RE: interesting science fiction story

From: Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue Nov 13 06:09:17 2001

Saibal wrote:


> Since your copy in the branch where the accident didn't happen has a much
> larger probability to survive, you will find yourself in that branch.


That remains to be proved or argued for. Both from the quantum
multiverse and from comp we are differentiating into a continuum,
so that indeed it is hard not to take Goodwin's "head cutted off" 2
seconds
survival into consideration. In principle we could perhaps computationally
or quantum mechanically bactrack in case we could destroy ourselves with
probability near one. To erase something in a (perhaps) immaterial realm
can be very difficult though.



>According to the MWI there is a branch in which the accident happened and
>one in which it didn't happened. Now the branches themselves will contain
>sub-branches. E.g. In the branch in which the acident happened there
>will be
>a branch were you don't remember the accident. Therefore there exists a
>sub-branch of the branch where the accident happened in which your
>consciousness is identical to your consciousness in a sub-branch of the
>branch in which the accident didn't happen.
>
>Since your copy in the branch where the accident didn't happen has a much
>larger probability to survive, you will find yourself in that branch.


I wish y're right. Perhaps you are. It is not so obvious for me,
(neither from QM nor a fortiori from the little part of QM which
comes from comp). The nature of the survival could also depend
on the way you (or your histories) structure your memory. To compute
that is to sum on consistent but very near inconsistent structures.
>From theoretical computer science we can expect (but hardly prove)
existence of sort of gaps. I really don't know!


Bruno
Received on Tue Nov 13 2001 - 06:09:17 PST