If

So yesterday after my friend Tori and I finished our exams (yes, it's that time of year, again!), we began an interesting discussion on 'if'. Mostly it was a debate on whether or not "if" is real. Despite the fact that we both had good arguments, neither of us could be swayed.
Tori resolutely insists that "if" is non-existent. Apparently when we say 'if', we are either contradicting ourselves (or so I interpreted from her speech), or we are trying to state something (an event, in most cases) that does not exist or will never occur. To try and make me understand, Tori asked me "What if we had had this conversation yesterday". I replied that we very well could have, but why did it matter? 'If' isn't real, right? I said this intending to show her how ridiculous she sounded, asking 'if' when she didn't believe in it. But she only said "Exactly". We didn't have our discussion the day before, so 'if' wasn't real.
"But," I told her, "that's the whole point of 'if'. 'If' is us humans trying to predict the future, being unsure of what will come, and making plans for whatever does come."
"So 'if'' is not knowing." Not a question, but not agreeing either.
"Right. We cannot possibly know the outcome of our choices, so we try to cover all the bases in our planning" I told her. Well, something along the lines of that. My memory for dialogue isn't all that great. So she asked me to say a sentence with 'if' in it, so she could show me how unreal it is. So I used a hypothesis form, "if this, then this" kinda thing, that I just randomly made up.
"If the ball rolls down the ramp, it will move at five miles an hour". So she told me that there can only be one outcome, we can't have both (either the ball rolls, or it doesn't), which is when I told her that by saying 'if' we are just trying to figure out what could happen, not what will. For we know, the ball could just sit at the top of the ramp, motionless. Or someone could come along and push it down. But we are still saying what could happen, that if (or when) the ball rolled down the ramp of its own accord, it would roll at a certain speed, proportional to the angle and length of the ramp, and the force of gravity on the ball. I actually think that it was after this that Tori said "So 'if' is not knowing". Like I said, my memory for dialogue is horrid.
Well, that's about it. At the point class got out and we went off to our next exams. Tori to Spanish, and myself to guitar.
Personally, I still resolutely believe that 'if' is real, but perhaps I am afraid of a world without 'if'. Without it, our world would be much more empty, and the void would grow larger. Funny how I can seem to tie everything to the void....
But, may I inquire as to what your opinion may be

?