An electron is a posit?

Yes but a car is made of parts and has a beginning and end in time. I am struggling to understand how the word 'exist' can be applied to both classes of phenomena when they exist in such radically different ways.

Not to derail the thread but just a side question(and my apologies if this is a dumb question, I'm no physicist), but does energy exist/is energy real? In what way? It's certainly not observable.

And isn't energy and mass interchangeable? If so what does that say about anything that has mass(ie matter itself)?

To me the issue is not if electrons exists, because obviously the phenomenon we are calling electrons is there, the question is in what manner do they actually exist?

"Stars " are a human concept. An alien might perceive the nonhuman causes for our human conception in a different way. I cannot truly conceive of a species-independent reality just as I cannot truly conceive of a reality devoid of conscious (as such a notion itself requires consciousness.)

"Stars" is a word. Words are made up by people. Stars are not word. Stars are bodies of hot gas. Our Sun is a star. Our Sun is not a word. I have been cautioning you to distinguish between concept (and words) and what the concept and words are about. You appear to keep forgetting this distinction. The word "star" is not a star. The concept, star, is not a star. Try to keep that is mind if possible.

Your patience is extraordinary.

So you are espousing 'the correspondence theory of truth', that is, that the word 'star' corresponds with an actual thing. I have extensive criticisms here of the correspondence theory of truth, kindly provided by a previous contributor.

The most famous version of correspondence theory was given by Aristotle in 335 BC in his Metaphysics, Book IV, Chapter 7 [26]
"To say of what is, that it is not; or of what is not, that it is- is false. While to say of what is, that it is; and of what is not, that it is not- is true."

Randall, J. & Buchler, J.; Philosophy: An Introduction. p133

According to this theory (correspondence), truth consists in the agreement of our thought with reality. This view ... seems to conform rather closely to our ordinary common sense usage when we speak of truth. The flaws in the definition arise when we ask what is meant by "agreement" or "correspondence" of ideas and objects, beliefs and facts, thought and reality. In order to test the truth of an idea or belief we must presumably compare it with the reality in some sense.

1. In order to make the comparison, we must know what it is that we are comparing, namely, the belief on the one hand and the reality on the other. But if we already know the reality, why do we need to make a comparison? And if we don't know the reality, how can we make a comparison?

2. The making of the comparison is itself a fact about which we have a belief. We have to believe that the belief about the comparison is true. How do we know that our belief in this agreement is "true"? This leads to an infinite regress, leaving us with no assurance of true belief.

Brightman, E. S.; Philosophy of Religion, Ch4.

Correspondence fails because it can never be applied to a situation.

A present proposition is impossible to compare with a past, future or an eternal object; such a comparison would require the past, the future or eternity to be now present for comparison, which is a plain impossibility.
Even propositions about the present are incapable of being tested by correspondence; for the process of comparison would take time and before it had occurred, the present object would have become past.

Correspondence fails because it is not a criterion of truth.
Correspondence fails because it is not a source of truth.

Rescher, N.; The Coherence Theory of Truth, p8.
(Correspondence is) ... not workable for genuinely universal propositions: how can one possibly check ... the 'correspondence with the facts' of a universal proposition with potential infinity of instances? e.g. All lions are carnivorous.

Beck, L.W. & Holmes, R.L.; Philosophic Inquiry, p130.
Although it seems ... obvious to say, "Truth is correspondence of thought (belief, proposition) to what is actually the case", such an assertion nevertheless involves a metaphysical assumption - that there is a fact, object, or state of affairs, independent of our knowledge to which our knowledge corresponds.
"How, on your principles, could you know you have a true proposition?" ... or ... "How can you use your definition of truth, it being the correspondence between a judgment and its object, as a criterion of truth? How can you know when such correspondence actually holds?"
I cannot step outside my mind to compare a thought in it with something outside it.
Hospers, J.; An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis, p116.
Does a true proposition correspond to a fact in the way that the color sample on the color chart corresponds to the color of the paint on the wall? No, there is certainly no resemblance between a proposition and a state-of-affairs.

Priest, Graham; Truth & Contradiction, Philos. Qtly, v50;n200;p317;2000
. . . it is not clear that we meet any facts in experience. We meet people, stars, chairs, and other objects, but not facts or states of affairs. And if this is so, and the objection is cogent, it tells against all correspondence theories of truth.

