I posted this below but also here (Also I'm posting Dick's "Egyptian scenario" and my original study of it).
You say Dick's paper ISN'T about "what reality is" yet you then say his paper STATES something that reality allegedly IS! ("A set of numbers").
If Dick's paper is nothing to do with reality; then why does he even use the word "reality"?
Why smuggle his ideas in a Trojan Horse?
For the sake of clarity, Dick should heed his own advice and avoid using double definitions!
If he wants to talk about something, for the sake of clarity he should not hijack a word with a well known meaning ("reality").
What you do not seem to understand is that ever since I carefully read Dick's "Egyptian" scenario I have had a very good idea what he discovered. But he apparantly refused to read what I wrote after I used the word "distinction", claiming he didn't know what I mean by it (I only meant what the word means in English usage).
I am well aware that "What is?" questions are inherently circular. It is a well known part of philosophy that ultimately you run out of explanations in a chain of explanations and are left with "brute facts" (I prefer: "gentle facts").
Dick's paper I know is about minimum descriptive pattern options. He should not confuse the issue by using words with established meanings in new ways. He should make up a new word.
It looks like physics because "descriptive patterns" is what physics involves.
Do you deny that Dick claims that most of modern physics is tautological?
Do you deny that there is no such thing as "most of modern physics"?
Otherwise, that claim of Dick's IS about some reality, the reality of the science "physics" and the claims of physicists.
-dolphin |