THE FABRIC OF REALITY

[Fist and Faith]

That's a great one. Not only because I like Taoism, but also because it looks like a fidget spinner.

[Zarathustra]

If your understanding of "Knowledge 'causing' Reality" is basically Platonic/Aristotelian — i.e. Information in the sense of the World/Prime Matter being "in-Formed" or infused/suffused with Form — then I don't think we disagree.

Assuming such non-disagreement, the only caveat I might add is that Matter can just as well be said to 'cause' Form (Knowledge), cuz Form without Matter is just as impotent/unreal as is the reverse. The two are indissociably locked in mutual conditioning.

Matter instantiates form, it doesn't cause it. The same exact form can be instantiated in consciousness. It need not be material at all.

This backed up by quantum mechanics: the Schrödinger equation describes a "wave of probability" that precedes a "collapse" into an actuality, i.e. a definite state. While there is debate as to the nature and reality of these probabilities, the actual states don't cause them. And yet we cannot make accurate predictions without them. They have a kind of reality without even existing. Deutsche argues that their reality is literal, in a parallel universe.

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

That's a great one. Not only because I like Taoism, but also because it looks like a fidget spinner.

Cool.



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[…]

… [M]atter can just as well be said to 'cause' Form (Knowledge), cuz Form without Matter is just as impotent/unreal as is the reverse. The two are indissociably locked in mutual conditioning.

Matter instantiates form, it doesn't cause it. The same exact form can be instantiated in consciousness. It need not be material at all.

[…]

Conscious states, themselves, still require embodiment (i.e. materializing).

Being irreducible to matter doesn't entail being dissociable from matter. We still need neurons and whatnot.

[Zarathustra]

Conscious states, themselves, still require embodiment (i.e. materializing).

That's an odd response from someone who thinks we have an immortal soul. I assumed you already accepted immaterial consciousness and thought. Do we not have conscious states in Heaven without a body? Does god also require embodiment to think?

For me, it's irrelevant that the brain is producing the conscious state. While our brain processes a lot of information without us knowing it or controlling it, this is different from the information processing we do in our consciousness. There is actually a proof of this, Godel's Theorem. We are able to construct a proof that no computer could ever compute, because that proof itself shows the limit of computation. Algorithmic systems are fundamentally incomplete. It is logically impossible for them to be otherwise. So when we understand Godel's Theorem, we're doing something more in our conscious understanding than any possible computer could do. So either the brain itself is transcending matter, which seems paradoxical, or the transcendence is happening strictly in consciousness.

But there are more straightforward reasons, too. When I'm thinking of a square, there isn't a tiny square in my brain. And yet the sum of its 4 right angles will always be the same no matter how my neurons are firing, because that formal truth doesn't depend upon the arrangement of matter which is holding the information. Indeed, we can translate this information into spoken words or binary bits, and it still retains the same meaning regardless of medium of transmission. It is "substrate-independent." The meaning doesn't depend on the sign or the signal. That's just the carrier of meaning.

[Fist and Faith]

For me, it's irrelevant that the brain is producing the conscious state. While our brain processes a lot of information without us knowing it or controlling it, this is different from the information processing we do in our consciousness.

I suspect it's all necessary. We can program a computer to process the information that we consciously process. I don't think there computer would be conscious. I think the large amount of information our brains process unconsciously is essential. It's an information-rich environment because of all that, and human consciousness requires that environment.

But I also suspect the active information is necessary. All of that unconscious information processing is active. If I I had to choose one, though, I guess I would choose the information-rich environment.

[Zarathustra]

The next chapter about Galileo went in a direction I had not expected, but WOW is it a mind-blowing new perspective on the stakes involved in the Inquisition and the heliocentric model of the solar system. I had never considered it in the context of the debate between solipsism and realism (which he ties into his argument for "shadow particles" and the multiverse). This is exactly the insights I was hoping to have in reading this book.

And the subsequent chapter about VR and the nature of computation is starting out even better.

[Fist and Faith]

Yes, Galileo is definitely interesting. A different look at it. Honestly, I have no idea what to expect, or what his overall aim is. But it's a fun ride so far!

