Fw: Quantum accident survivor

From: Eric Cavalcanti <eric.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 00:56:36 -0200

 Hi,

 ----- Original Message -----
 From: "David Kwinter" <david.domain.name.hidden>


> > I mean the absolutely exact same David Kwinter or Eric Cavalcanti as
> was the moment before.

 I agree that a moment from now there will be a number of exactly
equal copies. Nevertheless, I am sure I will only experience being
one of them, so this is what I mean by ' me ' - the actual experiences
I will have. Maybe some copy of me will win the lottery every time
I play, but that does not give me reason to spend my money on it. I
still believe that the probability that 'I' win is 1/10^6, even if on a
 multiverse sense, the probability that at least one copy of me wins is 1.
The same should be the case with death if we assume a materialistic
position.


> > What do you mean by *entirely equal*?
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "David Kwinter" <david.domain.name.hidden>
> > To: >
> > Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 5:19 AM
> > Subject: Re: Quantum accident survivor
> >
> >
> >> On Tuesday, November 4, 2003, at 10:47 AM, Eric Cavalcanti wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Let me stress this point: *I am, for all practical purposes,
> >>> one and only one specific configuration of atoms in a
> >>> specific universe. I could never say that ' I ' is ALL the
> >>> copies, since I NEVER experience what the other copies
> >>> experience. The other copies are just similar
> >>> configurations of atoms in other universes, which shared
> >>> the same history, prior to a given point in time.*
>>
>>
> >> I would consider these other copies entirely equal to myself IF AND
> >> ONLY IF they are succeeding RSSA observer-moments.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Glossary references : )
> >>
> >> RSSA - The Relative Self-Sampling Assumption, which says that you
> >> should consider your next observer-moment to be randomly sampled
> >> from among all
> >> observer-moments which come immediately after your current
> >> observer-moment
> >> and belong to the same observer.
> >>
> > In a materialistic framework, ' I ' am a bunch of atoms. These atoms
> > happen to constitute a system that has self-referential qualities that
> > we call consciousness. If it happened that these atoms temporarily
> > (like in a coma or anesthesy) or permanently (death) lose this quality,
> > so will ' I '.
>
> I respectfully disagree - parallel universes are equally REAL- you will
> still be you! Quantum branches stem from the same exact atoms in the
> versions of us that die in tons of possible accidents everyday.

 I believe that they do in fact exist, and that they do stem from the same
atoms. But they are not 'me', in the sense that I don't see through their
eyes. That's what matters when talking about Immortality. We want to
know if WE are immortal - i.e., if our first-person experience is eternal
- not if SOME copy of us will survive.
What QTI assumes is that ' I ' cannot be one of the dead copies - i.e.,
that the dead copies should be excluded from the sampling pool. But
that is a too strong assumption, which I haven't seen any justification for.
Surely my next observer-moment should be alive or it would not be an
observer. But what makes us believe that 'we' - our first-person
individuality - must necessarily have a next observer-moment in the first
place? That is the assumption that does not seem well-based.

If non-observing states are prohibited, then we should never expect to
be in a coma, or anesthesized, for instance. Whenever you would be
submitted to a surgery, you would see that the doctor somehow failed
to apply the anesthesy correctly, and you would have a *very* conscious
experience.

-Eric.
Received on Fri Nov 07 2003 - 13:48:40 PST