X-Message-Number: 21688 Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 00:04:17 -0700 From: Mike Perry <> Subject: Symbolic Reality Thomas Donaldson writes: >You claim that the world is fundamentally symbolic. What are >your reasons for this claim? Please don't cite some philosopher: >give your own reasons. I think the discreteness of events, as implied by quantum mechanics, and the laws of physics add up to the property that, in effect, history is fundamentally computational in nature. A good piece of evidence favoring this is the possibility of a universal quantum computer, or its refinement, what is referred to as a universal quantum simulator. > In what way is the warmth of a fire >symbolic? Or the beauty of a sunset, or the horror of a car >crash? Well, you'd have to consider carefully just what is going on in a brain when these things are experienced. Everything that goes on, whatever it may feel like, is reducible to the interactions of fundamental particles, mainly electrons, photons, and atomic nuclei made of protons and neutrons. To give the details would be a rather long story, of course, but the level of fundamental particles is relatively easy to view as "symbolic" or computational, for the reasons I've given. Once again I'll say that the appearance of non-symbolicality in what happens is, in my view, an illusion comparable to the apparent infinite divisibility of matter. Mike Perry Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21688