My (admittedly lacking) understanding of Information Theory precludes any possibility of perfectly reproducing all effects of the presence of cats throughout the universe (or multiverse or whatever) without having in some form or another a perfect model or simulation of all the individual interactions of the base elements which cats are made of. This would, as it contains the same patterns within the model which when made of “physical matter” produce cats, essentially still produce cats.
So if there’s a mechanism somewhere making sure that the reproduction is perfect, it’s almost certainly (to my knowledge) “simulating” the cats in some manner, in which case the cats are in that simulation and perceive the same experiences they would if they were “really” there in atoms instead of being in the simulation.
If you posit some kind of ontologically basic entity that somehow magically makes a universal consistency check for the exact worldstates that could plausibly be computed if the cat were present, without actually simulating any cat, then sure… but I think that’s also not the same problem anymore. And it requires accepting a magical premise.
Oh, right. Yup, anything simulating you that perfectly is gonna be conscious—but it might be using magic. For example, perhaps they pull their data out of parallel universe where you ARE real. Or maybe they use some black-swan technique you can’t even imagine. They’re fairies, for godssake. And you’re an invisible cat. Don’t fight the counterfactual.
Haha, that one made me laugh. Yes, it’s fighting the counterfactual a bit, but I think that this is one of the reasons why there was a chasm of misunderstandings in this and other sub-threads.
Anyway, I don’t see any tangible things left to discuss here.
My (admittedly lacking) understanding of Information Theory precludes any possibility of perfectly reproducing all effects of the presence of cats throughout the universe (or multiverse or whatever) without having in some form or another a perfect model or simulation of all the individual interactions of the base elements which cats are made of. This would, as it contains the same patterns within the model which when made of “physical matter” produce cats, essentially still produce cats.
So if there’s a mechanism somewhere making sure that the reproduction is perfect, it’s almost certainly (to my knowledge) “simulating” the cats in some manner, in which case the cats are in that simulation and perceive the same experiences they would if they were “really” there in atoms instead of being in the simulation.
If you posit some kind of ontologically basic entity that somehow magically makes a universal consistency check for the exact worldstates that could plausibly be computed if the cat were present, without actually simulating any cat, then sure… but I think that’s also not the same problem anymore. And it requires accepting a magical premise.
Oh, right. Yup, anything simulating you that perfectly is gonna be conscious—but it might be using magic. For example, perhaps they pull their data out of parallel universe where you ARE real. Or maybe they use some black-swan technique you can’t even imagine. They’re fairies, for godssake. And you’re an invisible cat. Don’t fight the counterfactual.
Haha, that one made me laugh. Yes, it’s fighting the counterfactual a bit, but I think that this is one of the reasons why there was a chasm of misunderstandings in this and other sub-threads.
Anyway, I don’t see any tangible things left to discuss here.
Victory! Possibly for both sides, that could well be what’s causing the chasm.