Re: FIN insanity

From: Saibal Mitra <smitra.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 12:29:28 +0200

Charles Goodwin wrote:

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Jacques Mallah [mailto:jackmallah.domain.name.hidden]

> On the other hand I can't see how FIN is supposed to work, either. I
*think* the argument runs something like this...
>
> Even if you have just had, say, an atom bomb dropped on you, there's still
SOME outcomes of the schrodinger wave equation which just
> happen to lead to you suriviving the explosion. Although these are VERY
unlikely - less likely than, say, my computer turning into a
> bowl of petunias - they do exist, and (given the MWI) they occur somewhere
in the multiverse. For some reason I can't work out, all
> the copies who are killed by the bomb don't count. Only the very very very
(etc) small proportion who miraculously survive do, and
> these are the only ones you personally experience.
>
> Is that a reasonable description of FIN? Ignoring > statistical arguments,
what is wrong with it?

There are different versions of QTI (let's not call it FIN). The most
reasonable one (my version, of course) takes into account the possibility
that you find yourself alive somewhere else in the universe, without any
memory of the atomic bomb that exploded. I totally ignore the possibility
that one could survive an atomic bomb exploding above one's head. My
version doesn't imply that your a priory expected lifetime should be
infinite.

Death involves the destruction of your brain. But there are many brains in
the universe which are almost identical to yours. Jacques says that you
can't become one of them.

I say:

1) If you are hurt in a car accident and the surgeon performes brain surgery
and you recover fully, then you are the same person.

2) You would also be the same person if the surgeon made a new brain
identically to yours.

3) From 2) it follows that if your brain was first copied and then
destroyed, you would become the copy.

4) From 3) you can thus conclude that you will always experience yourself
being alive, because copies of you always exist.

5) It doesn't follow that you will experience surviving terrible accidents.

Saibal
Received on Fri Aug 31 2001 - 03:34:05 PDT