The indivisibility of existence and identity has several specific implications regarding attributes and actions. First, an attribute has no existence independent of those entities of which it is an attribute. "Redness" does not exist apart from red pencils, red roses, and so forth. Although all of these objects are objectively red, only in the mind of the observer can "redness" be isolated from their other qualities and measurements.

Likewise, an action cannot exist apart from acting entities. Human action, for example, is first of all a function of acting humans. Mental action similarly requires an acting entity. Thus consciousness can be regarded as an action of certain kinds of living things and cannot exist independently of conscious beings. Although we denote ideas, concepts, and feelings by nouns, in the last analysis they are descriptions of mental processes in which conscious beings engage and not things in themselves.

Because identity is impossible without existence (and vice versa), existence is not itself an attribute; rather, it both enables and depends on all the attributes of a thing. Logically, a thing cannot exist without its attributes, nor can it have its attributes without existing.

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