Nikolai

The perfect ending for the Matrix theory would be for Leo to find out, after he liberated the people from the Matrix, that humans built it voluntarily to create a happy fantasy world. Then I can finaly say it was a movie about atheism

MyKell

Who is Leo?

That won't be the perfect ending! Limiting our entire experience to the year 1999 is extremely low level. I think constructing a matrix for everyone will be a good thing only when we discover the whole universe and we're left with nothing more to discover and fantasize about... i.e. never

John Page

Unless, of course we discover that our discoveries are fantasies themselves. Back to the vat!

Cheers, John

MyKell

haha! That was a good one John

I still think that we can make real discoveries even if we are envatted. Being envatted doesn't change how real our world is. Now to construct a matrix inside a matrix will be a good alternative for people who can't live happily in the larger matrix. More like the Lucid Dream in vanilla sky, have you watched that movie?

Nikolai

And when I say Leo I mean Neo :banghead:

Ensign Steve

I liked Vanilla Sky! I didn't know anything about it when I went to see it, so I was blown away. Speaking of a matrix within a matrix, who saw The Thirteenth Floor?

Jen

John Page

Curioser and curioser!

Actually, what was in my mind was from the Restaurant at the End of the Universe (trilogy of four books), where the Earth was a vast organic computer experiment to find the question to the answer (42) to life, the universe and everything. I seem to remember that the white mice were the intrusion from a fifth dimensional being into our reality and that the mice had commissioned the Earth from the Magarathean custom planet builders and Slartivartfast had received a design award for the coast of Norway with the intricate fiord coastline but the Vogons were about to demolish Earth 5 minutes before the program ended to make way for a new hyperspace bypass....

Cheers, John

Ensign Steve

5 books (and a short story).

But even in that story, they were not brains in vats, they were brains in physical bodies (as far as the books tell us) that moved around and interacted with the universe. I don't remember about the mice being from the fifth dimension. I do remember the description of the room large enough to build a planet inside of it, and how it used to give me headaches.

