Re: Measure again

From: Wei Dai <weidai.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 16:43:06 -0800

On Thu, Jan 14, 1999 at 07:07:01PM -0500, Jacques M Mallah wrote:
> On Mon, 11 Jan 1999, Hal Finney wrote:
> > It seems that there are two ways to increase the measure of copies
> > and near-copies of yourself which have favorable experiences. [...]
> > The other method is by killing yourself when things go wrong. [...]
> > By doing so they are increasing the
> > fraction of their near-copies which have good experiences.
>
> Like your fellow death-worshipers on this list, you have a very
> mixed-up understanding of measure. So once again I will take you guys to
> school. The class is RM 102 - Remedial Measure Theory.

Hal should have said "the conditional effective probability of a favorable
experience, given that the experience is one of my experiences after time
t." But his point remains that if that is what someone cares about, then
there are two ways to go about increasing it.

My own view is that suicide is rational for someone who only cares about
the above conditional effective probability, but these people are very
rare because I expect them to have died early in their lives.
Received on Thu Jan 14 1999 - 16:45:21 PST