[Zarathustra]

He's developing a Theory of Everything by combining: 1. Multiverse interpretation of quantum mechanics. 2. Popperian epistemology. 3. Computation. 4. Evolution. So this brings together these issues: knowledge, intelligence, life, and matter.His overall aim is to show that the "Four Strands" are intertwined and mutually dependent. (In fact, they're very much like my Three Hinges, which is why I wanted to read it.)

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

Conscious states, themselves, still require embodiment (i.e. materializing).

That's an odd response from someone who thinks we have an immortal soul. I assumed you already accepted immaterial consciousness and thought. Do we not have conscious states in Heaven without a body? Does god also require embodiment to think?

[…]

There are two basic lines of questioning here: one is Philosophical, the other Theological.

• First, to address the Philosophical Question:
  
  Without getting too far afield, we're talking about Philosophical Anthropology, viz., what it means to be a man — the Nature of Man. We're not talking about what it means to be God or an angel — the Divine Nature or Angelic Nature. And one of the things essential to Human Nature is Embodiment.
  
  From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
  

  §365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the "form" of the body: i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in Man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.

• Now, for the Theological Question:
  
  As far as the Theological Question goes, it arose because the Church needed to figure out how to account for the data of Revelation (more specifically, a postmortem Man who must stand before the Judgement Seat during the interim betwixt the Christ Event and the Resurrection on the Last Day) whist still affirming the demands of a solid, realist Anthropology.
  
  Long story short, postmortem Man exists in an unnatural/incomplete state until the Resurrection of the Body. That being said, I don't see how the Theological Question touches on your concerns.

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With that outta the way, time to get down to the meat of it:

[…]

… So either the brain itself is transcending matter, which seems paradoxical …

On my read, your own argument strongly suggests that transcending matter is both unproblematic and commonplace in the Universe.

If you're gonna assert (rightly, IMO) that it's no problem for the Titan–Saturn system to carry information — to be "in-Form-ed", then why would it be a problem for the Brain to be similarly suffused by Form — to be irreducible to Matter?

[Zarathustra]

§365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the "form" of the body: i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in Man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.

That is straight up Aristotelian metaphysics. It's odd that the Catholic Church basically plagiarizes Aristotle. You'd think with a direct line to God, they could come up with their own ideas. And why Aristotle instead of Plato? Or Democratis?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylomorphism

On my read, your own argument strongly suggests that transcending matter is both unproblematic and commonplace in the Universe.

I don't think matter transcends matter, but I do think consciousness transcends matter--in a very specific sense: it's irreducible to matter. And yet it is produced by matter. It's emergent, and as such, it forms a different relationship with matter than matter forms with other matter. My view is Platonic: Form or Eidos is transcendent to the material world, but matter and consciousness instantiate the general Forms in their particularity.

If you're gonna assert (rightly, IMO) that it's no problem for the Titan–Saturn system to carry information — to be "in-Form-ed", then why would it be a problem for the Brain to be similarly suffused by Form — to be irreducible to Matter?

The information in both systems is irreducible. It's fundamental, and that's why I think that perhaps matter is nothing more than instantiated information. And yet even in that sense, matter isn't transcending matter, it's being reduced to information. So matter is like an illusion, a projection of the laws of physics (LoP). But it's a *real* illusion, as are all virtual realities (see below).

And that brings us to the next chapter in Deutsche's book. His discussion of VR, like everything else so far, has been mind blowing. I should have read this book decades ago, it's so close to my own thought; I could have saved myself some time. He argues that our experience of the world is a virtual reality because we obviously don't observe the external world directly, but instead mediated through our perceptions and a set of "rules" that unite them into a coherent whole. But the reason why this illusion can link us to the real world--why it's a *real* illusion--is because the illusion is produced by the LoP (since it's produced by the physical brain). Therefore, it CANNOT produce a simulated world that is physically impossible. This can easily be proven by the following argument: each VR machine, including our brain, can be replicated by another VR machine. Therefore, one machine can be thought of as a simulation of the other. But each of them are physically real machines, not impossible worlds. The process of simulation itself is a physical process, involving computation and the LoP. The fact that simulation is possible in the universe says something very deep about the universe, namely, that the universe itself is like a *real* illusion. [This last part is my take--I'm predicting that he goes there.] Now, this doesn't mean we're literally in a computer that someone else built. This isn't the Matrix. Instead, it means that the entire universe is the output of computations that are the LoP. Reality is simulating itself.

