As for how this bears on Bostrom’s simulation argument: I’m not familiarized with it properly, but how much of its force does it lose by not being able to appeal to consciousness-based reference classes and the like? I can’t see how that would make simulations impossible; nearest I can guess is that it harms his conclusion that we are probably in a simulation?
Right. All the probabilistic reasoning breaks down, and if your re-explanation patches things at all I don’t understand how. Without reference to consciousness I don’t know how to make sense of the “our” in “our experiences”. Who is the observer who is sampling himself out of a pool of identical copies?
Anthropics is confusing enough to me that it’s possible that I’m making an argument whose conclusion doesn’t depend on its hypothesis, and that the argument I should actually be making is that this part of Bostrom’s reasoning is nonsense regardless of whether you believe in qualia or not.
Right. All the probabilistic reasoning breaks down, and if your re-explanation patches things at all I don’t understand how. Without reference to consciousness I don’t know how to make sense of the “our” in “our experiences”. Who is the observer who is sampling himself out of a pool of identical copies?
Anthropics is confusing enough to me that it’s possible that I’m making an argument whose conclusion doesn’t depend on its hypothesis, and that the argument I should actually be making is that this part of Bostrom’s reasoning is nonsense regardless of whether you believe in qualia or not.