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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   4277 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 14, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Yes. Roko is still pretty prominent, right? :)

Yet he hasn't committed suicide to avoid the basilisk.

That wouldn't help. The idea is that the basilisk tortures a simulation of you, not the original meat version. There's no reason it couldn't do that after your death (at least beyond the standard objections to the basilisk scenario).

a dead person is a person whose brain is not functioning, a nonfunctional brain can not feel pain and thus can not be tortured, therefore a person can not be tortured if he is dead.

an alive person is a person whose brain is functioning, only a functioning brain can feel pain and thus be tortured, therefore a person can only be tortured if he is alive.

a person whose brain has stopped functioning can only be tortured if his brain is made functional, thus transitioning him from being a dead person to an alive person, in other words, by reviving him.

"the basilisk" can only torture a dead person if it revives him first, making his nonfunctional brain functional again.

a brain consists only of matter, therefore to change the brain state from nonfunctional to functional one must change the matter comprising the brain.

matter that cannot be accessed cannot be changed, therefore the basilisk can only torture a dead person if it can access the matter comprising his brain.

this is a necessary but not sufficient condition, i.e. obviously the brain state can not change from functional to nonfunctional only by accessing one atom from it.

also if the brain's matter has been transformed enough such as by being burned, its hard to say that its still a nonfunctional brain, rather than just a pile of ashes.

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