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The part I don't understand about this, which is the same as the part I don't understand about dust theory, is that it seems to ignore the distinction between a
by croissants 6y ago
The part I don't understand about this, which is the same as the part I don't understand about dust theory, is that it seems to ignore the distinction between an abstract representation of an object and the object itself.
By the logic of dust theory, I can walk into a bank and say "give me the money, or else I'll throw this handful of sand into the air, and it might encode a universe where you're tortured for a billion years!"
- aaron-santos 6y agoYou're right. To which the teller can reply, "I've crafted an encoding where you are tortured for billions of years." The idea is more about swapping out the substrate of your current subjective experience than creating a new encoding of your current universe. The book has the convient liberty of actually jumping between simulations/encodings to illustrate this, but it's ancillary to the main idea.
- namanyayg 6y agoA version of the banker in the "real" world will continue to exist, and the sand you throw might also encode a virtual copy of the banker later. If the sand flies just right, the copy might feel that it actually arose into it's tortorous existence because of your action of throwing the sand. In that case, the copy feels pain. The original banker continues existing unaffected (and calls the cops).