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Perplexed comments on We are not living in a simulation - Less Wrong
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The two apples in the head of your strawman have the same cardinality as the two hemispheres of your brain, but what is needed to permit replacement of a component without ill-effect is that the replacement have the same functionality. That is, internally in the replaced component, we only require isomorphism to the original (i.e. embodying the same computation). But at the interface we require something stronger than mere isomorphism - we require functional equivalence, which in practice usually means identical interfaces.
So, to replace a brain, we require not only that the same computation be performed, but also that the same functional connections to the nerves of the spinal column exist, that the same chemical interactions with the limbic system exist,that the blood-brain barrier remain intact, yet that oxygen and nutrients from the blood continue to be depleted, etc.
That is my response to your ETA, but how do I respond to your main argument? To be brutally honest, I don't think that your argument deserves response. Though to be fair, the Bostrom argument that you seek to refute was no better, nor was Searle's Chinese room or Descartes' confident Cogito. Philosophical speculation regarding cognition in our present state of ignorance is just about as useful as would be disputation by medieval philosophers confronted with a 21st century TV newscast - wondering whether the disembodied talking heads appearing there experience pain.
I don't think this is quite fair. The concept that medieval philosophers were missing was analytic philosophy, not cathode rays. If the works of Quine and Popper and Wittgenstein fell through a time warp, it'd be plausible that medieval philosophers could have made legitimate headway on such a question.
I sincerely don't understand what you are saying here. The most natural parsing is that a medieval philosopher could come to terms with the concept of a disembodied talking head, if only he read some Quine, Popper, and Wittgenstein first. Yet, somehow, that interpretation seems uncharitable.
If you are instead suggesting that the schoolmen would be able to understand Quine, Popper, and Wittgenstein, should their works magically be transmitted back in time, then I tend to agree. But I don't think of this 'timeless quality' as a point recommending analytic philosophy.
The interpretation that you deem uncharitable is the one I intended.
Community: clarifications like this are vital, and to be encouraged. Please don't downvote them.
The guy who downvoted that one downvoted all the rest of my comments in this thread at the same time. Actually, he downvoted most of them earlier, then picked that one up in a second sweep of those comments that I had posted since he did his first pass. So, your assumption that the downvote had anything to do with the content of that particular comment is probably misguided.
Where do you get such specific information about those who vote on your comments?
I just hit reload at sufficiently fortuitous times that I was able to see all my comments drop by exactly one point within a minute or so of each other, then later see the same thing happen to exactly those comments that it didn't happen to before.
However, wnoise's comment scored the grandparent an upvote from me, and possibly from others too!
OK, then. It seems we have another example of the great philosophical principle YMMV. My own experience with analytic philosophy is that it is not particularly effective in shutting down pointless speculation. I would have guessed that the schoolmen would have been more enlightened and satisfied by an analogy than by anything they might find in Quine.
"The talking head," I would explain, "is like an image seen in a reflecting pool. The image feels no pain, nor is it capable of independent action. The masters, from which the image is made are a whole man and woman, not disembodied heads. And the magic which transfers their image to the box does no more harm to the originals than would ripples in a reflecting pool."
Oh, certainly not. Not in the least. Think of it this way. Pre-analytic philosophy is like a monkey throwing darts at a dartboard. Analytic philosophy is like a human throwing them. There's no guarantee that he'll hit the board, much less the bullseye, but at least he understands where he's supposed to aim.