On 02-16-98 Keith Knapp wrote to Todd Henson... 
 KK> TH> DB> you cannot have 'reality independent of the observer'. 
 KK>  
 KK> I think we may be getting into a category error here. 
Well sure Keith.  I should expand the range under consideration 
an order of magnitude or two.  The form which is perceived exists 
in the mind of God even when, as main programmer for the holodeck
projection we find our selves on, he does not actually 'project' a 
form in such a space as we hypothesize has no observer. 
 
I guess this is the idealist notion of Pythagoras, that the 'form' 
exists independent of it's actual existence.  And that, *actual* 
existence is one function of form, but not the only function. 
 
 KK> Again, I'm a dilletante here, but you may have uncovered yet another 
 KK> category error here.  It seems to me that QM is saying that energy 
 KK> and matter are very different things, and when a piece of energy, 
 KK> say a photon, is cruising along, it isn't exactly a particle or a 
 KK> wave, and only acts like one when it encounters the physical matter 
 KK> of an experiment.  That is a very different thing from saying that 
 KK> the observer affects the outcome of the experiment. 
Well, the observer is also a form, and because the forms have a 
set of unobserved functions, we see unintended consequences, whole 
universes of interaction, and a lotta shit happen. 
 
 KK> Whether at the subatomic level or the level of 'common sense,' 
 KK> we can never have _absolute_ knowledge of that reality.  But we 
 KK> can make models, and like an infant learning to crawl, we can test 
 KK> those models against reality, and we can attain whatever level of 
 KK> _relative_ knowledge we are willing to work for.  We will never 
 KK> know what a quark _is_, in any absolute sense, but if we study 
 KK> the hell out of them in particle accelerators, we can constrain 
 KK> our _models_ to the point where they are very _accurate models_ 
 KK> of real quarks.  And you don't do this by applying beliefs 
 KK> that a priori must be true, but by studying what reality 
 KK> really does. 
Seeing what reality does, Plato gave us the cave story; and a clue 
to the difficulty we now encounter in trying to understand QM.  If 
he and the Bagavad Brahmins are correct, what you see is projected 
images of the ideas God has had on how to make stuff. 
 
 KK> And at the common-sense level, since we are always seeing a 'movie' 
 KK> of reality rather than the thing itself, we are obliged to wonder 
 KK> how the a priori perceptual processes of our own brains have colored 
 KK> what we see.  That, I would guess, is Day's point.  (Is it, Day?) 
yep!  By trying to freeze a frame of reality you do get some idea 
of what it is, but the reality, or meaning of that frame is only 
in relation to the frames preceeding and following... the story, 
if you will.  You have to integrate the plot with your concept of 
the stagecraft that erected the set.  The plot without the set is 
useless, and the set without the plot is useless. 
 KK>  
 KK> But it's important to keep those two categories separate. 
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