Re: Information and the 'physical universe' (fwd)

From: Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri Feb 9 10:00:46 2001

Brent Meeker writes:

>What seems to me *not* to be interesting, is which level is "really
>real".

I agree. Still we must find some common basic agreement for being
able to talk about those levels.


>I haven't read "Similacron III", but I have read Egan's "Permutation
>City". I enjoyed it very much (as I have enjoyed Egan's other stories)
>and I
>would not criticze it as a novel. However, at the end Egan cheats
>
>philosophically. He proposes that whichever mathematical structure
>(simulation) is more detailed is the more real one. But "more detailed"
>is difficult to define - and besides, what does it mean to be "more"
>real,
>or even to be "real".


Have you seen "the thirteen floor". It's a movie based on
Simulacron 3. Unfortunatley it appears at the same moment than MATRIX.
The ideas are also very difficult to render through a movie.


>I don't think what I have said above is in conflict with your ideas
>(although I don't want to put words in your mouth). I only want to make
>things clear to myself and to damp what seem to me to be purely semantic
>arguments about what's "real" that follow after assertions like "only
>this moment exists" and "space-time is an illusion."

Well, I think you can say space-time is an illusion when:
1) When you feel it and you say that to yourself, but in that case I think
poetry is more appropriate, like Lewis Carroll writing :"life, what
is it, but a dream".
2) When you give a description of the "one" which is illusioned and
explain
in what sense there is an illusion of space-time. (Like when we say
that in a movie there is an illusion of movement).

I will think about your graphic, at first sight there is conflict!
(Hopefully not linguistic conflicts).

Bruno
Received on Fri Feb 09 2001 - 10:00:46 PST