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You all should study a bit of logic before go out constructing arguments. here are many inferences that simply do not follow the assumptions. One should be very carefull anyway when apllying logic to ontological questions. It's very easy to believe you can aplly modus ponnens to a certain situation and be wrong about that. Trash Aestethic's demosntration of the non-existence of objects makes no sense. Why should the assumption of the existence of "x" leads to an infinite number on the universe, and even if so why should that lead to the impossibility of the existence of the world. Its jibberish, but seems to me that he is confusing ontological questions with epistemological ones.

The question from  the OP obviously needs a meta-discussion, as was tried in the early parts of the trhead. What existence means? According to Parmenides, the creator of ontology, anything that can be thought is. If so chess exists. Many people seem to have taken existence to mean reality in a matterialist sense of the word. Idealist have been attacking this view, althought with serious flawed arguments as Richard Feldman has demonstrated. All that appart, nowadays the very science can't define what is matter. Both Einstein with his E=mc2 and all quantum phisycs put a very important interrogation mark on the idea of matter.

It seems to me that we all should be less certain about our thoughts of how things are. Let's follow Socrates example and accept our ignorance.

How is that goes that chinese saying?? "You have to empty your cup..."

Accepting our ignorance and keeping an open mind with the empty cup proverb is always good. But to never be able to accept simple observations as factual would leave us paralyzed and unevolved.

Does backgammon exist??!!

the guys exist and backgammon is one of their illusions.

It seems TA's problem is that he doesn't address the metaphysical question of what an object is. He seems to be saying that anything can be divided into an "object" and thus there are infinitely many divisions, thus the world in which the objects exist must be infinite, but the world is not infinite, so the objects must not exist. 

But clearly if you take convention to be an object, like a chair, a table, a person, there are finite number of objects (very large but finite) and thus the world housing them is finite, which makes sense. 

I think what begs the question however, and what TA hints at earlier, and would strengthen his argument, is if the world is finite, then it creates a boundary that divides it and another space. And that the other space that is defined by the realm world is real, whereas our world is just an illusion. Like saying that "heaven" is real and this world is all but a dream. 

However, it's up to him to prove that the "other" world is real and ours is not. He seems to be saying that subjectively it's up to us which to "label" existing and which not. Like Protagoras said, humans are the measure of all things...

no i'm saying the other world has to be the existing one and this one an illusion or what you will, because to say, in this world, the world does not exist, means its included in the world that does not exist and thus the statement itself does not exist. And in this world words dont exist because if they did, we could say anything such as my dog is red and that would be true

TA what do you mean if this world existed you could say anything and it would be true? Clearly you can say there is a tree in front of me and it would be true. 

How?

HAHA! Got you there! The term "chess" must refer to something that we all speak of, so neener-neener-neener! (As Aristotle once said)

look, it's easy this way:

either world X or world Y exists. 

If world X does not exist, and you are in this world, then you cannot assert that world X does not exist, because you youself are contained in the non-existing space and thus anything you say will be in this space and will not exist.

If world X does exist, how can you know for sure that it does? If I see a tree in front of me, how do i not know i am hallucinating, or drunk, or dreaming?

Descartes made this point when he said how does one know whether one is awake or dreaming. he proves that there is a divine being that must be all-good which we now believe false. it's not a persuasive argument, descartes'.

you may say well, clearly you exist in both states, you're just dreaming! you're just not conscious, but you still exist in the space of the existing world. 

then perhaps the question is what do we mean by exist... what are you asking when you ask whether chess exists?? because when I am dead do I exist? my body is present... so what does it mean to exist??

TA it seems you acknowledge that we must exist because if it doesnt we cant assert it does. you haven't given a convincing argument as to why if we assume this world and thus chess exists, why we can show it doesnt.

when i say exist i include dreaming. even when you're dead

FOS i think its important to distinguish we are talking about matter - material objects - which of course if this world didnt exist matter would be an illusion. but right now it seems to exist, and thus matter does. we are not talking about 4d geometry

what you can maybe show is that because we can create a line and put infinite number of points, well the line is present in our world and thus we have abstractions and particulars in our world and the particulars are illusions. perhaps the spaces overlap; why do they have to be separate "sideways" what if they're on top of each other.

and that everything we see is clearly a representation of abstract concepts which we mistakengly project onto the world.

This reminds me of an epistemological argument actually in the Indian literature that says, well if you can perceive or see something, what establishes these epistemic instruments? and there seems to be no good answer. Henceforth what you are seeing is some magical illusion and thus your world and henceforth chess does not exist

Hopefully this thread doesn't exist.

because you dont need epistemic instruments to grasp the concept of infinity, as on a line

but thats something completely else. you say how can you prove the epistemic instruments exist but yet you dont ask how can you prove your ideas exist. the way i clearly see it the world is a space and both your ideas and your eyes/ears etc are contained within that space. so both either exist or dont exist together you cant separate them. i said if this world existed then everything we say must be true (ahem... Protagoras) such as i have a tootache or you're a victim of psychoanalysis or the sky is green which is clearly not true. so you have to infer to the best possible explanation which exists and which doesnt exist, and because if we were in the non-existing world we could say nothing true and this makes sense, whereas if we were in the existing world then we could say anything and this makes no sense.

and we like to make sense dont we, you big buffoon????? 

CHESS DOESNT EXIST

TA if the sky is blue it is clearly blue. some things are true and some aren't. if the world where i cant say anything that would hold truth is the one im in, then this thread doesnt exist. but it clearly does

4d is not the right word but if something is material then it takes up a volume. so eventually the cup that is the world will be filled....

Oh it exists. And we know it does in the same way we know a toothache or a hemorrhoid exists.