Re: Conventional QTI = False

From: Saibal Mitra <smitra.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 12:31:51 +0200

QTI, as formulated by some on this list (I call this conventional QTI), is
supposed to imply that you should experience becoming arbitrarily old with
probability one. It is this prediction that I am attacking.

I have no problems with the fact that according to quantum mechanics there
is a finite probability that bullets fired from a machine gun toward you
will all tunnel through your body. Or, that if you are thrown into a black
hole (Russell Standish's example), you might be emitted from the black hole
as Hawking radiation.

The mistake is that QTI ONLY considers certain branches were you survive
without memory loss, other branches are not considered. This leads to the
paradox that you should experience yourself being infinitely old etc..

Saibal

Charles Goodwin wrote:

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Saibal Mitra [mailto:smitra.domain.name.hidden]
> >
> > 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.
>
> I don't understand this argument. The person survives (according to QTI)
in both branches. In fact QTI postulates that an infinite
> number of copies of a person survives (although the *proportion* of the
multiverse in which he survives tends to zero - but that is
> because the multivese is growing far faster than the branches in which a
person survives). QTI postulates that ALL observer moments
> are part of a series (of a vast number of series') which survive to
timelike infinity.
>
> > 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.
>
> That isn't necessary (according to QTI). The multiverse is large enough to
accomodate an uncountable infinity of branches in which a
> given person survives from ANY starting state, as well as a (larger)
uncountable infinity in which he doesn't.
>
> Charles
>
Received on Mon Sep 10 2001 - 03:36:29 PDT