A Conscious Universe

[Surgenator]

Neither. You're claiming physical terms and explanations can be translated into idealist terms and explanations. This claim is not justified. On the QM level, you only have wavefunctions not redness, dryness or any other qualia.

I'm doing no such thing. There's no translation needed. We experience information about shapes, colors, etc., and we form ideas from our experience. Those experiences which we seem to share we call objective. At no point in any of this have we needed to assert that there is a magical universe full of stuff-that-is-not-stuff like photons or their wave functions. That we have done so is probably much the same as our reason for counting in 10s-- we are limited. We experience in terms of objects with dimensions: table surfaces and such. But now we know that a surface is a symbolic representation of a statistical cloud of. . . wait for it. . . information.

So going back to the drying paint question, what information is in play when paint dries?

Also, how does information does anything? For example, I can picture myself walking and not walk. There is a difference between me walking and me thinking about walking. I don't see how idealism differentiates between the concept and the action.

Also, if the fundamental thing is information, what is consciousness?

You know, we're so limited that we used to think that things occupying space actually occupied space. Now, we know that things like a desk occupy not more than 0.000000001% (forgive me if I've miscounted the actual number of zeros-- I only have so many fingers, you know), and that non-zero fraction may itself be the wishful clinging of a material world view where stuff is still stuff.

So you think something doesn't exist if doesn't occupy space? Where did you get this requirement?

FYI, consciousness and information don't occupy space either. Consciousness and information don't have a well defined position in space. How would you order information in time, i.e. cause and effect?

There are too many fundamental aspects of reality that I don't see idealism answering. Just to name a few,
What is an action?
How do you differetiate between actions and concepts of actions?
How does cause and effect work?
What is consciousness?

The purpose of my "how does paint dries" question is to lead to these set of questions.