Jesse Mazer wrote:
>>You're right, alas. If QTI is correct, then each of us can expect to be
>>the last conscious being in some branch of the multiverse. On the brighter
>>side, we will have probably billions or trillions of years during which
>>even the most sociable amongst us may well tire of sentient company!
>
>What's your reasoning? If QTI is correct, I think each of us should more
>likely expect that civilization (a community of sentient beings) will last
>as long as allowed by the laws of physics, and any being finding himself
>approaching the physical limit (whether the limit is due to increasing
>entropy, a big crunch, or a big rip) is probably more likely to find that
>everything he's experienced up until then has really been a simulation in
>some larger meta-universe than he is to find himself lasting on thanks to
>an endless string of hugely unlikely quantum events or something like that.
>
>Jesse
The probability that my consciousness will survive in some branch of the MW
is exactly 1, if QTI is correct. The probability that my friend will survive
in the same branch as me may be close to 1 - for example, if we are
surgically joined, or if we are both implemented on the same chip - but it
must be less than 1, unless it is actually physically impossible for only
one of us to die. Therefore, over many branchings, my friend is sure to die
and I will be left on my own. From the symmetry of the situation, my friend
will in turn survive in some branch of the MW, but as t->infinity the
probability that I will be still alive in that branch approaches zero.
--Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Thu Apr 14 2005 - 03:28:57 PDT