The nature of physical existence.

Perhaps it could be said that there is no such thing as "conceptual" existance - after all, it is just a (complicated) set of electrical and (in the case of humans, etc.) electrochemical signals, which both exist physically.

Then of course comes the belief or non-belief of a physical entity posessing a "soul" - is a soul physical or something in a totally different dimension?
 

thingmaker3

Joined May 16, 2005
5,083
But the disk and its magnetic particles are still said to exist just as much as the ink on the pages of the books in the building. Our ability to derive meaning from them is as real for the one as for the other.

The question revolves more around the nature of the imaginary.

H.G.Well's morlocks never walked the earth. Well's electrochemical brain activity has ceased. His soul has gone wherever souls go to. The words of the story remain (whether in print or on server), but they have meaning only to those of us who interpret the letters as making words. If our species should someday perish, what meaning or substance will the morlocks (or Studiot's pink and blue faeries) have?

The material of the buildings or the hard disks does not need our imagination to exist. The pink and blue faeries do.
 

Thread Starter

BillO

Joined Nov 24, 2008
999
The only real difference between a library of books and a stack of DVDs is the chosen media. The concepts within remain unchanged regardless of whether they are recorded via pigment on paper or aluminized dimples in plastic or, as in your example, the magnetic orientation of chromium dioxide crystals on polyester film.
 
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