>>12124926The "the basilisk will reconstruct a copy of you and torture that copy" part seems retarded on the face, seems reasonable when you think into it more, and then gets retarded again as you think it through fully.
>my copy would be a distinct entity from me, so any pain inflicted on it would not affect me. My only reason to assist the basilisk to come about is to prevent the suffering of innumerable copies of myself out of pathological empathy>what if I *am* the simulation, and the basilisk actually will be able to torture me if I don't help it in the simulation?>that's retarded, because the basilisk necessarily already exists, and has no need for me to bring it about in a simulation, as it has no way to torture my real self that could have actually had an influence on itReally, the simulation part of the thought experiment does it a disservice. It's still a potentially dangerous though even without the simulation, just by a simple reformulation:
"The basilisk will torture all people who are currently living at the time of its creation who did not help bring about its creation"
In this formulation, now there is actually a very, very real threat. You can either help the basilisk or not, and the basilisk can either be completed in your lifetime, or not.
If you help it, and it's created, you don't get tortured, but you potentially condemn those who don't help.
If you help, and it's not created by the time you die, you've still brought its existence closer to fruition, making people currently alive more at risk of it if someone does complete it.
If you don't help, and it's created, you get tortured.
If you don't help, and it's not created, you don't get tortured.
