RE: Quantum Immortality = deadly important

From: Higgo James <james.higgo.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 9 Dec 1998 10:06:23 -0000

The word 'should' is pretty loaded. What you 'should' do is live in the
present and be happy. But if you're an economist you might think that you
should invest for the greatest happiness of you in the greatest number of
branches in the multiverse, which is what Deutsch implies. In all events,
you should invest for universes where you are alive, rather than dead,
unless you care about other people.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wei Dai [SMTP:weidai.domain.name.hidden]
> Sent: 09 December 1998 09:50
> To: Higgo James; 'everything-list.domain.name.hidden'
> Subject: Re: Quantum Immortality = deadly important
>
> 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 - 02:10:57 PST