Yes!
Ok, let’s take ‘mind’ of the equation and call it brain. The image on the wall is not the same as the image in your brain. Obviously. If you look at how the eye transmits the information on the projected image to the brain, this is glaringly (couldn’t resist the pun) obvious. I never said such a thing either - just that the received light is physical, the transmission of this light through the optic nerves to the brain is physical, the manipulation, interpretation and/or storage of that image in the brian is physical. That’s all. The things influence each other physically. While observing, the brain contains a specially coded reflection of Reality that we can call a reality in terms of how it relates to Reality, but it is in itself a Reality - in the sense that the brain, a physical thing, allows this information to exist in itself, physically.
But perhaps we’re agreeing then, more or less.
It’s not an access problem, it’s an access impossibility, even in principle.
Your description sounds as if we’re talking about an encrypted file whose key is missing… as if the file still contains information that might be decoded.
That’s not the case here; without the awareness, there is no information.
The only way around that is if consciousness is not closed, and I haven’t heard anyone here make that claim.
Hmm, a digital photograph (doctored or not) is “imaginary”? I’m trying it on, but it doesn’t quite fit. I’d say that whereas the original watering can was made of atoms (which might now be scattered to the four winds, ie. ‘destroyed’), the digital photograph is made of the photons from it (or, ultimately, atoms affected by those photons or the re-emitted identical ones). If photons are imaginary, I guess I’d say my mental image is too. But, of course, I think photons are physical. Not that it matters too much I guess, Hoodoo: We language using computers are bound to use language a little differently to each other.
The photons travelling away from us are reflected back to us: that is the nature of “image” (which, like I said, is more of a process than an object, and I hope we agree that processes can be as physical as objects). The interaction between those photons and the wall is fundamentally similar to the interaction between those photons and the quasar. Yet again, our senses are statistical: if those returning photons are only a tiny, tiny proportion of the total incident photons on our eyes, they will be as indistinguishable as black things in the dark.
This is a physical description of the situation which I have proposed rather than asserted, yes? You give me a situation, I propose a physical description, you point out its flaws, I again have right of reply. That’s what I started this thread for, although I’m delighted with the bonuses we’ve had here in addition. And I’m off to Australia until April on Thursday, so let’s get cracking!
Agreed, but computer memory access can be literally impossible too - consider Hoodoo destroying his memory module by throwing it into the Sun instead of down Challenger Deep.
If the encryption is strong enough it can’t be decrypted - perfectly encrypted memory is indistinguishable from noise
Ah, but you said the neural pattern A was still firing away, and neither Hoodoo nor the 25th Centurians could access it. Think about it - the situations are equivalent. Impossibility of access to memory can arise in many different ways: the transmission medium can become blocked or the substrate itself (biological or electronic) can be vaporised or hit with a hammer. These are still processes as physical as the tree falling. (Any progress there, by the way? Your position now seems to be that the cloud is physical but the storm isn’t, the particle is physical but the wave isn’t, and so on.)
I’m not claiming it either, but I’m steering clear of terms like “consciousness” for the moment, while we make the baby steps.
I’m claiming that there is no image in se — just a wall. The image is a perception of a portion of the surface of the wall. It’s like any optical illusion: how you perceive it depends on how you frame it and formulate it. Two photos: (1) close-up, you see a woman drinking tea — ah! It’s a woman drinking tea; (2) pan back, and you see a wall with an image of a woman drinking tea — ah! It’s a wall.
But looking at it that way, the room light or any other light is just an image too! Light is light. The image on the wall with only the sun shining on it is just an image of the wall itself. If your projector shone only white light at the wall, would you say that you see an image? If not, why not?
Actually, we do. He must be physical in at least some sense, but He must be metaphysical, too. This is easily proved, but outside the scope of this discussion.
The photons, yes; the image, no. The image is not composed of photons; it is composed of perception. At what speed does an image travel in vaccuo? If you say c, then the image is indistinguishable from the photons, and therefore nothing but a synonym or metaphor. If you say something else, then your composition assertion is difficult to defend.
You have evidence of images and perceptions of God as well. But that is neither here nor there. And I am not asking the physicalist to posit that physicalism has been refuted. Quite the opposite, I am asking that he relinquish his postulate because it is the same as his conclusion. No reasonable man will argue in circles.
He makes widgits. He is physical. Widgits are physical. Makes is predicative. It is a description of the accessibility relation between him and widgits. It is a Euclidean relation, where whatever is possible is necessarily possible (or in this case, whatever is made is necessarily made): (wRv & wRu) -> vRu. If it is true that he makes widgits, then both he and the widgits are necessary for the making. But the making is not necessary. Some arbitrary accesss may be assigned, and the statement is false. He eats widgits might not be true.
Therefore, photons have no accessibility relation with reality. If they did, they’d bring the wall itself into our brains.
(Portion emphasized for context.)
And the question then is whether influence is physical. The moon’s gravity influences the tides. Remove the moon, and there is merely no tide. But remove the influence, and there is no universe. It is a contingency upon gravity. If the universe is physical, and physical is all there is, then the universe must be contingent on nothing. But obviously, it isn’t.
I don’t follow you here at all. If you remove gravity, then the universe would be one very low-density static (as in non-moving) dust-cloud, possibly. You’d change a physical property of its tiniest particles, that strongly determines its structure, but none of this means that gravity isn’t something physical.
A minor correction I’d make here: it is a reflected image of the sun, and the optically diffusive properties of the wall (as opposed to, say, a mirror) prevents our visual cognitive modules from returning a correlation value higher than that for any other object whose photons had been diffused so (ie. we cannot distinguish between the image of the sun and an image of something else, like a torch or a backlit slide).
Yes, a diffuse image of the projector filament.
The photons are still there when nobody’s around to do any perceiving, yes?
(And to pre-empt a possible follow-up, our retina will register an image of the wall and the sun’s diffuse reflection in it, just as when we turn our eyes towards a mirror we see the mirror and the reflections in it.)
I’m not saying that gravity isn’t physical; I’m saying that influence isn’t. Hence, what I wrote: “And the question then is whether influence is physical.” 
Incidentally, Lib, I have already admitted that there are entities for which my physical explanations are rather poor, thus necessitating a “metaphysics of the gaps” argument: Like I said, closing those gaps is the challenge of the millennium, and all I would seek to do here is throw some hopeful ropes across. However, I don’t think “images” are such entities - the physical explanation for them is arguably as strong as that for objects themselves. “Memories” might be, hence the thread. “Truth”, “love” and “seven” are further removed still - I’m just seeing how far we can get with images and memory to begin with.
And hence my confusion, because I don’t see the distinction between physical objects, physical gravity and ‘non-physical?’ influence … ?
At this point, it isn’t clear to me what criteria something must meet before you will not call it physical. How about not-gravity? Is not-gravity physical? For that matter, how about not-physical? Is not-physical physical?
It cannot be explained by the physical. Of course, that’s a debate in itself: Some people don’t think that, say, evolution or gravity have been so explained yet. But one doen; need to be a crank to hold that some entities haven’t been so explained yet, and so they are quite reasonably considered metaphysical.
Of course it doesn’t fit. The photograph, if you were to make it, would not be imaginary. I have a book in my hand. On the cover are printed the words “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. The book is not imaginary. The adventures are. Same situation.
I’ve given those criteria before though, sort of. Everything is physical unless someone (or I myself) can come up with a good reason why something isn’t. 
I finally found (although only the paper version) my essay applying possible world theory to a novel by A.S. Byatt (Possession). That deals with different layers of Reality we subjective beings have access to through different means. It allows us to talk about things further away from Reality and closer to Reality.
So basically everything is physical in principle, but we can categorise things whichever way we like if that happens to be useful to us. We can talk about virtual and imaginary and so on, but in my view they will always be related to reality or Reality, and not to physical, which encompasses all (c.f. physics). Again, that’s my view.
Just to be clear here Hoodoo:
The photograph of a real-life watering can is not imaginary. Agreed?
The photograph of a guy in a Darth Vader costume is not imaginary. Agreed?
The Photoshop combination of the two non-imaginary photographs, in your opinion, is …?
My visual memory of a real-life watering can is not imaginary. Agreed?
My visual memory of a photograph of a guy in a Darth Vader costume is not imaginary. Agreed?
My mental combination of those two visual memories is …?
I agree with the above, but I’d still prefer that we stick to the example I gave.
Indistinguishable from noise. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I agree with that statement.
I’m not getting your point here. Are you saying that blocking access to memory is a process that involves physical objects? If so, I agree, but I thought you knew that already. As far as processes being physical, no, I’m not quite ready to grant that, however, I’m having trouble putting my reservations into words.
(on preview, I see that Lib’s discussion of accessibility relations with Voyager may be starting to clear this up.)
I’m not steering clear of terms like consciousness for two reasons: First, “remembering” is being consciously aware of a memory, and a memory that cannot be remembered isn’t a memory at all (as you say, it’s “noise”). Second, if I’ve shown that awareness serves no physical purpose, and conscious awareness is inextricably linked with memory, we don’t need to take the baby steps. Why go back and take baby steps when we’ve already arrived at where we’re headed?
By the way Sentient, have a great time in Australia (I’m quite envious; I have friends from Australia, I’ve never been there, and I’ve been dying to go for awhile now.)
Arwin, the proposition that everything is physical unless otherwise proven is not a conclusion; it’s an axiom. If it were a conclusion, there would be nothing otherwise to prove.
Again, is not-physical physical?
Yes. In other words physical processes.
You see, this is where I’m trying to wield Ockham’s scalpel as dextrously as I can. You propose a fundamental difference between the kind of “remembering” (as in “accessing memory”) which any computer can do, and the kind of “remembering” a human does: you call that difference “awareness”. I’m asking why there necessarily is such a difference. That’s why I’m starting with memory access alone and asking you to follow me in describing human memory that way, hollering the moment you spot something that isn’t explained solely by memory access or lack thereof. So far, all I’ve seen is a discussion of memory access per se.
Whoa, Halt! Why is this even relevant? Does gravity or magnetic north or the weather have a physical purpose? If not, does it somehow make them metaphysical?
Because, just as the physical can explain processes such as falling and melting, so it might explain ‘awareness’ as well. If you get carried off down the path assuming that it can’t, are you really so different from a Creationist believing that physical processes simply can’t explain evolution?