", in which case, we could have a case of ambiguity where we have a Thing that's fallen within the event horizon of a black hole (where the Thing can no longer affect or be detected by the universe) but has not yet had time to reach the singularity inside the black hole (past which the Thing is no longer in the coordinate space of the universe).

That's the best I can think of, but I'm interested to see what others find.

Answer 8

• so if observing the wavefunction has a 69% chance of returning state A, then wouldn't it be fair to say that a wavefunction in state A has an existence value of .69?

No. You have a 69% chance of seeing the full existence (100%) of state A. Not a 100% chance of seeing the partial (69%) existence of state A.

The simplest example is a coin toss. The result of a coin toss is either one of two states: H and T. The probality function for either state is 1/2.

When the coin is at rest on a flat surface, it's observed state is either 100% Heads or 100% Tails. You will not see an observed coin state that is 1/2 heads and 1/2 tails.

What can be said about the state of coin while it's in the air flipping?

It's not in an observable state. It is between observations and is indeterminate. It can, however be thought of as a superposition of states so that the indeterminate state is 1/2 Heads and 1/2 Tails representing the total of an observer's knowledge of the possible outcomes.

When the coin lands, the indeterminate state "collapses" into a final state that is either fully (100%) Heads or fully (100%) tails.

Answer 9

Nonphysical things can definitely exist halfway

Take a state or government for example. These don't plop into existence. If we look at Syria as a quite recent example, when did the new government come into existence?

Initially, they were primarily military leaders, but not a Syrian government (in this example they were disparate local governments, that is true).

But it would also be wrong to say that they were 0% of a government until they announced they had formed the new, full interim government. There was not "0 government" in between the collapse of the Assad regime and the official announcement of the new government. There was a partial government there. Some ministries were working (somewhat) regularly through the crisis. Others were completely abandoned or collapsed.

Same for what's a country or state. Kurdistan immediately comes to mind. Internationally not recognised as a state but with a coherent enough society, culture and geographic area as well. So saying it's 0 country, like Antarctica or some town in the absolute nowhere, is clearly wrong. With the lack of international recognition as well as control over it's territory or an established government saying it is 100% one right now is also wrong. [For anyone wanting to judge that statement: I did not make a statement on whether it should be a state]

Answer 10

Can something exist halfway?

We wouldn't know, because we have no idea what existing halfway could possibly mean.

As someone said a long time ago, man is the measure. In this juncture, it is our mind which is the measure, or more accurately the measuring device.

Answer 11

Your phrasing of the question is somewhat self-undermining. You write "could there exist something that is between existence and non-existence" - the way you use "exist" in that sentence implies that, at least in that moment, you are thinking of existence as a binary property. To me, that seems to be the way the word is used. There might be a continuum between a steady, full candle flame and no flame at all, but, if we're talking about whether it exists or not, that means we have decided to put it in one of two bins.

Answer 12

Aquinas wrote as follows concerning prime matter (the "hyle" of the "hylemorphism"):

"although prime matter does not have in its definition any form or privation, for example neither shaped nor shapeless is in the definition of bronze, nevertheless, matter is never completely without form and privation, because it is sometimes under one form and sometimes under another. Moreover, it can never exist by itself; because, since it does not have any form in its definition, it cannot exist in act, since existence in act is only from the form. Rather it exists only in potency. Therefore whatever exists in act cannot be called prime matter." (See https://isidore.co/aquinas/DePrincNaturae.htm)

On this view, the so-called prime matter only "exists half-way".

Answer 13

Is there sufficient light from your perspective to see more than half of said existence? Shadow spectrums dictate a display of visible existence only relative to refractive mathematics. This is one of the rare occasions where so called grey areas cannot exist. Without vision and evidence there is just belief. A collection of matter can exist without you being aware of its physical properties.The answer is yes relative to your perspective.

Answer 14

If you have an idea for a product or service that has not yet been published, does it exist or not? For you, perhaps yes, but for others, it may not. The existence of something is not a binary matter, since it is relative and it can not be generalized.

Answer 15

The idea of a binary existence/non-existence is an almost childish simplification.

Dewi Morgan says in their answer that "states most certainly are nonbinary spectra, in every single case". That principle applies not only to "states" but to everything in the macroscopic world.

The concept of binary existence/non-existence is not a suitable category for describing a complex reality where (on the macroscopic scale) literally everything physical comes into existence gradually and then disappears gradually. Our universe (in the current form), our galaxy, our solar system, our planet, the city I live in, the house I live in, the chair I am sitting on, the body I inhabit: All of them, without exception, have gradually emerged and will gradually disappear.

And that even ignores questions about how we know we are not being deceived, and questions about the identity of living organisms: It is certainly not the specific organic matter, which changes all the time — remnants of "previous bodies" of me are scattered all over the planet now. Identity in living organisms is rather a pattern encoding specific information that is preserved against decay by utilizing the flow of low-entropy energy emanating from the Sun.

My identity is a pattern. What does that say about "my" existence? Whether "I" existed 20 years ago is an answer contingent on a lot of assumptions and axioms. Heraclitus was already aware of these difficulties in antiquity.

Answer 16

A good question, but “No, a thing cannot partly exist” in my opinion.

A thing either exists or it does not exist.

There is no half-way to existence.

A child might be on his way to adulthood, but that does mean he partly exists as an adult: he exists as a child, developing towards adulthood.

The sky may be partly covered by clouds, but:

• where it is cloudy, the clouds exist in that space, and
• where it is clear, clouds do not exist in that space.

Certainly, there is value in systems (e.g. fuzzy logic) that attempt to deal with situations like the partly cloudy sky, i.e. assertions about an aggregate entity (the sky) where there are qualitative differences between the parts of the aggregate; but this does not require the partial existence of any of the parts.