Daniel_Burfoot comments on Open thread, August 5-11, 2013 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: David_Gerard 05 August 2013 06:50AM

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Comment author: Daniel_Burfoot 06 August 2013 03:29:17AM 14 points [-]

If I found something I thought was a Death Note I would spend a long, long time meditating on the question of how and in what way I'd gone insane.

Comment author: ygert 08 August 2013 02:00:09AM *  2 points [-]

Actually, I think most of the measure of people having Death Notes is... in Death Note itself. Thus, if I had a Death Note, I would logically conclude that the most likely explanation is that I myself am a character in Death Note. Not in the original manga, of course, as I read that and I know I wasn't in it, but likely in some spin-off. I could easily see myself as a character in some sort of Death Note video game/simulation.

I am on the fence about the Simulation Argument, but even so, this is exactly the kind of thing which is strong evidence that I am a fictional character in a simulation. Getting a Death Note? That's the kind of thing that only happens in stories!

(OK, it is true that I should keep in mind the possibility that I simply have gone insane. That is also a reasonable explanation. But it is far from the overwhelming certainty that you are implying.)