Jacques, Darwin has a lot of work to do before I become a slave to my genes,
which is what you advocate. I don't say consciousness jumps magically.
Our consciousness, like anything, exists in the same form in very many sets
of universes. It doesn't make sense to say 'I am that one' or 'no, I'm that
one'. You are all of them, and as many sets you could call 'you' get 'shut
down' because of a vacuum collapse or supernova or quantum suicide
experiemnt, they become no longer you, and irrelevant to you. This is not an
everyday concept, and I am not surprised you have difficulty with it. But
please persevere. Like Bryce DeWitt and MWI, you will eventually be its
most ardent champion.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jacques M Mallah [SMTP:jqm1584.domain.name.hidden]
> Sent: 25 January 1999 23:04
> To: james.higgo.domain.name.hidden
> Cc: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
> Subject: Re: Misc.measurement
>
> On Fri, 22 Jan 1999 james.higgo.domain.name.hidden wrote:
> > Jacques Mallah, we don't care about our measure, we only
> > care if we should buy a tontine in the knowledge that we will
> > benefit from it in 100, 1000, 10'1000 years. We know that in
> > some branches we will, but we don't know if we will experience
> > a smooth flow of consciousness which will inevitably mean we
> > awake one morning to find ourselves 1000 years old.
> > Obviously we don't intend to try to commit suicide (at least until
> > this issue is resolved).
>
> I see. You think that if you are killed, your consciousness would
> magically jump into the other parts of the universe where you-like beings
> continue to exist. That's what your 'smooth flow of consciousness"
> amounts to.
> Well, if that were true, then the amount of 'you' in the universe
> would not really decrease. Your measure would by definition be conserved
> as a function of time, but would become more concentrated in the
> survivors. But of course there is absolutely no reason to think that;
> it's nothing more than your version of religion.
> Logic says that since copies are independent, your measure would
> be proportional to the number of surving copies and would decrease.
> The fact that you are still saying you don't care about measure,
> indicates to me that you still don't understand the concept. Perhaps
> Darwin has more work to do.
>
> - - - - - - -
> 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 Jan 26 1999 - 02:01:59 PST