RE: quantum suicide = deadly dumb

From: Jacques M. Mallah <jqm1584.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 13:09:52 -0500 (EST)

Higgo James wrote:
> Jaques, try reading what Max wrote, then post a better reply.

        Higo, try reading what I wrote, then post a better reply.

Jacques Mallah wrote:
> Max Tegmark wrote:
> > However, I think there's a flaw.
> > After all, dying isn't a binary thing where you're either dead or
> > alive - rather, there's a whole continuum of states of progressively
> > decreasing self-awareness. What makes the quantum suicide work is
> > that you force an abrupt transition.
> > I suspect that when I get old, my brain cells will gradually give out
> > (indeed, that's already started happening...)
> > so that I keep feeling self-aware, but less and less so, the final
> > "death" being quite anti-climactic, sort of like when
> > an amoeba croaks. Do you buy this?
>
> No way. It's a desperate attempt to save a very bad idea, and it
> shows. I can't blame you for wanting to, but what I really respect is
> when someone admits he made a mistake.

        I assume this is what you (Higgo) are referring to? I stand by
it. Would you have us believe that if only I could hook up a device to my
head, that could measure my neurons to see if they are giving out (which
is of course a quantum process), and instantly kill me if they are, then
since only the few copies of me with healthy brains will exist, that I
would be immortal? Ridiculous.

        BTW, for more on the anthropic principle, see my page on it at
http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/anth.htm

                         - - - - - - -
              Jacques Mallah (jqm1584.domain.name.hidden)
       Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate
"I know what no one else knows" - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum
            My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Received on Fri Dec 04 1998 - 10:12:40 PST

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