Jason Resch writes:
> The Absolute Self-Sampling Assumption (ASSA) holds that some existances
> are more probable than others and therefore have a greater "measure".
> The consequence being that it is probable our perspectives and the
> universe around us are common, likely, and exist with a high level of
> duplication. I believe that ASSA might explain why we observe quantum
> mechanics (assuming many-worlds), a universe which splits at an
> exponential rate will have a measure that increases exponetially, as
> will the observers that inhabit it.
>
> However, if universes split in only one direction of time we should
> expect to find ourselves in the last moments of the universe. For
> example, if the universe state branched into two copies each second,
> the last two seconds of that universe will have twice the measure of
> all prior branched states. By many-worlds therefore, it should be very
> surprising that we find ourselves in an apparently early phase of the
> universe's life. The only reconciliation I have come up with is that
> the branching histories not only occur in one direction of time but
> occur in both directions. I am hoping others on this list could help
> resolve this apparent conflict.
Even in a single world cosmology a similar problem occurs. An extremely small
proportion of the world's population subscribe to this mailing list, so with
overwhwelming probability I should find myself among the non-subscribers...
but obviously, that isn't the case.
Consider your lot in life as a kind of lucky dip. If you are not yet born, or if you
are in a godlike position outside the multiverse, then the ASSA applies: you are
much more likely to end up a bacterium at the end of time than a human in the
21st century, because there are a lot more of the former in the barrel than of the
latter. But here you are, through incredible luck, not only a human but a subscriber
to the everything list. This makes the lucky dip barrel a lot smaller, because the only
histories in the multiverse open to you are those consistent with your present mental
state. That is, once you are a conscious entity, you will follow a constrained branching
path through the multiverse giving the illusion of a single linear history. Measure is
redefined at every branching point: the subjective probability of your next moment.
Since the branches of the multiverse will never come to an abrupt stop, there will always
be a "next moment" and your stream of consciousness will never end. This the quantum
immortality idea, underpinned by what this list has called the relative self-sampling
assumption (RSSA).
Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Thu Jan 18 2007 - 20:50:39 PST