Nick Bostrom writes: > Hal wrote: > > >I wonder if you consider the possibility that there is no matter of fact > >as to whether we are living in a simulation? Suppose that we live in real > >life, and also get simulated one or more times, then our consciousness > >cannot be localized to any specific instantiation. > > A brain (or a particular simulation of a brain) can refer indexically to > itself. Suppose you have two brains, A and B, in exactly the same internal > states, both of whom think of themselves that they are in a red box. > Suppose A is in a red box and B is in a blue box. Then A has a true belief > and B has a false belief, and there seems to be an objective fact of the > matter that this is so.
I don't think it is right to say that a brain has beliefs. It seems to me that beliefs are a property of a mind. Saying that a brain has beliefs is a shorthand for saying that the brain instantiates a conscious program, and that the consciousness has beliefs. In this case then we would say that the consciousness believes that it is in a red box. More precisely, it would believe that the brain which instantiates it is in a red box. But "the brain which instantiates it" is not well defined, since two brains instantiate it. Hal
