https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-03793-2
Basically there is the instrumentalist view (there are measurements, and nothing else) and the realist view (there is something out there we are measuring). Bohr and his many allies were instrumentalists ... that reality isn't relevant except when measured. Einstein and his few allies were realists ... that there is something "out there" that we are measuring. Einstein has been consistently shown to be wrong on that. Of course this all plays into "Schroedinger's Cat". Philosophers call that thing that realists think is "out there" ... qualia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_physics
At the most fundamental DesCartes level, all we really know is our own mental state, and we know it poorly. We deduce that there is something beyond the self, even beyond multiple selves "the subjective", and that there is something " the objective" which we can in principle agree on, based on repetitive measurement of an ongoing natural phenomena or repetitive measurement of an repeatable experimental setup. I can measure the conductivity of a rock (geophysics) or that or a resistor (man made object).
We live in a simulation projected on our awareness by our sensory modalities. Our senses take in data from our environment and our brains use it to simulate and predict the world "outside" of our brains. Even our bodies are part of the simulation, whenever we perceive them.
I doubt that anything other than pure number exists - apparently numbers can do a lot more than we've ever given them credit for.
Quote from: Unbeliever on April 29, 2018, 06:26:16 PM
We live in a simulation projected on our awareness by our sensory modalities. Our senses take in data from our environment and our brains use it to simulate and predict the world "outside" of our brains. Even our bodies are part of the simulation, whenever we perceive them.
I doubt that anything other than pure number exists - apparently numbers can do a lot more than we've ever given them credit for.
Pythagoras would have said so ;-)
What is interesting is that even if solipsism is correct (at least of the shared illusion kind ... there is more than one person) ... there are aspects of reality that show consistent patterns ... it isn't chaos (in the worst sense). I prefer the words "consistent/persistent patterns" to "laws of nature". So even if it is all unreal, there is some consistency to it, even if not in the way earlier thinkers thought. Pseudorandom number generation in particular (see your past comment). If you can successfully generate the same number, over and over again, at least approximately, then you have an algorithm on your hands.
Physicists find we’re not living in a computer simulation (https://cosmosmagazine.com/physics/physicists-find-we-re-not-living-in-a-computer-simulation)
QuoteJust in case it’s been weighing on your mind, you can relax now. A team of theoretical physicists from Oxford University in the UK has shown that life and reality cannot be merely simulations generated by a massive extraterrestrial computer.
I would agree, reality is more complicated than algorithms allow. But some think that quantum computing gets us past that. Nature has true random numbers (it is analog), digital algorithms (per Turing Machines) can only produce very sophisticated pseudo-random numbers. But what do physicists know? They aren't computer scientists ;-))
But we may be living in a hologram. (https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2017/01/holographic-universe.page)
I was thinking of holographic reality about 32 years ago ... but I got better ;-)
I suspect we are living in reality.
Quote from: Cavebear on June 14, 2018, 02:10:01 AM
I suspect we are living in reality.
Yes, and in so far as there is heaven or hell, this is it, this is heaven/hell.
The Matrix was a unique movie, but I wonder how many movie goers may have already imagined, considered, or believed that we might actually live in one. I know I've had that thought many times in life, going back to 1951, when the only computer was UNIVAC. I'm happy someone actually got around to articulating the idea. Since the Matrix, the concept has been explored and modified and improved many times, and every time they do it, it's a hit with me.
Quote from: SGOS on June 14, 2018, 12:40:06 PM
The Matrix was a unique movie, but I wonder how many movie goers may have already imagined, considered, or believed that we might actually live in one. I know I've had that thought many times in life, going back to 1951, when the only computer was UNIVAC. I'm happy someone actually got around to articulating the idea. Since the Matrix, the concept has been explored and modified and improved many times, and every time they do it, it's a hit with me.
Is that why everyone here opposed Drew_2017 ... because he was voicing the idea they already had decades ago? He opened with the argument that the world was a computer simulation. And of course HHGTTG proposed that too.
Quote from: Baruch on June 14, 2018, 08:23:04 PM
Is that why everyone here opposed Drew_2017 ... because he was voicing the idea they already had decades ago? He opened with the argument that the world was a computer simulation. And of course HHGTTG proposed that too.
Hollywood makes some good science FICTION.