Jaques. you say: "you q-suiciders seem to have
some weird notions of identity. You seem to think that there is a well
defined 'you' and that for some odd reason, the measure of that thing's
thoughts is conserved in time."
Being symathetic to Buddhist philosophy, I deny absolutely that ther *is*
such a thing as a well defined 'me'. All I am interested in is the 'flow'
of consciousness. I see no reason why this should ever be 'interrupted'.
James
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jacques M. Mallah [SMTP:jqm1584.domain.name.hidden]
> Sent: 18 December 1998 19:03
> To: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
> Subject: Re: quantum suicide = deadly dumb
>
> On Wed, 9 Dec 1998, Hal Finney wrote:
> > Jacques M. Mallah, <jqm1584.domain.name.hidden>, asks:
> > > To those who still believe in quantum suicide, the most dangerous
> > > crackpot idea I've seen in physics: how can you really understand
> > > nothing about the simple concept of the measure of a conscious
> thought?
> >
> > Even if suicide reduces the measure of the set of universes in which I
> > exist, why is that bad?
> > Is it detectable by me? Do I notice if I kill myself off in some
> > universes? Can I "feel" when my measure changes? I don't see how.
>
> Think about the example with the spacially infinite universe.
> That gives the same measure distribution, but may be easier to understand
> for some people.
> When some thoughts have more measure than others, is that
> noticable? Only in an effectively statistical sense. It is just like
> when you measure the spin of an electron. You either get spin up or spin
> down; that does not tell you the effective probabilities. But by no means
> must the effective probabilities be equal! The measure distribution is
> determined by the wavefunction in QM. In the example with the infinite
> universe, it simply means that more 'copies' of you might see spin up than
> spin down.
> Similarly, if more 'copies' see age 30 than age 300, the thoughts
> associated with age 30 have more measure. A typical thought associated
> with you-like beings is more likely to be drawn from the set of age 30
> thoughts. This is all very easy to understand from the point of view of
> the infinite universe: the fact that other you-like beings exist out there
> has no bearing on your own limited experiences. You are not immortal, and
> the set of you-like beings has a limited expectation value of age.
> I am emphasizing here that there is a set of 'you-like beings'
> rather than calling them all 'you' because you q-suiciders seem to have
> some weird notions of identity. You seem to think that there is a well
> defined 'you' and that for some odd reason, the measure of that thing's
> thoughts is conserved in time. There is no reason to even think that
> personal identity is such a well defined notion; I am different now than I
> was yesterday, and tomorrow there is a small component of the wavefunction
> in which the atoms that now compose me have assumed the configuration of
> those that now currently compose you.
>
> Gilles HENRI wrote:
> > Jacques, I basically agree with what you say, excepted for the last
> > sentence. I doubt that the measure of a conscious thought is a simple
> > concept. [...]
>
> Yes, consciousness is not a simple idea, but: measure is. It's
> like saying that the mass of a dog is a simple concept. You don't need to
> know much about dogs, or how they differ from wolves, to understand what I
> mean when I say that Fluffy has half the mass of Rover.
>
> - - - - - - -
> 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 Tue Dec 22 1998 - 01:24:42 PST