2
Does something exist if it never interacts?
(lemmy.ml)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2026
2 points (66.7% liked)
Philosophy
2359 readers
12 users here now
All about Philosophy.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
The question flips something interesting: usually we ask whether existence requires a subject to observe it. You're asking whether it requires an object — something for the thing to interact with.
If interaction is the criterion, then existence becomes relational rather than intrinsic. That's close to some process philosophy positions — Whitehead's actual occasions only exist through their relations. It also raises a harder question: at what point does a potential interaction count? A particle might never be detected, but the probability amplitude is real — something is already happening.
Maybe existence isn't binary, but a gradient of relational density.
That’s a really sharp way to frame it.
The idea that existence isn’t binary but a gradient actually reminds me of quantum computation — where something isn’t simply 0 or 1, but exists in a superposed state.
But if we follow that line, it seems like the question shifts again: what determines when that “gradient” stabilizes into something definite?
In my view, that stabilization isn’t arbitrary. It emerges where multiple subjectivities intersect and cohere.
So rather than existence being just relational in a diffuse sense, it might be that reality becomes determinate at specific points of alignment — where the observer itself is generated as part of that coherence.