Re: Quantum Immortality = deadly important

From: Wei Dai <weidai.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 9 Dec 1998 01:49:59 -0800

On Mon, Dec 07, 1998 at 06:27:05PM -0000, Higgo James wrote:
> The quantum immortality idea is important, because it says that (1) there is
> never a branch which is a 'dead-end' and (2) you can always expect to end up
> in a branch in which you exist, so from your point of view you are actually
> immortal. I.e. you WILL be alive in a billion years. It is not that some
> other Wei Dai that is probably not 'you' will exist forever; it is YOU who
> will live forever. That matters; you'd better start investing for your
> retirement. May I recommend a Tontine?

The idea of quantum immortality matters if it is tied into a general
decision theory, and by mentioning the retirement investment issue, you
seem to agree with this. However the existing accepted decision theory is
not compatible with the MWI or any version of the "everything" hypothesis,
and no one has presented a new one. If you're not familiar with the idea
of a decision theory, it's a set of rules on what an individual should do
in any given situation (and typically also given the individual's goals).

If you want to try to come up with a new decision theory that incorporates
quantum immortality, think carefully about why I should save for
retirement or do any other thing I should do, and see if you can distill a
set of principles that I should follow.
Received on Wed Dec 09 1998 - 01:53:08 PST