On 08 Mar 2014, at 01:02, Edgar L. Owen wrote:
Brent,
Yes, exactly. The agreement of nearly all minds on the values of
empirical observations is truly remarkable. The vast edifice of
science whose accuracy is confirmed by the incredibly complex
technologies based upon it would not exist if this were not so. So
there is quite obviously some actual universe 'out there' on which
minds in general agree no matter how minds work...
But you do agree that such "physical universe out there" is not
primitive, and arise from the "computational space".
Then if you use "computation" in the standard sense (Church thesis,
etc.), then you get a precise explanation where the illusion of "
primitively real universe" come from. Both time and space, and energy,
comes from numbers indexical personal views. You might follow the
current explanation or read the papers. It makes computationalism
testable (and partially tested).
Bruno
Edgar
On Friday, March 7, 2014 5:03:19 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
On 3/7/2014 12:52 PM, LizR wrote:
On 8 March 2014 01:21, Edgar L. Owen <[email protected]> wrote:
All,
An empty space within which events occur does not exist. There is
no universal fixed pre-existing empty space common to all events
and observers.
Why? Because we cannot establish its existence by any observation
whatsoever. We NEVER observe such an empty space. All we actually
observe is interactions between particulate matter and energy. In
fact, all observations ARE interactions of particulate matter or
energy, they are never observations of empty space itself.
Observations are not in fact observations of interactions between
matter and energy, either. They are in fact interactions inside our
brains, hypothetically the reception of nerve signals by our brain
cells.
That seems like an inconsistent way to put it; sort of talking at
two different levels of description and saying one is wrong because
I can talk at the other. The interactions inside my brain are a lot
more hypothetical than observation of words on my computer screen.
"I'm observing a computer screen." is pretty concrete and direct.
On a physical model I could say "Photons from excited phosphor atoms
are being absorbed by chromophores in my retina which are sending
neural signals into my brain." Or eschewing physicalism,
"Information merging into my thought processes via preception,
instantiates the thought "I'm observing a computer screen"."...which
pretty much brings me back to just "I'm observing a computer
screen." A circle of explanation.
Brent
The idea of the existence of matter and energy, space and time (or
more modernly, mass-energy and space-time) is of course a
hypothesis which we use to account for the apparent regularities in
our observations. You can't throw out a hypothesis on the basis
that we can't observe its components directly because we don't
observe any of reality directly, so on that basis you end up with
solipsism.
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