A Conscious Universe

[bennyboy]

Why is it that I can't access information on your computer, but we can both share information on the internet? It's context-- each of us is part of a whole, and some of that whole is available to us, and some is not.

I don't think that addresses the question - it is not a good analogy.

A better one would be that we are constructed from common hardware and running similar software. We are communicating our experiences, not sharing them.

When I say, "share," I'm not talking about communication. I'm just talking about having access to the same experience. For example, if we're in a room together and I drop a ball, you also see it fall. That's all I meant.

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Nobody has asserted otherwise. Why are you arguing this point?

Idealism sounds like the math is making the ball fly. Explain in as much detail as possible on how this works, because I don't see understand how information moves, interacts, or has location. The baseball scenerio in idealism terms sounds like "an information packet moving through space, does some math with another information packet to decide where it would move next." And I'm guessing that time and space are real things in idealism and not another packet of information.

No, I wouldn't say that space is real, not in the sense that you view it. In an idealistic view, I'd view space as conceptual. It represents part of the way in which objects are related.

I disagree that qualia is necessary. I don't believe it even exist. How do you know qualia is an illusion? Just because you experience something that doesn't mean your experiences reflect reality.

Did I say qualia was an illlusion? That really doesn't sound like something I'd say. What I would say is that from the perspective of a physical monism, qualia is nonsense. You can't interact with it, manipulate it directly, or even know for sure it exists.

But it does. I know this for sure, because I experience it. Therefore, a system in which qualia is nonsense cannot be said to represent reality.

I'm not claiming we are co-creating anything. I'm pointing out that the source of the idea is not important for its existence like the source of the particle is not important for its existence. My mind is an idea generator yet my ideas do not manifest in reality. A partice generator creates particles in reality observable by all.

I think you are making an accidental equivocation of ideas as the building block of reality, and ideas as things people think about things. Your idea no more creates elemental ideas than your brain creates new matter.

I never said anything about imagination's limitations. The problem is that the mind can create ideas. If the fundamental element of the universe are ideas, then our imagination can create reality. Like a flashlight creates photons, our mind creates ideas.

First of all, I think it's a bit simplistic to say a flashlight creates photons. It releases them.

Anyway, the thing about ideas bringing forth something new into the universe is interesting-- but it happens not to represent my views on the universe.