So, in a way Batman exists when you imagine yourself to be Batman? Do you still coexist then (since it is your cognitive architecture after all)?
I'd say that of course any high level process running on your mind has characteristics of your mind, after all, it is running on your mind. Those, however, would still be characteristics inherent to you, not to Batman.
If you were thinking of a nuclear detonation, running through the equations, would that bomb exist inside your mind?
Having a good mental model of someone and "consulting" it (apart from that model not matching the original anyways) seems to me more like your brain playing "what if", and the accompanying consciousness and assorted properties still belonging to you pretending what-if, not to the what-if itself.
So, in a way Batman exists when you imagine yourself to be Batman? Do you still coexist then (since it is your cognitive architecture after all)?
It might not be entirely off base to say that a Batman or at least part of a Batman exists under those circumstances, if your representation of Batman is sophisticated enough and if this line of thought about modeling is accurate. It might be quite different from someone else's Batman, though; fictional characters kind of muddy the waters here. Especially ones who've been interpreted that many different ways....
Another monthly installment of the rationality quotes thread. The usual rules apply: