Shmi comments on Rationality Quotes February 2013

[Shmi]

So, in a way Batman exists when you imagine yourself to be Batman?

If you were thinking of a nuclear detonation, running through the equations, would that bomb exist inside your mind?

My cached reply: “taboo exist”.

[Kawoomba]

This whole train of discussion started with

for a while that our internal representations of people we know well might have some of the characteristics of sapience

I’d argue that those characteristics of sapience still belong to the system that’s playing “what-if”, not to the what-if itself. There, no exist :-)

[DaFranker]

I was wondering whether things might be slightly different if you simulated batman-sapience by running the internal representation through simulations of self-awareness and decision-making, using one’s own blackboxes as substitutes, attempting to mentally simulate in as much detail as possible every conscious mental process while sharing braintime on the subconscious ones.

Then I got really interested in this crazy idea and decided to do science and try it.

Shouldn’t have done that.