geordief

Actually a reverie ,not a dream as such but I don't recall this kind of a dreamlike imagining before. It is quite simple.I created a character in the "story sequence" in my head and the next thing I know I am having "first person" thoughts in the mind of that character. To explain, in my "dream" I seemed to myself to be having thoughts (about what I don't recall) in my own identity(the way, I imagine we all do -everyday ,inconsequential thoughts or musings when we are awake) Then as I awake from my reverie it became apparent that these thoughts were being authored by the this character in my reverie or half dream. Not a dramatic dream as such ,but a different "architecture"to what I have experienced up to now. Anyone else had the same or similar?

As always worth pursuing but with the likelihood that my brain will not be able to cope with the complexity of the subject. My mind tends to be attracted to broad generalities(an excuse for lazy thinking?) rather than hard analysis. (I actually posted this in Philosophy before it was reallocated here) Still, I seem to follow your description so far.The input seems to be a bit like the drum in my washing machine ,providing dynamism to something of a comfortable ,academic arrangement between the software and hardware layers.(maybe the loose and inconsequential analogy would even extend to calling the water the software and the dirty clothes the hardware) One thing that occurs to me is that it must be possible to take the output from the system and return it to the input inlet. Maybe that is common practice? Aside from that ,do you agree with @Genady that the concept of software/hardware is not a thing that could have had any application in the earlier history of our civilization? It only emerged as a meaningful concept when computers were actually developed?(I think I have read that the Jacquard Loom was invented) was the earliest precursor of modern day computers. )

Well,I am wondering whether the concepts of software and hardware can usefully be applied to human activities in the times before what we would call computers were invented . Was,eg the abacus a primitive form of computing? Did it have a software component? Are there any other activities that could be said to be able to be described conceptually in the same way?

Sorry, you don't mean to say Philip (as in my example was using metaphors do you? Do you mean my "argument " is using metaphors?

If Philip laid the plans on paper for his entry in India ,could his soldiers'arms be viewed as hardware and his plans on paper or in his head as "software"(as a crude concept )? Aren't modern day computers sophisticated descendants of mental plans and concrete applications?

He could have been a software engineer at a time when Philip of Macedon was waging wars around the globe? Is it chicken and egg?Can you have one without the other?

But could he be a software engineer (at that level) if the hardware had not already been built? Is there not a symbiotic/two sides of the same coin relationship? At what stage in the history of computing (or machines?) could it be said that both hardware and software could be used to describe aspects of things?

I have no coding skills (apart from html) and so no expertise in computing at all. But I have often tried to grapple in my mind with the relationship between the concept of software versus hardware. In reality do these phenomena overlap or is there a strict demarcation ? I can see they have to interact or nothing will happen ,so is there a region that is composed of both elements? Any software has to be written onto a physical component .Is that physical component(eg a hard drive) considered part of the hardware ? Is everything physical inside the hard drive of a computer part of the hardware? Where does the software start ? Inside the mind if the coder?(but the brain is physical too) Is this a pointless question, just something to scratch one's head about when the practicalities are all that really matter?

Ever since the Great Leap Forward?(too tragic to be funny ,really)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNhlNSLQAFE Thought this was very entertaining as well as a trip back in time.(1964,I think) Did Feynman have a few lodgers in his head most of the time?

That is a medical definition.And by definition a societal definition .It doesn't really address the question as to whether someone so described is actually "ill"** or just a square bolt in a round societal hole. We have seen how psychiatry has been and is being abused as a means of punishment for political reasons. When a brother of a friend of mine flew off the handle and wrecked the business establishment in a rage it was put to her by the police that she could have him put away for a supposed mental disorder. Of course ,she d id not do that but that is an example of how the medical profession can be abused. Of course the medical profession has to deal with the circumstances as they find it but it should be a question as to whether the situation they find would be as difficult if society was more accepting of differences in the first place. Seems to me those with the "disorder" might be able to accept (and adapt)their situation if they had a supportive environment. To disclose my bias ,this was my reading material back in the day "The maverick psychiatrist RD Laing once described insanity as "a perfectly rational response to an insane world" https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/sep/02/rd-laing-mental-health-sanity **"disorder" implies" illness" implies "less worthiness" ,I would have thought.

is it rather a social maladaptation? To what extent should society accommodate people with different physical makeups? 100% unless the maladaptation is intrinsically harmful? I thought it was practically a truism that we all incorporate a male/female mentality to a degree unless we are brought up in a single gender group) or like Mowgli with animals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mowgli

