In a blog-post titled, “Nausea at Existence: A Continental Thick Theory,” Maverick Philosopher quotes Sartre:

It left me breathless. Never, until these last days, had I understood the meaning of 'existence.' I was like all the others, like the ones walking along the seashore, all dressed in their spring finery. I said, like them, 'The ocean is green; that white speck up there is a seagull,' but I didn't feel that it existed or that the seagull was an 'existing seagull'; usually existence hides itself. It is there, around us, in us, it is us, you can't say two words without mentioning it, but you can never touch it. When I believed I was thinking about it, I must [have] believe[d] that I was thinking nothing, my head was empty, or there was just one word in my head, the word 'to be.' Or else I was thinking . . . how can I explain it? I was thinking of belonging, I was telling myself that the sea belonged to the class of green objects, or that that green was a part of the quality of the sea. Even when I looked at things I was miles from dreaming that they existed; they looked like scenery to me. I picked them up in my hands, they served me as tools, I foresaw their resistance. But that all happened on the surface.
If anyone had asked me what existence was, I would have answered, in good faith, that it was nothing, simply an empty form that was added to external things without changing anything in their nature. And then all of a sudden, there it was, clear as day: existence had suddenly unveiled itself. It had lost the harmless look of an abstract category: it was the very paste of things, this root was kneaded into existence. Or rather the root, the park gates, the bench, the sparse grass, all that had vanished: the diversity of things, their individuality, were only an appearance, a veneer. This veneer had melted, leaving soft, monstrous masses, all in disorder — naked, in a frightful, obscene nakedness. (p. 127 tr. Lloyd Alexander, ellipsis in original.)

He (Maverick Philosopher) comments:

This marvellous passage records Roquentin's intuition (direct nonsensory perception) of Being or existence. (It would be interesting to compare in a subsequent post Jacques Maritain's Thomist intuition of Being with Sartre's existentialist intuition of Being.) Viewed through the lenses of logic, 'The green sea exists' is equivalent to 'The sea is green' and 'The sea belongs to the class of green objects.' For the (standard) logician, then, 'exists' and cognates is dispensable and the concept of existence is fully expressible in terms of standard logical machinery. Anything we say using 'exists(s)' we can also say without using 'exist(s). To give another example, 'Dragons do not exist' is logically equivalent to 'Everything is not a dragon.' If we want, we can avoid the word 'exist(s)' and substitute for it some logical machinery: the universal quantifier and the tilde (the sign for negation) as in our last example.

But why would a man like Peter van Inwagen -- the head honcho of the thin theorists -- want to avoid 'exist(s)'? Because he wants to show that existence is a thin notion: there is nothing more to it than can be captured using the thin notions of logic: quantification, negation, copulation, and identity. He wants to show that there is no reason to think that there is any metaphysical depth lurking behind 'exist(s)' and cognates, that there is no room for a metaphysics of existence as opposed to a logic of 'exist(s)'; nor room for any such project as Heidegger's fundamental ontology (Being and Time) or Sartre's phenomenological ontology (Being and Nothingness).

And why does the thin theorist go to all this deflationary trouble? Because he lacks this sense or intuition of existence that philosophers as diverse as Wittgenstein, Maritain, and Sartre share, a sense or intution he feels must be bogus and must rest on some mistake. He fancies himself the clear-headed foe of obfuscation and he sees nothing but obfuscation in talk of Being and existence.

But as I have been arguing ad nauseam (so to speak) over many a blog post, published article and book, sentences like 'The sea is green' presuppose for their truth that the sea is an existing sea. Compare the reference above to an existing seagull. And, as Sartre has Roquentin says, "usually existence hides itself." It hides itself from all of us most of the time when we are immersed in what Heidegger calls average everydayness (alltaegliche Durchschnittlichkeit, vide Sein und Zeit), and existence hides itself from the logician qua logician all the time. For all of us most of the time, and for logicians all of the time, existence is "nothing, simply an empty form."

(cont'd)

Cliffs?

Existence precedes essence.

"It left me perplexed. Like many sitting at their computers in my finest underwear , I marvelled at the existence of this thread. I said, like them, 'The text is long; that dark speck up there is a apostrophe, but I didn't feel that it existed or that the post was an 'existing post'; usually existence hides itself. The post is there, around us, in us, it is us, you can't say two words without mentioning it, but you can never touch it. When I believed I was thinking about it, I believed that I was thinking nothing, my head was empty, or there was just one word in my head, the word 'wtf'. Or else I was thinking . . . how can I explain it? "

Existence precedes essence? Sounds reasonable.

