I wrote about the idea of making perception primary in July, and I eventually turned it into a paper for a smal meeting in Edinburgh, who rejected it. Nothing wrong with that,as it really didn’t say anything new. But now I think I can see an extension of this idea, perhaps helping to explain the views of those who think that the Universe is a simulation.
Now, I think this viewpoint is nonsensical, because the actual Universe would then have to include the simulator, and this itself might be a simulation, and so on indefinitely. So how can anyone really propose this?
Thinking of the first person experience as primary perhaps enables this viewpoint, because it then makes the rest of the Universe secondary. Like the earth-centered view of the universe, it makes the rest of the Universe secondary. That means that logical flaws in it can more easily be ignored, and ideas in this secondary Universe don’t need to be as clear. This strengthens the hand of those who have strange ideas such as simulation based Universes: such a view would have no effect on the first person experience.
There are flaws in this argument too, unfortunately. Truly simulation based universes would be undetectable if properly built however we looked for them, whether we make the first person world or the physical world primary. But that is the way with truly nonsensical ideas: they can’t be disproven because the logical flaws on which they are based enable country-arguments, rather like logical systems which include a contradiction being able to prove anything.
Maybe I should blame the post-structuralists who seem to suggest that all views can have equal validity. I truly don’t agree with this!
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