RE: Russell's book

From: Stathis Papaioannou <stathispapaioannou.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 10:13:26 +1000

Periklis Akritidis writes:

> Why would you care about the opinion of those observers left forever
> behind...
>
> > from the possibility that all this MWI stuff is just wrong, of course). Even in my scheme where
> > there is just a possibility of death some calculations I have done suggest that if you could
> > demonstrate that your success rate after many bets was better than chance to a statistically
> > significant extent, your chance of dying would also have to be statistically significant. It's
> > as if the multiverse is conspiring against us to prevent us from proving its existence!
>
> No, it should be easy to make yourself experience a universe in which
> you have convinced others using the ability to solve any number of very
> difficult problems in case the machine worked, or just by being 2000
> years old. But after you do manage to convince everybody, you would
> shortly find yourself in a very lonely universe, so I guess that even
> if you could prove QTI it would be in your best interest to keep it a
> secret.

QTI predicts that you will survive from a 1st person POV only. If there is a 2000 y.o. man in the
world discovered today that would therefore not be evidence for the theory: it is no more likely
to happen if QTI is true than if it is false, from a 3rd person POV.

There is one situation in which you could prove it to other people, by linking them to your own
fate so that they see things from a similar 1st person POV. This is likely to happen practically if
QTI is true even if you don't deliberately set it up that way. Your survival to extreme old ageis much
more likely to happen because an anti-ageing technology mind uploading, for example, are discovered
in your lifeltime than as a result of some biological fluke. Perhaps you are already reaping the benefits
of this effect, as life expectancies are greater now than they used to be in previous centuries.
Perhaps the entire history of the universe, with evolution of life on Earth, culminating in your birth, is
just an incredibly unlikely coincidence selected out by your consciousness so that you can continue
living. QTI can thus be seen as a restatement of the Anthropic Principle.

Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Sun Sep 17 2006 - 20:14:22 PDT

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