The philosophy of nonexisting things can be confusing. Most people agree things like zombies, ghosts, and vampires do not actually exist in the physical world. But they do exist as concepts, and we have a fair understanding of what the words mean, how such things should behave if we meet them in a story.
Many abstract concepts also have a questionable reality. Like "concept" and "reality".
The belief in (non?)existence of things can be a matter of life and death - think how many people have been killed because of their religion.
> The philosophy of nonexisting things can be confusing
This comment hit a raw nerve, and tied many things in my own understanding.
Because concepts can depict non-existing things, we have to learn via feedback from experience "operationally". Operational meaning by action in the real world. And, language and imagination can create concepts which have no ground truth even though they may exist in the "inter-subjective" reality created by people among themselves. Religion is one such inter-subjective reality. It explains the scientific method, and why that was needed and has been successful to cut through the mass of concepts that make no sense operationally. It explains why the formalism of math/science have been successful to depict concepts operationally and not natural language. And, ties into the recent podcast of Sutton who mentions that LLMs are a dead-end from the perspective that they cannot create ground-truth via experience and feedback - they are stuck in token worlds.
But, concept-creation and assigning a symbol to it is a basic act of abstraction. When it is not grounded, it could become inconsistent and go haywire or when very consistent it becomes robotic and un-interesting. As humans, we create a balance with imagination to create concepts which make things interesting which are then culled with real world experience to make it useful.
Vampires and zombies surround you every day. And I don't mean the people who you consider too exciting, or the ones you consider too boring, or the toxoplasmosis carriers. I mean how nearly every abstract concept is in fact a skeuomorphic metaphor. Try it for yourself.
Many abstract concepts also have a questionable reality. Like "concept" and "reality".
The belief in (non?)existence of things can be a matter of life and death - think how many people have been killed because of their religion.
No wonder such things can confuse a simple LLM.