= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Psy-Kosh comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 2 - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (696)
Thought on Chapter 39 re ghosts (and possibly paintings)
If ghosts in the MoRverse are essentially echos/final states of someone, while they perhaps aren't people, would they effectively implicitly encode the final brain information, thus, while not exactly the person, would essentially contain the person "in storage/paused" (ie, act as a magical equivalent of cryo)
Also... the animagus issue is at least a partial evidence for the other side, given that a human mind managed to continue working in a cat brain, (or so it would seem)
This seems to suggest that if you are going to die, make sure you do so in a traumatic, angst ridden way. Get yourself ghosted. Then if someone creates a Friendly Magic-Gaming AI they can go ahead and synthesise you into a corporeal body. And if they refuse then you can haunt them and throw a dust spec in their eye once a year for 3^^^^3 years of the magically extended life of the universe.
Well, is it known that it traumatic angst ridden death causes ghosts in the MoRverse?
(Also brings up the possibility that actual manifested ghosts are just the really strong residues, and their may be weaker non visible remanents/echos of the final brain states of everyone else too in the MoRverse)
That sounds likely. Of course, I'd still want to make damn sure my remnant kicked up as much fuss as possible... "Recoporialise me! Recorporialise me!"
"To whoever finds this echo and message, please construct the following device and/or perform the following spells..."
Won't that make you sound like Sealed Evil in a Can?
"Please see attached 3000 page mathematical analysis and the following simulations as to the nature and operation of these devices and spells..."
Problem solved. :)
"You're starting to sound convincing, so I'm going to stop listening right now before you make me change my mind."
Ghost cryo is yummy. (Coincidentally, walking through a ghost causes a sensation of cold.)
There are lots of plausible explanations for animagus transformation that don't require souls, though some sort of mind/body duality does seem to be implied. I don't see how to experimentally investigate this without deliberately inflicting brain damage, though.
First thought would be to get a transformed animagus into an MRI or CAT scan or whatever and see if one transformed into, say, a cat, has the same sort of brain as a cat or if it is noticeably different.