On 18 August 2014 12:19, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: Then the arithmetical realism suggests the existence of approximation of > physical realities, without observers. The falling leaf will make a sound > (a 3p wave), but of course, without observers, there will be no perception > or qualia actualized there.
Isn't it perhaps more the case that without observers there is no "there" there (as Gertrude Stein might have put it)? The indexical reality attributable to observation is a bit like one of the rare intelligible books adrift in the ocean of dross that constitutes the Library of Babel. But unlike Borges's alphabetic Library, the structure of the programmatic Library generated by the dovetailer entails the presence of "books" that are self-interpreting and self-locating. It's only in the context of such self-actualisation that one could truly say that there is a physical "there" there, if you see what I mean. The pre-observational "approximation" you mention above strikes me more as the prerequisite potential for the actualisation of intelligible physical realities, somewhat in the sense that the Library of Babel might represent an analogous potential for the actualisation of intelligible books. Perhaps this is a quibble, but personally I find the notion of physical reality as something that exists "independent of us" to be a slippery, not to say equivocal, concept. Obviously some kind of *potential* for such reality must exist independently of observation, and comp indeed is a thesis about precisely what might constitute that potential. If comp is correct, physical realities are like flecks of gold filtered from the Vastly redundant dross spewed from the dovetailer. The filtration is in turn a consequence of the self-referential statistics encountered by a plurality of "natural knowers" directly entailed by the theory. So in point of fact, if comp is correct, there isn't a physical reality that can truly be seen as entirely "independent of us"; indeed this is what prevents the mind from being swept under the rug of physics. According to comp, physics is nothing other than the summation of lawlike constraints on the possibilities of observation; it's this that constitutes the "reversal of physics and machine psychology". David -- 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/d/optout.
