From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Sat Apr 26 2003 - 16:04:22 MDT
> This is what i mean about keeping a distinction
> between the terms 'Reality' and 'Existance'. Reality
> is the stuff which can affect you like stones which
> you can kick or hypothetical universes which can
> interfere and affect the results of your photonic
> experiment for example.
> But there are other universes, many others which can
> be regarded as isolated from our own because they have
> no way of affecting us physically, perhaps the best we
> can do is to try to compute them or visualise them. At
> some point one tends to accept the existance of
> universes totally beyond our comprehensibility : both
> uncomputable and unvisualisable. We cannot deny the
> existance of them just because we cannot measure them
> directly any more than we can deny the existance of
> the number '3'.
OK, if you are saying these other universes "exist" as abstractions, that's
fine.
3 is a useful abstraction because it helps us derive measurable results
about observed reality...
In what sense are all these hypothetical alternate universes useful
abstractions? I guess they are useful in terms of possible worlds
semantics, a valuable heuristic for making calculations regarding causality
and implication...
> So in my terminology (and because it is so
> self-consistent i expect others to follow me) anything
> which makes logical sense does exist.
Well, this is one way to define "existence" but certainly not the only
sensible way...
However I am pleased to know exactly what *you* mean by "existence" -- this
does clarify your earlier comments.
thanks
Ben G
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