Craig, Well first I'm not so optimistic as you that some here don't harbor some pretty ridiculous ideas including that there was no reality before humans.
Second, there is a view I present in my book that resolves both perspectives. If we hold the view that everything is just computationally interacting information at the fundamental level, then it is reasonable to define any change in that information as a generic type of experience I call Xperience. In this model then, everything that happens is an Xperience, and every information form can be considered a generic observer, whose computational change amounts to an observation. So in this sense we get observers from the very beginning and don't have to wait for human observers to appear. I don't see how this wouldn't be consistent with the Block and Bruno universes 1p views of observable reality though I have no desire to explore that avenue.... Note that this model is also consistent with the transition from the old erroneous view that human observation 'caused' wavefunction 'collapse' to the modern view of decoherence, in which we can say that it is the interactions of two particles themselves which supply the generic 'observation' of each other to produce some exact dimensional 'measurement' in each other's frames. Edgar On Thursday, February 13, 2014 10:04:24 PM UTC-5, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > > On Thursday, February 13, 2014 8:51:18 PM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: >> >> Russell, >> >> But that assumes that consciousness is prior to ontological reality, to >> actual being. That's one of the things I find most ridiculous about both >> Bruno's comp and block universes, that they assume everything is 1p >> perspectives of conscious human observers. >> >> To me, that's just solipsism in new clothes. And it implies there was no >> reality before humans. >> > > I don't think anyone here (or anyone that I have ever spoken with, really) > thinks that there was no reality before humans. Idealism, or the kind of > Pansensitivity that I suggest need not have anything to do with human > beings at all. The issue is whether anything can simply 'exist' > independently of all possibility of experience. I think that if that were > possible, then any form of perception or experience would be redundant and > implausible. More importantly though, in what way would a phenomenon which > has no possibility of detection be different than nothingness? We can > create experiences that remind us of matter and energy just by imagining > them, and we can derive some pleasure and meaning from that independently > of any functional consideration, but what reason would the laws of physics > or arithmetic have to accidentally make sensation and participation? > > >> >> I think the correct view is that reality is independent of human >> perception, that it being functioning quite fine for 13.7 billion years >> before humans came along. But that humans each have their own internal >> VIEWS or SIMULATIONS of reality, which they mistake for actual human >> independent reality. >> >> Bruno, and a few others seem to MISTAKE those internal views of reality >> for human independent reality itself. >> >> That's a fundamental and deadly mistake in trying to make sense of >> reality... >> >> Edgar >> >> >> >> >> On Thursday, February 13, 2014 6:05:34 PM UTC-5, Russell Standish wrote: >>> >>> On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 10:23:14AM -0800, Edgar L. Owen wrote: >>> > Craig, >>> > >>> > I also suspect Bruno's math skills are superior to mine, but his >>> > understanding of the place of math in reality seems pretty deficient, >>> or >>> > perhaps just rigid. >>> > >>> > As I've pointed out his 8 steps may well be mathematically consistent >>> but >>> > that doesn't mean they have anything to do with the fundamental >>> structure >>> > of reality at all. To meaningfully apply a purely mathematical or >>> logical >>> > proof to reality, one must establish an actual correspondence of the >>> > variables in the proof to actual variables of reality. I don't see >>> Bruno >>> > doing that at all. >>> >>> The strength of Bruno's approach is that that is implicit in the >>> assumption of COMP. Once you assume that one's consciousness can be >>> implemented by a computation, then necessarily ontological reality >>> (whatever that is) can also be implemented by a computation. This is a >>> simple consequence of the Church thesis. >>> >>> > >>> > There is no way that anything happens in his static Platonia. And >>> there is >>> > no method of selecting the structure of our actual universe from what >>> is >>> > apparently his all possible universes. >>> > >>> > He told us his theory doesn't predict the fine tuning, as this type of >>> > theory must, because the fine tuning is not important in hi view. >>> > >>> >>> It is not important for the UDA. But it is, nevertheless, not >>> inconsistent with the Anthropic Principle either. Bruno would say it >>> is necessary for the manifestation of other conciousnesses to us. I >>> reserve my judgement on this... >>> >>> -- >>> >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> >>> >>> Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) >>> Principal, High Performance Coders >>> Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpc...@hpcoders.com.au >>> University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> >>> >>> >> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
