buybuydandavis comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, July 2014, chapter 102 - Less Wrong
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I'd say that it tends to kill your host meat sack. Not a problem if you can hop to a new one.
The problem being the lack of continuity,
Which would be avoided if your current host body dies in the transfer.
I don't think that is necessary:
If the burst is channeled into a living person instead of a device, then Merlin's Interdict is avoided.
He transfers to a powerful wizard because that's the good place to be. Better than a rat.
I think that's true. The war was not about taking over as the Dark Lord, it was about taking over as the Savior from the Dark Lord, as it is planned to be again with Harry.
See my top level post for a more fleshed out version of how I think Quirrell is preparing to upload to Harry.
I don't think that's how continuity of self works. Suppose I, Velorien A, cast the horcrux spell. I continue to exist, and now I have created a Velorien B, an imperfect copy in a younger, healthier body. When Velorien A dies, whether instantly or in a number of years, I die. Velorien B will continue to exist. From an external perspective, yes, there was one old/ill Velorien, and now there is one young/healthy Velorien. From the perspective of Velorien B, he is Velorien A but in a younger, healthier body. But from my perspective... well, I don't have a perspective, because I'm dead.
You can see it that way, and I largely do too, but that was not how Harry and Quirrell identified the problem.
The issue, the reasons for the issue.
If we avoid those reasons, which dying in the transfer does, then the issue is resolved.
I think you've got it the wrong way round. The first part is the problem. The second part is how the problem manifests itself.
Let's take the full quote.
The problem is continuity of consciousness. What Quirrell is saying is that because there is no continuity of consciousness, when you die, you die, no matter that you made a horcrux first.
I certainly don't believe that Quirrell, who has probably spent much of his life considering the problem, would be so naive as to think that destroying the original somehow gives the copy continuity of consciousness with the original.