Whether you agree with all that or not, he makes another point that I don't think is disputable: all of science is VR. We are simulating reality with our theories, trying to get the simulation as accurate as possible. Theories are literally models of the world. So both our perceptual experience of the world as well as our conceptualization of the world are VRs. And given that no VR can simulate impossible worlds--they must be rooted in some real process of the world--both our experience and our science has an innate connection to reality. We just have to figure out which parts are real and which parts are fictions we made up.

Another way to describe this (my own way), is that reality turns on Hinges that are inescapable even when those Hinges turn in ways that reality does not. For instance, in the Phenomenal Hinge, our perception can "turn about" real or imaginary objects, but in either case, the turning is the same: we cannot see or even imagine a cube from all sides at once, we literally have to turn it to see the other sides. Nor can we experience multiple states at once, because both reality and virtual realities turn from past to future. They are Hinged on the present. And the same is true for the other Hinges as well, because ultimately every Hinge turns on the Possible-Actual axis. This is why I lean more towards Platonism. The Possible is real. It's like all the possibilities inherent in a computer code. The code already exists, thus in some sense, so do the possible outcomes of the code, even though only some of them may become realized when you run the program.

[Fist and Faith]

I don't think matter transcends matter, but I do think consciousness transcends matter--in a very specific sense: it's irreducible to matter. And yet it is produced by matter.

If matter has both physical and experiential properties, and the experiential property is a necessary component of consciousness, then consciousness is reducible to matter. It's just not physically reducible.

[Fist and Faith]

Love this:

There is a standard philosophical joke about a professor who gives a lecture in defence of solipsism. So persuasive is the lecture that as soon as it ends, several enthusiastic students hurry forward to shake the professor’s hand. ‘Wonderful. I agreed with every word,’ says one student earnestly. ‘So did I,’ says another. ‘I am very gratified to hear it,’ says the professor. ‘One so seldom has the opportunity to meet fellow solipsists.’

[Zarathustra]

I don't think matter transcends matter, but I do think consciousness transcends matter--in a very specific sense: it's irreducible to matter. And yet it is produced by matter.

If matter has both physical and experiential properties, and the experiential property is a necessary component of consciousness, then consciousness is reducible to matter. It's just not physically reducible.

I don't think matter has experiential properties. I think it can produce the emergent phenomenon of experience. A hurricane is completely composed of matter, but this doesn't mean matter has "hurricane properties."

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

§365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the "form" of the body: i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in Man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.

That is straight up Aristotelian metaphysics. It's odd that the Catholic Church basically plagiarizes Aristotle. You'd think with a direct line to God, they could come up with their own ideas. And why Aristotle instead of Plato? Or Democratis?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylomorphism

The idea that we need recourse to some extraordinary, oracular Revelation in order to know mundane things — things which we should be able to know through Reason (philosophy, science, etc.) — is broadly rejected by Catholics as "Fideism".

∗∗∗

A Short and Grossly Oversimplified Genealogy of the Entanglement of Catholics and Western Philosophy

Almost all of the Early Church Fathers were Platonists of some stripe or other. It was just taken as a cultural given by most. In fact, St. Thomas Aquinas got into fairly hot water with the philosophical elite of his day when he entered into dialogue with Arab philosophers like Avicenna, Averroes, Maimonides and began adopting Aristotelian modes of thought. About a hundred years later, Thomas had won the day since Aristotle-thru-Aquinas had become the dominant paradigm in the Western Church (whilst the Eastern Church has remained, even to this day, largely Platonist). The Late Mediaeval and Early Modern periods brought in Scotism and Nominalism, then Descartes, and then Kant and his Copernican Turn and … well … you know the rest.

And although Aristotle/Aquinas still has a certain pride of place in the Western Church (and prolly always will due to its value as a stable baseline), Catholics can be all over the map in their philosophical influences. Pope John-Paul II's philosophizing adapted Kant and Husserl even while also deploying Aquinas within his own brand of Existential Personalism. There've been Catholic Hegelians and Marxists. Pope Benedict XVI was in dialogue with Nietzsche. I, myself, have incorporated Deleuzian and Derridean categories (amongst others) in my thinking. Catholics are a motley bunch.

