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submitted 1 week ago by Laura@lemmy.ml to c/philosophy@lemmy.ml

If nothing interacts with it, does it exist?

Not “unknown”. Not “unobserved”.

I mean: no interaction at all.

Because in experiments, nothing happens inside a system on its own.

Events only appear when something meets something else.

So maybe this is the real question:

Is existence something things have—

or something that only appears when things interact?

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[-] notsosure@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The old question “if a tree falls in a forest, and there’s nobody to hear it, did it really fall or even exist?” The question was often asked in psychology tests, as it gives a hint how the tester is thinking. There are two answers: in a subjective universe, the tree didn’t exist, and it didn’t fall. Objectively spoken: it obviously fell and existed. There exist probably a number of options between these extremes. Now, if you propose an object that has never ever been observed and will NEVER EVER be observable, I would suggest the question as to its existence is irrelevant as it is unanswerable, and questions that are unanswerable are, for most scientists (and rational human beings), uninteresting.

[-] Laura@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago

I see what you mean. But what kind of state are you assuming when you say “observation”? Whose observation are we talking about?

If the way something “exists” depends on the observer, then the definition of existence itself might shift quite a bit.

this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2026
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