# World Existence Miracle **Opening (not a real abstract):** Most of the time we experience things and that things are in a certain way, but sometimes it also happens to us to experience that things exist. To express this idea in a manner that echoes Wittgenstein’s remark on the mystical, most of the time we experience how things are, but sometimes we also experience that things are. To experience the sheer existence of something can be a source of aesthetic experience. Call this the existential view. To illustrate, consider how Murdoch describes what she regards as a paradigmatic experience of beauty. I am looking out of the window in an anxious and resentful state of mind, oblivious of my surroundings, brooding perhaps on some damage done to my prestige. Then suddenly I observe a hovering kestrel. In a moment everything is altered. The brooding self with its