As I've mentioned, I've been reading the archives, and it seems as
though everyone's been beating up on Jacques since at least January
about the QTI. From reading some of this thread, it seems that
little has changed. May I enter the fray on the side of the
Immortal ones?
Jacques M Mallah wrote:
>
> On Sun, 23 May 1999 hal.domain.name.hidden wrote:
> > Jacques M Mallah, <jqm1584.domain.name.hidden>, writes:
> > > It is surely true that in the MWI, old copies of you-like beings
> > > will exist. It is also true that they will be of very small measure, and
> > > that the effective probability of being one of those copies is very tiny.
> >
> > We would agree that "someone" is going to be those people. One way to
> > ask the question at hand is, would that "someone" be "you". This then
> > depends on the definition of identity.
> >
> > If you define all beings who follow from your present state by the laws
> > of physics as "you", then that "someone" will be "you". In that case,
> > "you" will eventually find yourself to be very old.
>
> Things that are consequences of such a definition:
> "You" would have multiple futures. In some worlds "you" will
> become physically identical to a being such as "I" currently am. "You"
> (IIRC) will die and be reborn many times. "Your" measure would decrease
> with time. In some worlds there will be many of "you" that reproduce by
> dividing like ameobas.
> Things that are NOT consequences of such a definition:
> Immortality, since you can't manufacture measure with word games.
In reading the archives, I got the distinct impression that you
think that because the "measure" of a person decreases with time,
that that person could expect to die at some time in the future.
Is that correct?
I think some of the problem may be in inadequate notation and
terminology. In Tegmark's paper, he labels all observer moments
by three indeces: one for the mathematical structure, one for
which SAS, and one for subjective time. I think this is inadequate;
let me propose a similar one, but better (IMO). First of all, let
me simplify by only considering MWI, and assuming that we are all
in just one "mathematical structure". I don't think that affects
the argument for QTI. Second, let me just consider myself, not
any other conscious being.
Let C refer to Chris Maloney, any SAS with my exact genetic makeup,
born 7/13/1962, at 11:36PM EDT in Providence Hospital in Washington
D.C., whose parents are .... I.e., let C be me. Note that C does
not refer to "me-here-now", but to all "me's" in the branching
twisting web of MWI. "My" observer-moments can be denoted C(t, B),
labelled with two indeces. t is the subjective (proper) time, and
B is an abstract thing that denotes which branch the observer-
moment is on. Here's some ASCII art (view w/ fixed width font):
C(0,{})
/ \
/ \
C(1,{1}) C(1,{2})
/ | \____
/ | \
C(2,{1,1}) C(2,{2,1}) C(2,{2,2})
/ | \____ (etc.)
/ | \
C(3,{1,1,1}) C(3,{1,1,2}) C(3,{1,1,3})
Now, for any C(t,B), there exist an infinite number of
C(t+delta, {B,n}) observer-moments, which are valid "continuations"
of the observer moment C(t,B). This is true because in MWI,
anything with a non-zero probability must be realized. There
are an infinite number of ways that anyone could survive any
catastrophe, including discovering all of a sudden that he's
a disembodied brain floating in a tank.
Now, what am "I", and what am I "going to experience". I am a
thread through this tree (as George points out, and I agree with,
it's really a net, but why complicate?). As far as what I'm
going to experience in the future, at time, say, t+s, all I can
do is predict probabilities, since I don't know a priori which
branches I'll traverse.
When you say "measure decreases with time", I would translate that
to say that at any moment, I have a non-zero probability of dying.
Is that right? I think that would have the affect, in the above
scheme, of decreasing the "measure" of the index n in
C(t+delta, {B,n}) (I'm not sure that's the correct use of the
word measure). But why should that matter? All that matters is
that there is _at least one_ observer moment which is a
continuation of my present one, at each moment, so that my
"thread" has some place to go. I argue for this in a recent
thing I wrote about transporter booths and copy booths at
http://www.chrismaloney.com/seed/seed2.html#indeterminacy.
I contend that I'll survive any moment as long as there is at
least one moment which qualifies as a continuation. And every
moment has an infinite number, therefore, by induction, I'll
survive every moment. Quod erat demonstrandum.
--
Chris Maloney
http://www.chrismaloney.com
"Knowledge is good"
-- Emil Faber
Received on Mon Jun 07 1999 - 18:58:30 PDT