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GabrielDuquette comments on How I Ended Up Non-Ambitious - Less Wrong
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Could you expand on that?
I'm exaggerating a bit. Of course I didn't ever think I was hallucinating other people (although I did fantasize as a kid about being the only real person on Earth -- everyone else was part of an alien experiment that centered on me). Rather, my subjective other-human-caused mental sensations vacillate between obliteratingly intense and nearly nonexistent. So by "trained myself to pretend that people exist" I really mean that I've improved my ability to modulate my perception of other-people-radiation so it isn't a choice between trickle or firehose in the face. Which has allowed me to communicate better and form lasting relationships.
To observers it probably seems like I'm an occasional solipsist, but that's just a coping mechanism.
I'm now being entertained by contemplating the difference between an occasional solipsist who believes that they are occasionally the only real person in the world, and one who occasionally believes they are (and have always been) the only real person in the world.
Sounds like something Oliver Sacks would write about.
I wonder what the first kind of occasional solipsist would think happened to all the other people when they became the one real person.
Well, if one considers p-zombies a coherent idea (which I don't), I can't see how it's noticeably less plausible to have someone who is sometimes genuinely conscious and sometimes a p-zombie. From there, to the idea that everyone is like that, seems a small step.
Of course, this also allows for the occasional solipsist who believes that occasionally there's only one real person in the world and it isn't them.
Years ago someone said to me "There are only forty-seven real people in the world, the rest are just bad special effects" to which i replied "I take exception to that: I am a damn good special effect!"
I actually find a variation on the part-time zombie to be...spot on, In terms of what the algorithm feels like. All you need is a bit of sleep deprivation.