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I like "choice two" better...
Just as you say, "like a chess board and pieces that 'exist' we can imagine all sorts of games that can be played but all of them are human inventions."
I would be obliged to substitute a few words; namely, "like [space-time] and [matter] that 'exist' we can imagine all sorts of [arrangements] that can be [realized] but all of them are human inventions."
Of course... that's basically one way of interpreting your analogy. I believe that your "chess game" analogy was ultimately referencing a notion much deeper than "physical stuff", but rather the notion of "different logic systems" and that the "reality" we perceive is just one of many such possible alternate "realities" (="chess games" of axioms). It goes deeper than just physics per se... because it would be the actual root of the logic system from whence physics (behavior of matter) and math came. Anyways, enough blabbering...
I initially intended to ask a question. Harv, what is your take on solipsism?
How about this... rather than individual solipsism, what about a collective solipsism? In other words, rather than "create reality" in one's own head... reallity is "created" collectively in the minds of many. I'm sure I wasn't the first to ponder this... what is the name for that interpretation of solipsism?
The reason I ask is because I was up last night thinking on philosophical topics... and I found myself pondering a peculiar analogy. I thought about how a complex web of neurons can give rise to a human mind, and how no single brain cell was capable of "being conscious". However when you have a collection of many trillions of brain cells, you get a thinking, curious, man such as you or I.
Then I thought about what if I were to continue the thought process, but however, I would imagine an actual whole human, as being one "brain cell".
What would this mean? It would mean that only in the presence of many trillions of humans would there be a "neural web" complex enough to give rise to a "super-consciousness"; and that no single human was actually capable of "being 'super-conscious'".
Perhaps the "reality" of this "super-being" is as far removed from what we know and understand as our "reality"... as our world is to a single brain cell in our head. In that respect... we aren't even really "conscious", however, we aren't aware of it.
Telling a single brain cell in our head to "imagine being conscious" would perhaps be tantamount to telling a single human to "imagine a five dimensional cube" or "imagine what a rainbow would look like in the X-ray spectrum of light".
Just as describing the color blue to a blind man is impossible... so too would it be impossible for myself to imagine a color beyond indigo (UV spectrum).
In fact, if we wanted to get even further away from "everyday reality", we could take up Klein on his proposition that Maxwell's electromagnetism is the five dimensional solution to Einstein's GR. In other words, what we see as "color" is actualy gravity in 5-d space-time. Now think if your retina was sensitive to regular 4-D gravity! The Earth would appear to be a gigantic tranlusent sphere! (since we can feel the gravitational attraction of the entire Earth, hence propogation of "4-D gravity light" is unimpeded by matter, therefore you would "see through" the Earth). What would the universe look like if God had given us a pair of eyes for each of the four forces of nature? ...very colorful indeed...
Harv try to imagine what it would be like to have TEN senses! What would those other 5 senses be like? That's just as impossible to imagine as it is to imagine that UV color described above...
....just a few "mind-ticklers" to throw at ya. It helps me to get a grasp of what it would be like to be "super-conscious". If I am truly a "single brain-cell", then I wonder what God's mind must be like compared to mine...(??) Reality could very well be far removed from the comprehensive capability of a single brain-cell. |