I think existence precedes experience.

Does experience precede essence or the other way round?

Existence is identical with the experience in this very moment. There is only the sounds, colours, smells etc that are experienced in this moment, nothing else exists. The meaning of existence is not some kind of additional property by virtue of which x becomes existent, but rather existence and the experience are exactly the same. The word 'existence' is redundant, misleading and ultimately the product of a confused mind. The meaning of experience in this very moment is exactly how it feels, looks, smells (etc) like in this very moment.

Existence precedes essence is basically the cliff notes for Sartre's existentialism. An animal's existence is defined by its essence - a dog will be a dog. Inanimate objects are defined by its essence - scissors are what they are because of what they are.

Sartre saw the human condition differently. Humanity is defined by what? To Sartre there was always a choice, ultimately humanity defines its own essence.

Something like that ....

This.

The experience and the experiencer are one and the same interrelated whole. Existence implies an existor. The existor is the experiencer.

As long as 'this very moment' is not a static dead thing, it is everchanging.

Not sure I agree, I would rather say that all we have is the memory of experience.

As I understand stuff happening in real time is mainly subconscious. Our brain then fudges our memory to make it appear we were conscious of events at the moment.

Do we think the last sentence at the end of quote of the Maverick Philosopher is a correct critique? That for most people and the logician existence is just an empty form?

I could be misinterpreting, but I am not sure I would want to say that. I would shift it and say most people in their everydayness and for logicians existence is a very particularly defined.

The thing you describe here isn't 'alive'

The thing that is 'alive' is in the actual moment and without memory.

Huh!

Then it is not conscious.

The bit that is conscious is reviewing something that has already happened.

Ok then we'll call it True-Consciousness, which happens when there is zero reflection on the past or future. When the mind is in such an immediate state there is zero 'lag'.

A 'timeless' state, there fore our basis fortime travel.

Ok, but doesn’t that mean that True-Consciousness never coincides with consciousness?

Your consciousness mind can never have up to date information of the world external to itself, for reasons of time lag if nothing else. The problem of course is the brain is expert at fudging memory so that retrospectively it appears as if you did have immediate control of your environment.

Sorry don't get it.

Then consciousness is a false manifestation by the True-Con

Yes we don't have control, but we falsely think we do, so the actions produce from this belief is the wrong state. So if we release the 'controller' we fall in line with the true state.

Choiceless Awareness in the immediate moment without reflection.

Reality is merely present, reality doesn't know itself. Knowing is not required for experience to happen. Experience is present, it happens, and it isn't known. Then sometimes experience happens and part of experience is 'knowing'. This 'knowing' is ontologically not different than for example yellow, spicy, smooth, cold, pleasant, angry, etc.

You can't understand existence/reality by thinking about the subconscious and the brain... those are different contexts. Brain and subconsicous are merely ideas, if you want to understand reality then you have to approach it without ideas. There are proper contexts for talking about brains and the subconsicous, but fundamental ontology isn't one of those contexts.

Yes, reality is not conscious, it is merely present. Awareness/consciousness are redundant concepts. We imagine a representation of who/what we are (so-called subjectivity), then we imagine an opposite (so-called objectivity), it is only from within the context of that dichotomy that consicousness makes sense, but this idea is not applicable to what reality is actually like.

'This moment' is neither static nor is it everchanging. 'This moment' is identical with the entirety of experience that is present right now. Experience is by definition never not now. 'Now' is simply another word for present. It has nothing to do with time.

I'm just making the distinction between a projection of the future or past vs what is left without such projections (the moment). The projections are dead and static.

However having an 'experience' implies an 'experiencer' which implies times. But perhaps you are talking about a wholistic experience that has no such duality.

Edit: also 4:20 nailed it by natural forces.

Agreed.

Yes, 'experience' is a loaded word. When I say 'experience' then I'm pointing to the immediate alive presence. For example when I'm pointing to a red colour, then I'm pointing to this. There is nothing and nobody that is aware of this colour, it is not being experienced by anything, it is not known what this colour is, the colour reveals its 'meaning' by virtue of simply being present, there is nothing further to know about it than what is seen, its meaning is identical with its presence.

Yes agreed the confusion seems to have been semantics.

The word "is" is exactly the same as "exists", so that doesn't accomplish anything.