I'll answer your question (at the risk of incurring your wrath): those
people are real in the sense that his brain is devoting processing
power to creating the mental image of the individual, and everything
related to this individual's personality. So even though the person in
his head isn't nearly as substantive or complex as a person in the
"real" world, information processing has been devoted to creating this
"person", who has a real appearance and personality and behavior to at
least one observer. Therefore the person is real to at least one first
person perspective, but is not currently real to any third person
perspective. It is not impossible to conceive of future devices that
could display thoughts on a screen, or even materialize the thought (for
you Trekkies), making the person real even to the third person perspective.
Danny
aet.radal ssg wrote:
> You're assuming that Einstein came up with those ideas through
> brainstorming. You're the one that called the ideas discussed here
> often as "half-formed". The problem I used to have (I'm too busy to
> even give darn anymore) is when ideas are put out that don't seem to
> any thought behind them, prior to being offered. Like my still
> unanswered question to Saibal about how people who aren't "really"
> there but exist in Nash's head can still be considered real in "our
> universe". That's what I'm talking about. That's a fully formed idea
> with absolutely no basis in the objective world that was just put out
> there like it meant something, when in fact it's ridiculous. I asked
> simply what he meant by it, to see how possibly he could defend such a
> statement, and got nothing. Par for the course, I'm sure.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jesse Mazer"
> To: aet.radal.ssg.domain.name.hidden, everything-list.domain.name.hidden
> Subject: Re: Many worlds theory of immortality
> Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 12:29:13 -0400
>
> >
> > aet.radal ssg wrote:
> >
> > > Clearly, the method and definition of brainstorming that you're
> > > accustomed to is different than mine. >The "half-formed idea" is
> > > what initiates the brainstorm for me, which is fully formed when
> > > the storm is >over, ie. the ground is parched and in need of
> > > rain, the storm comes and when it's over, the ground is >wet and
> > > crops can grow. Sorry, I just couldn't think of a snappy computer
> > > metaphor, being as I'm from >the 1930's, as I have been told
> >
> > But does this mean you think no one should discuss ideas that are
> > not fully developed? To use my earlier example, do you think
> > Einstein should have kept his mouth shut about ideas like the
> > equivalence principle and curved space until he had the full
> > equations of general relativity worked out, and that if he did try
> > to discuss such half-finished ideas with anyone it would be because
> > he just liked to hear himself talk?
> >
> > Jesse
>
> --
>
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Received on Thu May 26 2005 - 19:49:35 PDT