[cornelis]

without affecting the fact of its existence a whit..

This might be true of that rare impeccable breed of disinterested knowers called Aristotelian. Nowadays the deeper answers are floating visibly at the top as homo sapiens engage the imagination to increase, interrupt, or otherwise disturb gravity in order to render its status as "natural" irrelevant.

[general_re]

This might be true of that rare impeccable breed of disinterested knowers called Aristotelian.

So the moon really does go away when you're not looking at it, does it? ;)

Nowadays the deeper answers are floating visibly at the top as homo sapiens engage the imagination to increase, interrupt, or otherwise disturb gravity in order to render its status as "natural" irrelevant.

Eyeglasses and antibiotics render certain sorts of natural selection irrelevant to your life as well, but in either case, gravity or natural selection, irrelevant is not the same as nonexistent.