Does the pointer in your computer screen actually EXIST?

Question

Or is it an optical illusion? Can you axctually weigh it? Is it made of particles?

Where do deleted files go?

Answer 1

Descartes would say that the pointed on your computer screen exists because you have a name for it. Whatever it may happen to be, it is that which you have named. Sensory perceptions in a metaphysical sense, cannot be irrefutably trusted, so perhaps what you THINK is just a computer generated symbol is actually a squirrel running around somewhere.

But there's no need to dip even that far into philosophical musings. To trace the line backwards - your pointer may or may not exist, it may or may not cause your screen to emit photons, you may or may not perceive those photons with your eyes, your brain may or may not process that information into an impression on your mind. But you ABSOLUTELY have an impression on your mind. If that pointer is NOTHING ELSE, it MUST be at least an idea of a perception.

So to that extent weight and many other properties are not entirely relevant. Does 'happiness' not exist if you can't weigh it? Does 'space' fail to exist because it has no weight? I would argue quite the contrary. They may not be REAL. But they certainly exist. And for the record, since generating the pointer requires certain patterns of electrons to exist in your computer, it could easily be argued that the pointer IS those patterns of electrons and that it does have a very real existance.

Deleted files, on the other hand, are another question. If you believe in a four-dimensional universe with time as a fourth dimension, then it is really IMPOSSIBLE to delete files in such a way that they fail to exist. Anything that once existed will always have space-time location corresponding to that existance, and nothing will ever change that. The best you can do is to localize that existance in such a way as to exclude future sections of the space-time continuum.

Personally, I suspect time is not quite so dimensional as many would hold it to be. Sure, it undoubtedly exists in the same sense that many chimeras do, but is there any evidence that it's REAL? I have yet to see any. If this is the case, then deleted files do not GO anywhere when you delete them. You change their nature in the present, and they become different. Sometimes you change you computer's ability to easily access them, you may also change your computer's ability to retrieve them, and if you work hard enough at it, you can reduce those files to a non-real status, and perhaps even to non-existance, if you can manage to even wipe all memory and sign of them off the universe. Good luck with that.

Answer 2

well it depends. Usually people think something exists if they can see it and technically a pointer in the computer is one that can be seen. However, you cannot weigh it just like you cannot weigh the back button or the recycle bin on the computer. Made of particles? well scientifically yes, as what you are seeing are light waves hitting the computer screen and absorbing the white light. When files are deleted they still stay on the hard drive but are not visible on the desktop.

Answer 3

When you delete things from you recycling bin, it's not actually completely erased. It's a tiny bit of information that locates the file that is deleted. When you put new files on your computer, they overwrite the files the files that were previously erased.

The pointer doesn't exist in a physical form, exactly. That is to say that it is weightless. But then so is everything you are peceiving on your monitor at this current moment. It is just like everything else. A selection of pixels - except, when you drag the pointer somewhere else, the image the pixels make change to match the background, and reform in the space you move it to.

Answer 4

heavy questions, dude, brings me back to something i ponder, does a soul weigh anything? is it made of particles?.. back to your question, deleted files don't go anywhere but to your hard drive, and the cursor is just part of the magic of the CPU..

Answer 5

Reminds me of the philosophy question "How do you know if your really dreaming?" Could your dreams be reality and what you think is reality is actually a dream?

Answer 6

.