King's Indian

Hello, Mykell!
I thought here would be an appropriate place for the rest of my thoughts, as they wholly concern themselves with Mr. Chalmers’ proposal: I start with the four hypotheses, and will address some comments about their application at a later date.
As the first (metaphysical) is offered as a conflation of the following three without much addition, I will start with:
The Creation hypothesis: “Physical space-time and its contents were created by beings outside physical space-time”.
As it stands, this is true, but uninteresting: if the universe were created by something outside its boundaries, the only point of interest would be if that creator (or an aspect of its universe) returned within the universe’s boundary: otherwise, a creator who remained without may be usefully dismissed as an unnecessarily multiplied entity. To say, as Mr. Chalmers does, that “the hypothesis is clearly coherent” is to define coherence in its trivial sense: that it cannot be tested one way or the other. If this hypothesis were to be applied to our own universe, we would be forced into the uncomfortable position of stating that the creator also seemed to go to the trouble of a false creation, taking into account the quite sophisticated theories we have concerning the big bang so far. At this point one is a shadow away from further suggestions of this creator’s “mysterious ways”. In addition, I cannot see what weight is added by the phrase “”a version of it is believed by many people in society, and perhaps the majority of people in the world”. Such arguments from majority opinion have been answered many times elsewhere, and always with some force.
The Computational Hypothesis: “Micro-Physical processes throughout space-time are constituted by underlying computational processes”.
Again, to advance an hypothesis, Mr Chalmers stretches a point; in stretching a point, he risks over-extending it: To argue this, he starts from biological processes, proceeding down though levels of chemistry, physics, etc., continuing to fundamental particles and from there to computational “bits”: a “unit of pure difference”. There are two objections.
1) Even though (for example) biological processes, which range from reproduction to predation cycles to rainfall, have entities that are composed ultimately of smaller units that are the province of chemistry ( and beyond, physics), in what sense can one say that chemical processes underlie biological ones? That is, how may one usefully gain understanding of the fluctuations of predator/prey populations by focussing on the chemical interactions of the animals which go to make up this drama? It gets us nowhere if we state that, when one looks at a Big Cat closely enough, we may detect the outer shell electron transfer in organic molecules, and therefore have insight into why over-predation is as counter-productive for the predator as it is for its food. Processes appropriate to one level have no necessary influence over those at another.
2) It seems to me that an idea of a fundamental bit, a unit of pure difference, is irrational. The point of difference, as classically defined, is that it states a dissimilarity between referents. How may it be “pure”, if as a concept it has no meaning without consideration of concepts that can differ? Again, a “difference” that can be so defined without the differing objects themselves does not stand up on its own. Although Mr. Chalmers raises something of this point, he dismisses his objections because he “[doesn’t] think it’s completely out of the question”. To try and skirt the issue as he does by postulating a level even beyond the computational raises the sensible point: is this level physical, or computational as well? In short, this approach just hopes to push the objection far enough away by regression so that it may be ignored.
This approach founders on the mistaken belief that once we can find a rigorous, quantitative explanation for a mechanism, then the next step is to look for that explanation as though it were a level of reality, on which our observed phenomenon depends. Our methods of explanation, be they ever so quantitative, or maths-based, are our tools developed for ease of handling a world too rich and diverse to be understood without them. Take the example of predation: as a phenomenon, much light has been shed by the mathematical tool of the logistical map. We can use this to generate a ratio of hunter/hunted that gives many interesting and non-obvious insights into the problem; but it is still a simplifying approach. Should we then start treating such biological patterns in all its richness, as mere shadows of x=ax(1-x)? And then say that the latter is true reality? It seems no different with particles (to say nothing of the problems their particular case demonstrate).
The Mind-Body Hypothesis: The mind is, and always has been, constituted by processes outside physical space-time, and receives and sends inputs and outputs to processes etc. [My paraphrase]
This may be more quickly dealt with, on the same lines as the creation hypothesis: why not assume the mind as wholly dependent on the processes within, rather than postulate an extra process without, that cannot be accessed by us at all? To mention Descartes is not really fair: he, after all, specified God as necessary in bringing mind and body together. Again, also, the argument from majority opinion may be safely discarded. To say “even if contemporary science tends to suggest that the hypothesis is false, we cannot rule it out conclusively”, does, in my opinion, a grave disservice to contemporary science. The fact is that science today does not offer one single shred of evidence for the hypothesis.
As I shall break off here, I will just add this to supplement the points above: it seems that overall that the only way that Mr Chalmers avoids scepticism is to define his hypotheses along the lines of unnecessarily multiplied entities. Any points I make on his following remarks will be more general. I have chosen his hypotheses because, on the one hand, they seem to me seriously flawed, and on the other, he then uses to advance his ideas with nary a backward glance at them.
However, I may have shown a flaw in my thinking: I welcome any comments which would highlight this.
Take care,
KI

MyKell

Hi KI,
Thanks alot for taking the time to write such a wonderful post,
Very true, I agree. His theory is unfalsifiable, therefore not a scientific theory, however, I do not know the rules for a metaphysical hypothesis, can you give more insight into this?

Well that is the second tenet of the hypothesis is the one that I find most fascinitating. Now regarding your comment above, I think the research is still underway to determine how chemistry underlies biology, and thus the latter can be understood in terms of autocatalytic systems (or webs). I don't think it is implausible to suggest bits as the ultimate layer of reality although that potentially does lead to infinite regress. Don't you think that modern physics has a problem with that already? I mean, if strings represented our observational limit, why would I be convinced that there is really no further layers of explanation. This merely a speculation that I would appreciate your comments on.

I agree, this tenet stems from an argument out of ignorance. What can we say! Chalmers does make a living out of being a dualist But in any case I cannot disagree on your point because I'm a monist myself.
I don' think that there were flaws in your thinking at all. Just out of curiousity, I have a question. What would you change in Chalmer's hypothesis to make it less skeptic and more realistic?