Yes, I should have mentioned ASSA and RSSA as discussed on this list in the
dark ages.
I don't buy QTI for quite a few reasons. A "model independent" objection I
have is the following. If you accept QTI, then the information you have
about your history will have to grow without limit (if not, then effectively
you have a finite lifetime as you can only store a finite amount of
information in a finite volume).
Your identity must be preserved as your brain continues to expand to make
room for all that informaton that must be stored. Now, I find it hard to
believe that a superlarge brain the size of the galaxy would still be "me".
:)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Russell Standish" <lists.domain.name.hidden>
To: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 03:24 AM
Subject: Re: Quantum Immortality = no second law
>
> On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 02:22:23AM +0200, Saibal Mitra wrote:
> >
> > > First off, how is it that the MWI does not imply
> > >quantum immortality?
> >
> > MWI is just quantum mechanics without the wavefunction collapse
postulate.
> > This then implies that after a measurement your wavefuntion will be in a
> > superposition of the states corresponding to definite outcomes. But we
> > cannot just consider suicide experiments and then say that just because
> > branches of the wavefuntion exist in which I survive, I'll find myself
there
> > with 100% probability. The fact that probabilities are conserved follows
> > from unitary time evolution. If a state evolves into a linear
combination of
> > states in which I'm dead and alive then the probabilities of all these
> > states add up to 1. The probability of finding myself to be alive at all
> > after the experiment is then less than the probability of me finding
myself
> > about to perform the suicide experiment.
> >
> > The probability of me finding myself to be alive after n suicide
experiments
> > decays exponentially with n. Therefore I should not expect to find
myself
> > having survived many suicide experiments. Note that contrary to what you
> > often read in the popular accounts of the multiverse, the multiverse
does
> > not split when we make observations. The most natural state for the
entire
> > multiverse is just an eigenstate of the Hamiltonian. The energy can be
taken
> > to be zero, therefore the wavefunction of the multiverse satisfies the
> > equation:
> >
>
> One should also note that this is the ASSA position. The ASSA was
> introduced by Jacques Mallah in his argument against quantum
> immortality, and a number of participants in this list adhere to the
> ASSA position. Its counterpart if the RSSA, which does imply quantum
> immortality (provided that the no cul-de-sac conjecture holds), and
> other list participants adhere to the RSSA. To date, no argument has
> convincingly demonstrated which of the ASSA or RSSA should be
> preferred, so it has become somewhat a matter of taste. There is some
> discussion of this in my book "Theory of Nothing".
>
> Cheers
>
> --
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
> A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
> Mathematics
> UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder.domain.name.hidden
> Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
>
> >
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Received on Sat Apr 19 2008 - 22:41:28 PDT