True, none of these philosophers — whether Plato, Aristotle, the Moderns, or *gasp!* even Aquinas — can be wholly accepted uncritically inasmuch as they may've overstepped the Real. But their patrimony does influence, in dizzyingly diverse ways, the lived experience of thousands-upon-thousands of Catholic scholars and thinkers.

∗∗∗

In sum, the caricaturization of Catholics as being some unequivocally monolithic group of empty vessels soullessly awaiting instructions from institutional authorities as to what to think/say/do bears little resemblance to the facts of Catholic life just adduced.

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[…]

If you're gonna assert (rightly, IMO) that it's no problem for the Titan–Saturn system to carry information — to be "in-Form-ed", then why would it be a problem for the Brain to be similarly suffused by Form — to be irreducible to Matter?

The information in both systems is irreducible. It's fundamental, and that's why I think that perhaps matter is nothing more than instantiated information. And yet even in that sense, matter isn't transcending matter, it's being reduced to information. …

[…]

I'm not tracking you. So, lemme lay out my perspective:

1. My understanding of Information is that it is essentially a Process, viz., the process of Form entering into (inhering in) another "element", viz., into Matter.
   1. Thus, I would be very much inclined to say something like, "The Brain (or the Titan–Saturn System) is irreducible to either Matter or Form."
   2. OTOH, I would not be inclined to say, "The Process of Information is irreducible to either Matter or Form" (since said Process, by definition, already presupposes both Matter and Form).

Based on my reading, it sounds like your position is more akin to position 'B' inasmuch as you say that Information — and not the everyday world of commonplace Objects — is the "irreducible" and "fundamental" reality.

Assuming the above, I have two thoughts:

• This position (though it carries an element of truth) risks flattening out the world of Objects into a bloodless "process".
• Perhaps even more saliently, it begs the question, "If information is about meaning/significance, and if, not only the world of Objects, but Man himself, is reducible to a depersonalized Informational Process, then for whom is the bedrock reality of Information supposed to meaningful/significant?"

[Fist and Faith]

I don't think matter has experiential properties. I think it can produce the emergent phenomenon of experience. A hurricane is completely composed of matter, but this doesn't mean matter has "hurricane properties."

I think physical micro-properties produce physical macro-properties/characteristics/phenomena. Which is everything, including all characteristics of a hurricane, other than the experiential phenomenon of consciousness. It makes sense to me that consciousness would be produced by an experiential micro-property.

[Zarathustra]

I don't think matter has experiential properties. I think it can produce the emergent phenomenon of experience. A hurricane is completely composed of matter, but this doesn't mean matter has "hurricane properties."

I think physical micro-properties produce physical macro-properties/characteristics/phenomena. Which is everything, including all characteristics of a hurricane, other than the experiential phenomenon of consciousness. It makes sense to me that consciousness would be produced by an experiential micro-property.

That is one possibility. And if true, it would lead to consciousness being reducible to matter. But it seems to just shift the mind-body paradox to the micro level, rather than solve the paradox. Why would matter have experiential micro-properties? Also, there's no evidence of it. But there is evidence of information being "tied" to matter. That's why I think it's a better strategy to consider consciousness as a form of information processing. Granted, that has its own paradox, namely, how does information "adhere" to matter? I don't know how, but I do know that it does. And once that information processing becomes self-referential, it starts becoming conscious.

[Fist and Faith]

I think physical micro-properties produce physical macro-properties/characteristics/phenomena. Which is everything, including all characteristics of a hurricane, other than the experiential phenomenon of consciousness. It makes sense to me that consciousness would be produced by an experiential micro-property.

Also, there's no evidence of it.

That's for sure. I can't imagine there's a way to test it, so it's not a proper theory. All of our sciences are physicalist, only dealing with physical things. How can we test for something that, by definition, cannot be detected by anything with which we detect things?

But then, no theory is a proper theory, because we can't test any with or without any of the variables. We can't isolate mass, charge, information, or anything else. If we ever manage to create a consciousness, will it be because all of the entity's proto-consciousness is experiencing a sufficient amount of information processing? Or will it be Integrated Information Theory's phi? Or your idea? Or wos'? There's no way to tell.

