Sort of. It kind of is how it works, at least for some algorithms, but getting the output is tricky and requires interference. For our purposes the details don’t matter.
I’m not sure I understand your answer. I’m saying that you did not simulate at least million consciousnesses, just as in Shor’s algorithm you do not try all the divisors.
You created a superposition of a million consciousnesses and then outputted an aggregate value about all those consciousnesses. Either a million entities experienced a conscious experience, or you can find out the output of a conscious being with ever actually creating a conscious being—i.e. p-zombies exist (or at least aggregated p-zombies).
You can find out some aggregate property of the output of functions that have equivalent output to a million conscious beings. It is far from obvious that this is equivalent to there actually being a million conscious beings, or even one conscious being.
Also, equivalence of one output is definitely not the same thing as equivalence of consciousness, as even a moment’s thought will show.
You created a superposition of a million consciousnesses and then outputted an aggregate value about all those consciousnesses.
This I agree with.
Either a million entities experienced a conscious experience, or you can find out the output of a conscious being with ever actually creating a conscious being—i.e. p-zombies exist (or at least aggregated p-zombies).
This I do not. You do not get access to a million entities by the argument I laid out previously. You did not simulate all of them. And you did not create something that behaves like a million entities aggregated either, just like you cannot store 2^n classical bits on a quantum computer consisting of n qbits. You get a function which outputs an aggregated value of your superposition, but you can’t recover each consciousness you pretend to have been simulated from it. Therefore this is what I believe is flawed in your position:
it seems reasonable to extend that to something which act exactly the same as an aggregate of conscious beings—it must in fact be an aggregate of conscious beings
If I understand your arguments correctly (which I may not, in which case I’ll be happy to stand corrected), this sentence should mean to you that for something to act the same as an aggregate of n conscious beings, it must be an aggregate of at least n conscious beings? But then doesn’t this view mean that a function of d variables can never be reduced to a function of k variables, k < d?
Sort of. It kind of is how it works, at least for some algorithms, but getting the output is tricky and requires interference. For our purposes the details don’t matter.
I’m not sure I understand your answer. I’m saying that you did not simulate at least million consciousnesses, just as in Shor’s algorithm you do not try all the divisors.
You created a superposition of a million consciousnesses and then outputted an aggregate value about all those consciousnesses. Either a million entities experienced a conscious experience, or you can find out the output of a conscious being with ever actually creating a conscious being—i.e. p-zombies exist (or at least aggregated p-zombies).
You can find out some aggregate property of the output of functions that have equivalent output to a million conscious beings. It is far from obvious that this is equivalent to there actually being a million conscious beings, or even one conscious being.
Also, equivalence of one output is definitely not the same thing as equivalence of consciousness, as even a moment’s thought will show.
This I agree with.
This I do not. You do not get access to a million entities by the argument I laid out previously. You did not simulate all of them. And you did not create something that behaves like a million entities aggregated either, just like you cannot store 2^n classical bits on a quantum computer consisting of n qbits. You get a function which outputs an aggregated value of your superposition, but you can’t recover each consciousness you pretend to have been simulated from it. Therefore this is what I believe is flawed in your position:
If I understand your arguments correctly (which I may not, in which case I’ll be happy to stand corrected), this sentence should mean to you that for something to act the same as an aggregate of n conscious beings, it must be an aggregate of at least n conscious beings? But then doesn’t this view mean that a function of d variables can never be reduced to a function of k variables, k < d?