Yes you are right, these are flaws in his argument.
I have trouble even expressing his position coherently. Is he really saying that objects in the universe blink out of existence when you are not perceiving them? If that is the case, how is state in those objects (such as the thoughts in your friend’s head) maintained when they do not exist?
Maybe its as if there is a meta-universe with some notion of working memory that stores the objects while they are not existing. Of course this is very question begging, isn’t the storage itself what we mean by existence?
Also the objects state isn’t simply maintained, it advances in ways that are logically consistent with what you know about the object. Like your friend has maybe read another chapter of the book before you see him again. So its as if we have to have computation over this set of working memory, to work out what would be happening in them to keep them consistent with your model of reality. I personally would call this computation “existence” so it might be be advantageous if your friend goes down this track.
At this point he may well acknowledge that objects exist in some sort of separate or parallel universe when outside your perceptions. If you can trick him into taking this position you’ll have him dead to rights.
Yes you are right, these are flaws in his argument.
I have trouble even expressing his position coherently. Is he really saying that objects in the universe blink out of existence when you are not perceiving them? If that is the case, how is state in those objects (such as the thoughts in your friend’s head) maintained when they do not exist?
Maybe its as if there is a meta-universe with some notion of working memory that stores the objects while they are not existing. Of course this is very question begging, isn’t the storage itself what we mean by existence?
Also the objects state isn’t simply maintained, it advances in ways that are logically consistent with what you know about the object. Like your friend has maybe read another chapter of the book before you see him again. So its as if we have to have computation over this set of working memory, to work out what would be happening in them to keep them consistent with your model of reality. I personally would call this computation “existence” so it might be be advantageous if your friend goes down this track.
At this point he may well acknowledge that objects exist in some sort of separate or parallel universe when outside your perceptions. If you can trick him into taking this position you’ll have him dead to rights.