I'm just trying to work out an idea that's internally consistent, and has something that accounts for Chalmers' Hard Problem of Consciousness. The reason all the physical activity doesn't take place "in the dark."

That is one possibility. And if true, it would lead to consciousness being reducible to matter.

Perhaps matter is reducible to experience. Perhaps proto-consciousness is the ground floor. Maybe strings are raw experience. And since there must be something to experience...

But it seems to just shift the mind-body paradox to the micro level, rather than solve the paradox. Why would matter have experiential micro-properties?

Maybe in order to bring about consciousness.

But there is evidence of information being "tied" to matter.

Information is most certainly an essential ingredient of consciousness.

That's why I think it's a better strategy to consider consciousness as a form of information processing. Granted, that has its own paradox, namely, how does information "adhere" to matter? I don't know how, but I do know that it does. And once that information processing becomes self-referential, it starts becoming conscious.

I don't see how that solves the Hard Problem. Why does a loop, or a system of loops, subjectively experience itself? Why is it aware of its own existence? Is DNA, an incredible example of self-reference, producing proteins in order to reproduce itself, as well as build things, conscious?

The physical properties of matter let matter join together in various ways to function as a physical unit. The experiential property would experience whatever is happening to that unit, and whatever that unit is/is doing.

Most units that are not alive are not processing information. There's not much to experience.

Any unit that is an information processing system is providing something more to be experienced than simple existence. I don't think DNA is conscious. But it's a tiny step closer than anything that isn't processing information.

When the unit also processes visual information, auditory information, tactile information, information regarding immunity, information regarding growth... Well, they're all steps between raw experience and human consciousness.

With all those steps, it's no wonder we can't figure out where consciousness begins, or define the requirements of least conscious. But every particle's proto-consciousness, experiencing all the information processing systems, becomes a unit - a conscious unit - in synchrony with the physical unit. It's all one unit.

[Zarathustra]

I don't see how that solves the Hard Problem. Why does a loop, or a system of loops, subjectively experience itself? Why is it aware of its own existence? Is DNA, an incredible example of self-reference, producing proteins in order to reproduce itself, as well as build things, conscious?

I think it’s how I described it earlier: LoP are informational relations that make matter “about” other matter. So we already have one ingredient—or one half—of consciousness already in the mysterious link between information and matter. And when that “aboutness” becomes “about itself,” i.e. self-referential, then we have the other half, i.e. “what it’s like to be.” What else would you call “self-referential aboutness?”

Also, the “information with causal power” must be taken into account. Certain sentences can be about themselves, but sentences aren’t conscious. Nor do they process anything. It is the active, causal, self-referential aboutness that is the proto-consciousness, and it produces full blown consciousness when it becomes sufficiently complex.

The breakthrough for me, personally, was realizing that you can have aboutness without a subject. I’ve always thought that this quality was unique to consciousness, indeed, what separated consciousness from unconscious matter. But I was wrong. I think that’s the doorway into this mystery, and it achieves such power through the link between info and matter.

Or will it be Integrated Information Theory's phi? Or your idea?

I’ve just realized that this *is* my idea. That’s what I’m talking about. I had forgotten about that theory. I don’t incorporate a mathematical quantity, phi, but the complexity of the integrated self-referential information is exactly what I mean.

[Fist and Faith]

I rather like this:

There are mathematical symbols in physical reality. The fact that it is we who put them there does not make them any less physical.

This got me thinking:

I shall use the term image generator for any device, such as a planetarium, a hi-fi system or a spice rack, which can generate specifiable sensory input for the user: specified pictures, sounds, odours, and so on all count as ‘images’. For example, to generate the olfactory image (i.e. the smell) of vanilla, one opens the vanilla bottle from the spice rack. To generate the auditory image (i.e. the sound) of Mozart’s 20th piano concerto, one plays the corresponding compact disc on the hi-fi system.

In one sense, yes, we only ever observe images* of anything. But I think there's a second level at work here.

If I'm in an ultimate VR situation, and a performance of Mozart's 20th piano concerto is playing, I'm not at the actual performance. In my head is the image of a recording of a performance. I guess that might be thought of as twice removed from reality.