Yes that is (should have been) the first thing that comes to mind(and causality in quantum theory can apparently be modeled backwards or forwards to equal effect, so I have heard) But ,yes I think that could be described as chains of causality "intersecting"(seems related to entanglement too although I don't think all such interactions lead to entanglement,do they?) Just occured to me , also "causality" is actually a model ,isn't it? It is how we make sense of what happens and subject to tweaking like any other model (even though it seems to be set in stone in any possible world view)

Although I know little of it ,still I tend to think of these questions in terms of the micro level of interactions. That was why I was questioning whether the chains of causality might somehow intersect (or,rather influence each other) at that level . (a weird concept for sure but I think I was replying to @Genady comments about "sequences" of events that I was trying to understand at the quantum level) I had a quick look at a non-linear causality video since you brought it up and it is a macro level phenomenon that seems to have validity but is beyond my capacity to delve into really. So ,I tend to pivot to quantum level descriptions even though I am hopelessly unqualified to say very much even if I perhaps am qualified to ask questions at times (which is a very low bar) As for my "discovery" idea ,that was also intended to incorporate the evolution of the inanimate universe on a quantum level (replace "discovery" with "interaction" -that was my thought then anyway)

Or Robbie Robertson RIP

Probably me as have so little familiarity with philosophy as a discipline. Still it may be interesting to follow the discussion on the sidelines

Yes imaginary too , but different relationships apply. An imagined concept can still alter the physical world but through physical agencies (Is that the bee in the bonnet Christianity has about Christ "coming to earth" as God's "physical emissary"? At some stage humans came to realize the power of ideas versus the practicalities of survival? Which can also change? (I think there is no evidence for laws of nature changing but how might we ever know?) I definitely lean to the latter.Think the burden of proof is on the former but the definition of "existence" means for me that not much can really be said without a particular definition.(are there as many definitions of "existence" as there are frames of reference?

Or the "potentially existing" since existence can be viewed as ever changing. Then again GR seems to require that the laws of nature are the same everywhere(I see that as a reasonable approximation and wonder whether the laws may change over time -there seems to be an unlimited amount of time and even if some laws may not permit life as we know it)

Yes ,you did.I was unsure as to whether you might have intended writing "some" but that "same" could have been one of the word suggestions that "wrote itself" into the post by mistake .That happens to me sometimes. I accept that "same" is both what you wrote and what you intended to write. I see(I was thinking on the micro level) Yes ,it is a well woven web on the every day level.

(I think you meant to write "same" rather than "some" -as an unwelcome computer word suggestion) So you are suggesting that an unspecified number of causal chains can pass through the same event? Can you give an example? I can only think of entangled particles that could do this ,but there wouldn't be any chain of causality there, would there(so maybe that was not what you were suggesting)

I take my ignorance as an article of faith.?(not just faith,experience) Everything I encounter is an ephemeral acquisition of knowledge that is true to the extent that it makes sense of my contemporaneous perceptions. I also sense something is coming down the road and expect that it will be similar to the road already traveled. So,to answer the OP might we say that discovery is the nature of existence?(at least for living entities) As an aside definitions are so important but so constricting and when faced with an unanswerable but interesting question like this one we may have to indulge in flights of fancy at times.

The question is one that we examine from the inside out. There is nothing outside. Everything is where it is (and maybe only where we find it **,although some would say that is anthropocentic ,I think) **disappearing in the wake of the discovery ,maybe. (I hope I understood what you were saying) What about the nature of the connections between the events in the sequence? And are there connections between the unimaginably many sequences that could be described as informing the nature of existence? Or or all the sequences independent and "autonomous"?

I agree that the question "the meaning of life" is "but a joke" as the great Bob Dylan might have said.** But the nature of existence ,whilst just as hard to answer is more to the point. Personally I take existence to apply to both inanimate and living entities as I think there is no cut and dried demarcation between them and I anticipate that the coming decades may resolve some of our misunderstandings about them whilst at the same time creating new questions that we have next to zero ideas about at this present stage in the evolution of our culture Still ,it will be interesting which questions remain standing as the fog clears or reforms. Will it be one step forward and two steps back or the inverse? ** I know he just said "There are many here among us who feel that life is just a joke" but I like quoting him whenever I can 😙

Could AI maybe just live my life for me? I dunno ,just divide my present circumstance into a million pixels and forecast a subsequent array of pixels that were run against a database of almost identical arrays and stitched together to form a new ensemble. This would be presented to me as a possible reaction to my present circumstance which I could accept (a serotonin hit) or reject (an electric impulse in the anal area) Or maybe even I might just get a life.(I hear living is easy and the cotton is high)

Very good text editors though.