Jacques M Mallah wrote:
>
> 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.
Jacques, I'm so glad that you decided to respond to me directly
at last! First let me say this: Fuck you, you pathetic piece
of shit! I wrote two posts directly to you in the recent past,
hoping to engage you in a meaningful discussion of QTI: see
http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/index.html?mID=706 and
http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/index.html?mID=754. In that
last post I even invited you to "show me why I am stupid". But
only when I decided to write something a little bit personal did
you decide to respond in a scornful, derisive manner. Why is
that?
I won't respond to the technical issues, "the facts" that you
listed in your post, because I would just be repeating the stuff
I wrote in the above two posts. I still wish you'd respond to
them.
It's interesting, isn't it, how people can disagree so
fundamentally sometimes? I sympathize with what you expressed
about your frustration in trying to convince someone of what
seems to be obvious to you. I've experienced that myself.
Now, I'd like to think that I'm a fairly good thinker. And I
think that you are, about some things, having read lots of
your posts from the past. I particularly liked your
explications on the pointlessness of the "free will" debate,
and I agree with them wholeheartedly.
So let me give you some advice, because I'm still seething
here -- when you feel that frustration coming up again, just
stuff it. Either ignore the post altogether, which is
something that I do quite often, or respond thoughtfully and
respectfully. I do, personally, believe that there is a
thing called truth out there, and I know that you'd like to
know it as much as I would. If we disagree, it must be
because either we're starting from different premises, or
one of our logical reasoning is flawed, or perhaps one of
us is biased in our thinking in a way that we are unaware of.
But I'm not stupid, and I don't believe you are either.
> I suspect
> I will unsubscribe from this newsgroup before long. I'm a scientist, not
> a suicide counselor.
I didn't ask for any counseling.
> 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/
--
Chris Maloney
http://www.chrismaloney.com
"Knowledge is good"
-- Emil Faber
Received on Sat Jun 19 1999 - 12:47:51 PDT