Paul,
A good idea about using a new thread to explore computer paradoxes. I may repeat a few of my past responses there in order to make the whole thing coherent.
Incomplete theories are fine if they are proposed tentatively, but so often the skeptics try to assert that their ideas are the only ones that make sense - and then they really need to have a coherent outline as to how their theory works (IMHO).
Yes you are right, there are idealists and dualists. I guess one model for a totally mental world would run on an analogy from condensed matter physics. You take a semiconductor crammed with electrons that are all strongly interacting, and yet to a good approximation you can think of independent electrons (but with modified properties) moving almost freely. I imagine a fully mental world might work something like that - our individual consciousnesses would actually only be individual to a certain approximation. The residual interaction might give us all the ψ phenomena that we are discussing. In such a conception, maybe the whole of space-time is an artificial construct!
David  |