But when I open a bottle of vanilla extract, I'm smelling actual vanilla. That's what's in the bottle. It's only the usual once removed from reality. I think it's interesting that, if a VR character at the Mozart convert has some vanilla candy, and the system sprays some vanilla scent at me, I'll be smelling real vanilla and looking at VR candy.


I read once that vitamin pills are as effective as eating foods that contain those vitamins, because your body doesn't know or care how the vitamin's molecules became arranged the way they are. Similarly, whatever it is in my nose that the molecules in the air hit wouldn't know or care that the molecules were literally pieced together in a factory, and not grown on a vanilla farm. If it's manufactured well, there would be no way of knowing if it's real or imitation vanilla extract. That VR candy might have a real or imitation smell, and I'd havr no way of knowing.

Eventually, VR might get advanced enough that you couldn't tell if you're watching an actual performance of Mozart, or it's VR. You could try to kill the pianist, and the system would perfectly replicate it for you. Currently, no VR could fool you because you could feel the differences. Play the piano or step off the stage, and you'll know.

(I'm only talking about VR that shows your eyes what's not actually there, sends sounds to your ears of things that aren't actually there, etc. As opposed to the Matrix, where your eyes and ears are not being used at all, and can presumably be removed.). But that's no time soon. We can currently confirm if it's a real or VR performance.

Currently, no imitation vanilla extract could fool me, either. I don't know what smells like vanilla other than vanilla, so I'm not surprised that imitation doesn't smell real. But if they begin assembling vanilla molecules, it'll be another story.




*'Images' not meaning visual-only, of course. As Antonio Damasio says in Feelung & Knowing: Making Minds Conscious:

A convenient way of referring to the mental patterns that constitute minds is the word images. By images I do not mean “visual” images only but rather any patterns produced by the dominant sensory channels: visual, of course; auditory; tactile; visceral.

[Zarathustra]

Did we evolve to see reality as it exists? No, says cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman.
Cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman hypothesizes we evolved to experience a collective delusion — not objective reality.

I've been thinking about this. He believes that we evolved to see "usefulness," not truth. Our perceptions are subjective and fallible, but they help us survive. So far so good. But then he jumps off the deep end and concludes that this means there IS no objective reality. He thinks our perceptions are like the desktop of a computer which has icons that don't look anything like the 1s and 0s which they truly represent. They're just useful symbols.

So why doesn't a camera prove him wrong? Why doesn't it verify that we see objective reality pretty much exactly how it really is? A camera didn’t evolve to see usefulness. The camera is constructed with an understanding of the laws of optics and light refraction, things that aren’t phenomenal structures/causes/effects, but are instead explicitly external to conscious experience. Those laws are theoretical explanations of hypothetical objective processes. A camera functions according to an explanation of the world such that it can only work if the explanation is true. And that explanation isn’t compatible with a purely subjective view.

This means that a camera is literally a scientific instrument that tests the theory that we’re seeing an external world, and every picture replicates an original experiment that never happened. And it never happened because we hardly ever doubt that we’re viewing the external world; no one takes seriously the theory that the world is radically different from how it actually looks to us. But how do we know for sure? A camera is exactly the device you'd build to test this. If light was external to our perception, and it functioned like a wave that could be refracted by a lens (i.e. an external physical object), then you could make a prediction that a camera would take pictures that looked (almost) exactly how the world looked to us. That's a testable theory. If there was no light at all, then this little "bundle of perceptions" that we constructed out of pure subjectivity wouldn't work. There wouldn't be any picture at all. It's a falsifiable prediction.

The only reason this sounds strange is because we already know the result, so the prediction seems useless. But that’s not how science works. Every time we take additional measurements after an initial run of an experiment, we’re simply confirming the original results. It doesn't matter if the first people to run the experiment didn't realize that's what they were doing. Before anyone built a camera, they literally had no way of knowing if it would work. But its proper functioning was dependent upon the implicit prediction that it would confirm a world beyond sight.

But isn't a picture just another one of our perceptions? How does the subjective experience of viewing a picture prove something objective? Well, while we could conceivably have a dream that we built a device that took pictures, and those dream pictures looked real in the dream, none of that would matter because you could have that dream without understanding how cameras work at all. And if our waking life was just another part of that dream, then those devices would work here, too. That's the ultimate proof. I think it's conclusive.