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Wait, can I post something about existence in general here? I am somewhat confused... sweatdrop

So Fantasy Philosophy then? Cool!

Lets see now, what could I talk about that relates...

How about a theory in which the evolution of a fantastic species is discussed? For example, we could chat about how a certain kind of mythical creature could have evolved in an environment in particular. Also, how it relates to our reality.

Here's one:
"Cyclops"
These beings came to be cuz some people were born in a normal way but, ended up having very strange features. I think that having only one eye would not be considered an evolution. What do you think?

Right, well... I suppose that I was trying to make us think about the following:

Think back to ancient times, when things were as simple as simple could be, people were narrowminded and could only see things for what they were.
Now, if you saw a child being born with only one eye, what would you think? Would you think a witch cursed yer child? Would you think that somehow a fantasy type creature was born? I sometimes think which things we've seen or heard about are not fantastic but we sometimes treat them as such. You know?

Thanks Mel! There's a lot of other things like that in which humans have seen new creatures and could not explain them right away. You got the rhinoceros which probably started the myth of the unicorns and then you got the sea cows (I can't remember their names but in Spanish, they are called "manati") which probably started the myth of the mermaids.

So, in terms of existence, could something exist in our world that we still don't know about? I think so! After all, new species of bugs have been found recently and there probably are more just waiting to be found somewhere else still. Who knows! Some of those could be as large as a human and dwell deep within the darkness of the ocean or even the earth itself. rolleyes

That goes without saying. But there's a big difference between knowing that not everything has been discovered yet and assuming something specific exists just because you haven't discovered everything there is to discover yet.

Science exists purely because we haven't discovered everything yet. If we had, there would be no reason to keep on discovering things and thus no need for science.

But you cannot take that idea too far, or science is crippled by it. If you say that something must exist because you haven't seen evidence of its nonexistance, then everything you can possibly think of suddenly exists and you have discovered everything and nothing simultaneously; everything because by that leap of thought everything exists and nothing because science has ground to a halt.

There's also scale to consider. There's a big difference between discovering an elephant and discovering a bug.

Berz.

Good point Berz! But like Mel says, I don't think we're assuming anything just yet. mrgreen

Very true, Jasta, however, this conversation is and always has been (at least since I got into it) about the possibility of these things existing in the real world rather than about world-building. The argument has been "you haven't seen the entire universe, so you can't know they don't exist."

I'm all about conscious choices in world-building. The beauty of fiction is that everything is under the control of the author and can be as laced with metaphor and symbolism as you want it to. And that is a very powerful tool when it is wielded correctly.

But in the real world, Man's tools for understanding are science and religion (or philosophy, if you prefer). Those tools are already enough at war with each other (despite common sense, if you ask me). We don't need to add in a logical fallacy that was discovered centuries ago by Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton to be a dead end.

Berz.

I really hate to break it to you, but there can't be any middle ground. Either something exists or it doesn't.

And it is and always will be impossible to prove the non-existence of something. But that does not, nor will it ever, mean that it does, in fact, exist. This exact tangle of logic hung up science and philosophy (and to some extent religion) from the time of Aristotle all the way to Galileo. We're talking a thousand years that they had to struggle with it and know that it sucks and which was blown out of the water, finally. I, personally, have zero desire to revisit such a way of thinking.

Fiction is fiction and reality is not. There is a very clear-cut boundary there and to say otherwise is just downright crazy because it is saying that fiction is real.

Berz.