Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
> Johnathan Corgan writes:
>
>> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>
>>> If some multiverse theory happens to be true then by your way of argument we
>>> should all be extremely anxious all the time, because every moment terrible things
>>> are definitely happening to some copy of us. For example, we should be constantly
>>> be worrying that we will be struck by lightning, because we *will* be struck by lightning.
>> If MWI is true, *and* there isn't a lowest quantum of
>> probability/measure as Brent Meeker speculates, there is an interesting
>> corollary to the quantum theory of immortality.
>>
>> While one branch always exists which continues our consciousness
>> forward, indeed we are constantly "shedding" branches where the most
>> brutal and horrific things happen to us and result in our death. Their
>> measure is extremely small, so from a subjectively probability
>> perspective, we don't worry about them.
>>
>> I'd speculate that there are far more logically possible ways to
>> experience an agonizing, lingering death than to live. Some have a
>> relatively high measure, like getting hit by a car, or getting lung
>> cancer (if you're a smoker), so we take steps to avoid these (though
>> they still happen in some branch.) Others, like having all our
>> particles spontaneously quantum tunnel into the heart of a burning
>> furnace, are so low in measure, we can blissfully ignore the
>> possibility. Yet if MWI is true, there is some branch where this has
>> just happened to us. (modulo Brent's probability quantum.)
>>
>> If there are many more ways to die than to live, even of low individual
>> measure, I wonder how the "integral of the measure" across all of them
>> comes out.
>
> It's not death that is the problem (you always get out of that), it's suffering. Final death
> would be better than a living hell, but QTI denies you final death. I take comfort in the
> speculation that if I'm still alive in a few hundred years, most likely this will be as a result
> of some advanced medical or cybernetic intervention, and if science understands the brain
> well enough to do that, it would be a relatively simple matter by comparison to ensure that I
> am content. I think the hellish routes to immortality would occur mostly by chance and would
> be of much lower total measure than the deliberate, happy routes.
I think Bruno already remarked that it may well be more probable that a continuation of your consciousness arises in some other branch of the multiverse "by chance", rather than as a state of "your" erstwhile body. This would seem particularly more probable as your consciousness simplifies due to deterioration of your brain - how hard can it be to find a continuation of a near coma. Perhaps this continuation is the consciousness of a fish - and it's the Hindus rather than the Bhuddists who are right.
Brent Meeker
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Received on Thu Jan 25 2007 - 20:00:28 PST