In message <3.0.2.32.19990526133125.007ffec0@pop.dial.pipex.com>, Dave
Pape <davepape@dial.pipex.com> writes
>At 10:59 24/05/99 +0100, you wrote:
>>
>>Think of it this way: all that's "really real" is stuff like
>>strangeness, charm, and "things" that wink into existence for a few
>>nanoseconds then blink out again. That stuff happens to cohere (!) in
>>larger scale patterns, which are what we perceive. All that we know,
>>and that we can know, is patterns, information. Both "things" and
>>"relationships" are abstractions, swirls in the quantum soup, like
>>whirlpools and eddies in a mountain stream.
>>
>>Nice, eh? :-)
>
>Yeh, I've been very close to this cognitive basin before, when I was into
>cellular automata and ConwayLife. Dunno how much of this is me twigging to
>what everyone else thinks anyway, but I was buzzed by the conceptual
>similarity between the behaviour of the cells in ConwayLife and what I'd
>read/heard about this half-existent/half-non-existent quantum froth stuff.
>However, being me I sat there looking at glider-guns and imagining them as
>photons/electrons rather than, for instance, being able to express the idea
>in a clear or compelling manner. Although, be honest, you put quotemarks
>round the word "things" there because secretly you know that something that
>appears from utterly nowhere and disappears back to utterly nowhere isn't
>really a thing at all. Didn't you? RELATIONSHIPS ARE ALL!
I wrote that with my objective hat on. Putting on my subjective hat, all we know is not information, but experience. Both experiencers (subjects) and what's experienced (objects) are concepts abstracted out of sheer, raw experience. But you could say that experience is the relationship between subject and object, in which case, you'd be right!
-- Robin Faichney Visit The Conscious Machine at http://www.conscious-machine.com