What are you implying here? It’s clear that *we*, or at least *you* exist, in the sense that the computation of our minds is being performed and inputs are being given to it. We can also say, (with slightly less certainty) that observable external physical objects such as atoms exist because the evolution of their states from one Planck instant to the next is being performed (even when we’re not observing it—if the easiest way to get from observation t1 to observation t2 is by computing all the intermediate states between t1 and t2, it’s likely that the external object exists on the entire interval [t1..t2]). This is my conception of an object’s existence, that the computation of an object’s state is being done. What is yours?
I largely agree with your conception. That’s sort of why I put scare quotes around exist—I was talking about universes for which there is NO finite computational description, which (I think) is what the OP was talking about. I think it would basically be impossible for us to reason about such universes, so to say that they ‘exist’ is kind of strange.
What are you implying here? It’s clear that *we*, or at least *you* exist, in the sense that the computation of our minds is being performed and inputs are being given to it. We can also say, (with slightly less certainty) that observable external physical objects such as atoms exist because the evolution of their states from one Planck instant to the next is being performed (even when we’re not observing it—if the easiest way to get from observation t1 to observation t2 is by computing all the intermediate states between t1 and t2, it’s likely that the external object exists on the entire interval [t1..t2]). This is my conception of an object’s existence, that the computation of an object’s state is being done. What is yours?
I largely agree with your conception. That’s sort of why I put scare quotes around exist—I was talking about universes for which there is NO finite computational description, which (I think) is what the OP was talking about. I think it would basically be impossible for us to reason about such universes, so to say that they ‘exist’ is kind of strange.