Russell, and Liz, Depends on what we mean by "an objective physical reality". Actually an external objective reality is one of the several most convincing arguments FOR a computational reality.
An external reality, as opposed to the internal realities of our individual simulations of that reality leads directly to the conclusion that that external reality IS a computational reality. The way this works is that the best way to determine what external reality is is simply to progressively subtract everything that the human mind adds to it in its simulation of it. When we do this we find that all that is left IS a computational reality, just evolving logico-mathematical information. In my book I present a couple dozen things that mind adds to external reality in its simulation of it, and what is left after we subtract them. We imagine external reality as the familiar classical level physical dimensional world populated by things of our ordinary experience. But this is completely wrong. For example, external reality itself has no position or location, no orientation, no size, no innate proper time scale, no motion, because these are all necessarily relative to some observer. So without an observer reality itself has none of these attributes. Reality itself is nowhere, in no place, has no position, no orientation, no relative motion, no innate time scale. Also external reality itself contains no images of any thing, because its light is unfocused without the lenses of the eyes of some observer. So reality itself contains no images of things. If we imagine it having them we are wrong. Also reality itself doesn't even contain individual things. Reality itself is a continuous computational information nexus. The whole notion of a thing is something constructed by mind by piecing together different types of qualia that tend to occur in association. Robotic AI clearly demonstrates this complex process... And the whole notion of physical objects is a mental phenomenon. Physical objects in the sense of individual things having colors, textures, feelings, etc. exist only in mind's simulation of reality, not in reality itself. These are all information about how observers INTERACT with various logical structures in the external world. The list goes on and on. I can present more if anyone likes. Anyway when we subtract all these things that mind adds to reality in its internal simulation of it, we find that all that is left of actual reality is a logico-mathematical structure consisting only of computationally evolving information. So the reality we actually live in is not at all the reality we think we live in. The reality we think we live in, the classical material dimensional world, is entirely a construction of mind, EXCEPT for snippets of logical structure extracted from the true external reality, which is a logico-mathematical computational structure. It is only these logical structures that exist in external reality. When we function in reality, we are just acting to some degree in logical consistency with these external logical structures. So it is the very concept of an external reality, understood in this light, that directly LEADS us to the inevitable conclusion of a computational reality. Thus the notion of an external reality IS consistent with it being a computational reality, because it leads directly to it. Edgar On Tuesday, February 18, 2014 6:51:57 PM UTC-5, Russell Standish wrote: > > On Wed, Feb 19, 2014 at 12:06:30PM +1300, LizR wrote: > > Surely you need something to synchronise the perceptions of different > > observers? And I assume external physical reality is the simplest > > hypothesis for what that something is? > > > > Not that that ia an argument in its favour, I suppose (doesn't make > > testable predictions different from other ontologies). I can't offhand > > think of an experiment that would definitively show there is an > > external material reality. (Kicking a stone ... which causes some > > virtual photons to be exchanged between particles that may be > > mathematical objects, some sort of Poincare group thing perhaps... and > > is in any case "only" a series of sense impression... etc) > > > > I would agree that an objective external physical reality is the > simplest explanation of the anthropic principle, and that idealist > theories have some catching up to do. This problem is described in > Theory of Nothing (p82, p164, p183). However, such objectivist > ontologies have problems of their own, such as the incompatibility > with COMP that Bruno uncovered. On the whole, idealism tends to fair > better than physicalism over a range of topics, just not in the > particular case of the Anthropic Principle. > > There seems to me to be a big confusion between intersubjectivity and > objectivity in general. Most of the evidence presented in favour of > objectivity is actually evidence in favour of intersubjectivity. The > confusion is probably because as far as evolution is concerned, they > are the one and same. > > -- > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Principal, High Performance Coders > Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpc...@hpcoders.com.au<javascript:> > 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.
