On Fri, 18 Jun 1999, Christopher Maloney wrote:
> The whole time, I knew that only one thing would be certain: that I
> would survive. But I didn't know by which avenue I would escape. So
Chris Maloney - the latest, and worst, addition to our little
group. It's not exactly a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I suspect
I will unsubscribe from this newsgroup before long. I'm a scientist, not
a suicide counselor.
Much like many others on this list, you have no understanding of
issues that are really simple. But then the human capacity for stupidity
never ceases to amaze me. For example, I am currently in an email debate
with someone who claims to have a counterexample to Bell's theorem - a
non-MWI, local hidden variables model to explain Bell correlations. The
only problem: the way he takes expectation values, with a funny
probability distribution, the average value of a certain quantity is 1
even though the probability that this quantity will be nonzero is zero.
To me this is the very definition of reductio ad absurdum, but he
thinks it is just an insult to call his beliefs absurd! This guy is not
kidding, he is an employed engineer and I still can't get my mind around
the fact that he is so incredibly stupid. IT ... IS ... JUST ... NOT ...
POSSIBLE! But, it is true. %*^~$%(&!
But this is not atypical of my experiences on the internet of
trying to convince crackpots of their errors. Be it magnetism,
thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, or quantum suicide, these people just
won't understand what I tell them.
So, I really don't expect to convince you either.
But consider this: Is the branch in which you win the lottery not
already occupied? How will it profit this lottery winner if you, finding
yourself in another branch, kill yourself?
Your belief that you will magically leap into the body of this
winner, at the same date and time as you die, is absurd. You guys take
one true fact - that the effective probability of finding yourself to be
that winning guy, given that you find the date and time to be such and
such, and that your name is such and such, etc. - is nearly one. But you
don't understand what it means and you sure as hell don't use it
correctly, and the result is this monstrous quantum cult of death.
The facts are, and I've said this a million times by now:
- There is only one reason to commit suicide and it is the same as
without QM: if your life is so bad that you would rather not exist, commit
suicide; otherwise don't. For indeed, in those branches you would cease
to exist, while the branches with the lottery winner would gain nothing.
- the effective probability of finding yourself to be that guy,
given that your name is such and such, is still very small. If you did
follow though, most of the the observers with that name would find
themselves prior to that date.
- The effective probability of having that name, given that you are
an observer after that date, would be greatly reduced by the suicide.
- Your total measure would be reduced, so there would be less
observers with that name in the ensemble, and the total number of
observers would be less.
- There is only one reason to commit suicide and it is the same as
without QM: if your life is so bad that you would rather not exist, commit
suicide; otherwise don't. For indeed, in those branches you would cease
to exist, while the branches with the lottery winner would gain nothing.
> Now I actually care too much about somebody else -- my wife. I
> couldn't kill myself now, knowing how much it would hurt her.
>
> So now I take my lumps as they come. That sounds like maturity
No, it sounds like you now have too much to lose. A condition
which may not last.
- - - - - - -
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 Sat Jun 19 1999 - 11:55:52 PDT