Ewing, A.C.; The Fundamental Questions of Philosophy, pp54-55.
The word 'correspondence' suggests that, when we make a true judgment, we have a sort of picture of the real in our minds and that our judgment is true because this picture is like the reality it represents. But our judgments are not like the physical things to which they refer. The images we use in judging may indeed in certain respects copy or resemble physical things, but we can make a judgment without using any imagery except words, and words are not in the least similar to the things which they represent. We must not understand 'correspondence' as meaning copying or even resemblance.
p57- ... the correspondence theory . . . does not give us much information unless we can succeed in defining correspondence, and unfortunately nobody has been able yet to give a satisfactory definition.

Brennan, J. G.; The Meaning of Philosophy, p78.
A less ambiguous formulation of the correspondence theory is: "A sentence is true if there are such facts as it designates." There cannot be an exact correspondence between a sentence and a situation in the empirical world, for there are no sentences in Nature. - The correspondence theory tries to explain what is the case when a sentence is true. It says nothing about how we discover or how we prove that a sentence corresponds to the facts.

Vision, Gerald; Veritas, px
... the correspondence theory doesn't tell us directly what, if anything, is true: that is, it doesn't carry immediate implications for the extension of the property of truth. It doesn't even, as some of its competitors do, give us something to go by, a criterion, for detecting particular truths.

Aquinas, Thomas; Truth, Vol. II, Qs. 10, Article 4.
All cognition takes place through assimilation. But there is no assimilation possible between the mind and material things, because likeness depends on sameness of quality. However, the qualities of material things are bodily accidents which cannot exist in the mind. Therefore, the mind cannot know material things.

Morton, A. & Stich, S., eds.; Benacerraf and his Critics, p61
... what is missing [with correspondence] is precisely... an account of the link between our cognitive faculties and the objects known.

Frege, G.; The Thought: A Logical Inquiry, In Strawson, P.F., ed. Philosophical Logic, p19
Truth cannot tolerate a more or less. Can it not be laid down that truth exists when there is a correspondence in a certain respect? But in which? For what would we then have to do to decide whether something were true? We should have to inquire whether it were true that an idea and a reality, perhaps, corresponded in the laid-down respect. And then we should be confronted by a question of the same kind and the game could begin again. So the attempt to explain truth as correspondence collapses... Consequently, it is probable that the content of the word 'true' is unique and indefinable.

Kaufmann, F.; Basic Issues in Logical Positivism, in Philosophic Thought in France & the US., p568
... we cannot compare propositions with reality, but only with other propositions. This amounts to the rejection of correspondence theories of truth...

Lengthy post, I know, but germane I believe.

"Stars" is a word. Words are made up by people. Stars are not word. Stars are bodies of hot gas. Our Sun is a star. Our Sun is not a word. I have been cautioning you to distinguish between concept (and words) and what the concept and words are about. You appear to keep forgetting this distinction. The word "star" is not a star. The concept, star, is not a star. Try to keep that is mind if possible.

So this does not imply a correspondence between the word and the object?

So this does not imply a correspondence between the word and the object?

The oft-quoted geographical fact that 'the capital of Ecuador is Quito' is used in many threads as an example of a true statement. Would you deny that this is true by virtue of the fact that it corresponds to reality?

So then, the arguments against the correspondence theory of truth apply. They are aimed at the common-sense idea that there is a agreement between the words we use and objects of experience. Yet as far as I can determine, that is the basic position of virtually all the contributors to the Forum, yourself included.

Now maybe these criticisms aren't valid, but I don't think they have been rebutted.

When I look at the cat through a mirror, I am indirectly observing the cat, but when I look at the cat itself, I am directly observing the cat, so I can directly and indirectly observe the cat.

That misses the point. "Directly" is just a word. Use it how you like. But that brain of yours is locked in the dark of your skull. Hows does an image of this cat get into your brain (and then into "consciousness")? .

If the proposition that the cat is on the mat is true, it is because there is a fact, or a state of affairs, that the cat is on the mat. Which is to say, if the proposition that that cat is on the mat is true, it is because the cat is on the mat. That does not at all mean that what I experience is that the cat is on the mat, for I may not experience that the cat is on the mat, and the cat may, nevertheless be on the mat, and I may experience that the cat is not on the mat, and the cat may nevertheless be on the mat.

My, My. Block that metaphor!!!

Hey this has given me a great idea for a book title. 'The Metaphysics of Dr Seuss'. Can't you just see it? And let's say, we call the cat Schrodinger. :bigsmile: