What do you think? Are DCs real?
There are only a few options:
1) DCs are mere images created by and existing solely (mainly) in the mind; or
2) DCs are images coming from / located somewhere outside the mind, but have no objective reality to other entities there, nor any subjective reality for the DCs themselves; or
3) DCs have an objective reality apart from our minds that is more/less objectively shared/accessible to them and like beings in context AND they have more/less a subjective reality of their own experience in that context (and perhaps ours?).
I think that that covers the permutations for entities like DCs - i.e., apparently sentient, thinking, computing.
My test for "objective reality" as essentially "shared" is a bit ad hoc, but seems functional (also jives well with what quantum physics says about the macro). My second focus, on subjective experience as reality is based firmly in the "hard problem" of human (or any) consciousness as I understand it today in modern neurology / phenomenology / computation. Basically, if the DCs are having coherent experiences, they are conscious, and more/less sentient. (See Chalmers, for an intro http://consc.net/papers/facing.html)
Short of a gut-wrenching real-time near-disaster adrenaline rush, #3 is about as real as it gets.
So. What is it? Are DCs real? Do they know, see, act and (maybe) feel? Or are they just mere projections - elaborate extemporaneous interactive shadow plays of the mind's eye? Never anything more?
I vote for #3.
There are several reasons for my position, but the most basic one relates to the limits of knowledge, proof. We usually seem to disbelieve things that are not proven, e.g, DC reality. Usually this poor logic actually parades as an "objective" or "skeptical" scientific view. But it's backwards. To disbelieve, if it means to believe something non-existent, is also to believe, and is just as groundless.
Since we can't prove DCs to be unreal, we should assume that they might be real - at least in the sense given above.
But really, science is not about to prove DC reality impossible - just the opposite. Basically, it all is what it is, and science is clearly suggesting now that (in a nutshell) we live in a potententially-infinite-dimensional informaticially active and entangled multiverse where consciousness itself has strange powers to determine fundamental reality.
So much for quantum cosmology. Check out Wiki, for a quick primer on the multiverse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse).
Well. I could be wrong, but odds are basically infinite to none that DCs are real. In one sense, the question of DC existence is just a numbers game on an essentially infinite board....inevitable.
"So what?", you ask. "What if DCs are real? Who cares?"
I do. And you should. Really.
This is not TV, Cartoon Network. DCs are not mere images. Those are real entities out there. DCs are people too. DCs have rights. DCs can be harmed and hurt, maimed, crippled, and tortured.
See. It is just like the "real world". How's that for progress!?
And some of you really do cross the line. You really do go sociopath in your LDs, with your super powers, simple minds and repressed little superman egos, squirting fire or causing earthquakes or whatever.
Apart from the raw criminal brutality and barbarity of it all... what a waste!
We in this hi-res post-quantum wi-fi Pixar Apple Intel Cisco duo-core Bank of China world are beginning to have dreams that are themselves unprecedented in human history. Our earth local info-hyperspace is in the process of a quantum jump in energy, quite literally. Our dreams themselves ARE extraordinary in their quality and substance, in the raw information retrieved from their amplified reach and depth, in the technology resonating with them. And as such they are part of THE KEY to our future.
It's all about information. Information = Energy = Matter. Humans have not come this far technologicaly in a very very very long time on this earth. And we are not alone. We are under quarantine, observation, and review ... by the DCs too.
So quit hosing down the new DC neighbors! It's not nice. And all of this of course applies to ANY flavor of sensate DC - whether human, dog, mech, bird, dolphin, AI, archaelect, angel, deity, sophont, nanotech or other.
And if you do rampage, don't dare complain when someone comes to repay the favor. Don't be a wanker hypocrite. Anyway, you can't lie. Our minds are even now losing their last garments; nearly all naked, least thoughts open for inspection. Such is the process in its quantum informatic fullness.
Sorry to ruin the slumber party ... but you've all overslept on this one.
It's time to wake up!
"Please Do Not Disturb" DCs or dream reality!
Perhaps one day you'll find it a more interesting world than the one you woke up to be born in.