David Nyman:
<snip>
> > An _abstract_ computation/model X implemented symbolically on a of a
> portion
> > of the structure (a COMPUTER) inside the structure (the UNIVERSE) will
> see
> > the universe as "NOT COMPUTER", not some function of the machinations of
> X,
> > the model. Eg The first person perspective of a register in a computer
> > holding a quantity N must be that of being a register in a computer, not
> > that of 'being' a quantity N.
>
> Interestingly you see it as the perspective of the register, rather
> than some computational entity within X. Does this imply some sort of
> hardware/ substrate experiential dependency, rather than a purely
> relational 'program-level' view?
>
>
Sort of...but I think the word 'hardware' is loaded with assumption. I'd say
that universe literally is a relational construct and that it's appearance
as 'physical' is what it is like when you are in it. .ie. There's no such
'thing' as a 'thing'. :-) It doesn't mean that behaving 'as if' there are
such things as things is not useful...we survive that way...
'Substrate' in my intended context would mean more like 'whatever it is that
the universe is, it is that'. Our predisposition to assume isolated lumpy
'thingness' is rather pervasive.
Perhaps this:
Waving a bit of it ('stuff', the relational-substrate) around in a circle
(for example) in indirect 'as-if' symbolic representation as a computation
of an abstraction X in no way instantiates X or Xness, it instantiates
'being_waved_around_in_a_circle_ness' from the point of view of being the
'stuff' (1st person) and the behaviour 'waving_around_in_a_circle_ly' (3rd
person). Note that the 3rd person is actually derived from the 1st person
perspective of the observer! This third person can pretend
'waving_around_in_a_circle_ly' is X, but that's all there is...play acting.
The third person perspective is manufactured in the eyes of the beholder.
Perhaps rather than '1st Person Prime' as an assertion, maybe '3rd person
not prime' is a lesser and more justified position. The fact is that there
is no such thing as a 'third person'. What you have is a communicable 1st
person perspective that yet another 'first person perspective' can find if
it looks. No-one ever has a 'third person' perspective. Ernest Nagel named a
book after it: 'the view from nowhere'. If 3rd person does not exist, then
1st person is all there is left, isn't it?
Colin Hales
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