Hi. Interesting article! This actually makes sense to me and sounds similar to something I've been thinking about and posted at an fqxi discussion a few years ago. The thing I'm thinking of is: suppose there's a most fundamental existent entity from which our reality, our space-time, our everything sprang. Call this entity A and suppose that A represents one position or location of existence. When just A is present, there is only one position/location in existence. Besides A, there are no other positions/locations. Because we seem to have more than one entity in our universe, A must have had some mechanism by which it created additional existent entities and, therefore, additional positions/locations. Suppose entity, A has the ability to produce additional existent entities, each named B1, B2, B3, etc., in order to cover its surface. Once created, these new B entities would be new positions/locations. After the fact, one can't say why these new entities were created in the positions they're now in because there were no positions until after they were created.

Now, suppose a human mind looks back on, or observes, this situation after the B entities were created. Given that it seems natural in our minds to think that space is infinitely divisible (e.g. continuous), we might think that the B entities could have been in any of an infinite number of positions around the A entity. That is, in our minds, there would be a superpositioning of possible locations for B to have been in. This seems reasonable, but it's not correct because there were no positions other than A until after the B entities were created. So, as the article says, before the B entities were formed, there was a "lack of a definitive reality". While the act of observation didn't cause the B entities to form, it would seem to us, after the fact, that it did. And, once these new entities are created, they form definite positions/locations of reality which set the way for answering the second question in the same way using the example in the article.

Anyways, it's just an idea I've been thinking of and wanted to throw it out there for others to rip to shreds! :-)

Roger

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1842?search=1

6 days later

I merely wish to point out that "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) Physicist & Nobel Laureate.

Only nature could produce a reality so simple, a single cell amoeba could deal with it.

The real Universe must consist only of one unified visible infinite physical surface occurring in one infinite dimension, that am always illuminated by infinite non-surface light.

This means that all of the physicists who have ever lived have been completely wrong about the real visible physical condition of the real Universe. Rather than building robots capable of dreaming, could we possibly commence actually understanding reality?

Joe Fisher, Realist

a month later

Dear Aaron,

All real creatures have a real visible complete surface. All real machines have a real visible complete surface. It would be physically impossible to build a machine that did not have a surface that would be capable of faking a surface.

Joe Fisher, Realist

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