Re: (Quantum) suicide not necessary?

From: James Higgo <j.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 06:14:06 -0000

Oh, as to 'this is trivial - we still perceive ourselves as continuous beings' - I guess as far as you're concerned, the Earth does not move.
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Michael Rosefield
  To: James Higgo ; Saibal Mitra ; everything-list.domain.name.hidden
  Sent: Saturday, March 03, 2001 3:34 PM
  Subject: Re: (Quantum) suicide not necessary?


> From: James Higgo
   
> Before I was blind but now I see.
   
> I was the one who came up with the expression, 'Quantum Theory of Immortality', and I now see that it's false - > and all this stuff in this thread is based on the same mistake. See www.higgo.com/qti , a site dedicated to the > idea.

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  Hey, I'm still counting it as original! I _did_ come up with it independently.... And I still can't see anything wrong with it.
   
  Thanks for the web-site, though.

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> There is no 'you'. 'You' don't 'travel'. There are just different observer moments, some including 'I am Micky and > I'm, sick'.

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  So? This is trivial. We still percieve ourselves as continuous beings, and the qualia is what I'm talking about here. The point is that one will _always_ have observer moments to go to. The illusion of self is maintained. I'm pretty sure at least one of us is misunderstanding the other.

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> Even thinking in your passe Newtonian terms, how can a universe in which 'you have a disease' be the same > as one in which 'you do not have the disease', just because you don't know it?

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  Oh.... Please don't do that. You don't know how I think, and I really don't see why you jumped to this conclusion.
   
  The way I see it now, the observer moment is all we have. I think I may have picked up the following metaphor here, but I'll use it nonetheless: did Jack and Jill go up the hill in August? Does it matter?
   
  The rhyme leaves it undefined, so it's a meaningless question; they did and they didn't. We belong to all universes that generate this observer moment, and only a sort of statistical Ockham's Razor says which ones we'll perceive ourselves to be in next. What's the problem here?

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> I see why Jacques gets so irritated by this type of thinking, but it's nice to see him back on the list now & then.

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  What type of thinking? Please, I don't want to get into a catfight here. I'm on this list, presumably, for the same reason you are: to try and see the whole picture.
Received on Sat Mar 03 2001 - 10:22:10 PST