Re: Conventional QTI = False

From: Saibal Mitra <smitra.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2001 12:30:39 +0200

Hal Finney wrote:
> Saibal writes:
> > According to the conventional QTI, not only do you live forever, you can
> > also never forget anything. I don't believe this because I know for a
> > fact that I have forgotten quite a lot of things that have happened a
> > long time ago.
>
> Right, but to make the same argument against QTI you'd have to say,
> you don't believe this because you have died. But this is not possible.
> So the analogy is not as good as it looks. You do exist in branches where
> you have forgotten things, as well as in branches where you remember them.

That is true, but I want to make the point that branches where I survive
with memory loss have to be taken into account.

In the case of a person suffering from a terminal disease, it is much more
likely that he will survive in a branch where he was not diagnosed with the
disease, than in a branch where the disease is magically cured. The latter
possibility (conventional qti) can't be favoured above the first just
because the surviving person is more similar to the original person.

You could object that in the first case your consciousness is somehow
transferred to a different person (you ``jump´´ to a different branch that
separated from the dying branch before you were diagnosed), but I would say
that the surviving person has the same consciousness the original person
would have if you cured his disease and erased all memory of having the
disease.

Saibal
Received on Sun Sep 09 2001 - 03:34:53 PDT