RE: Implications of MWI

From: Jonathan Colvin <jcolvin.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 14:49:40 -0700

 
>Mark Fancey writes:
>> Did accepting and understanding the MWI drastically alter your
>> philosophical worldview? If so, how?
>
>Hal: I don't know if I would describe it as a drastic alteration,
>but I do tend to think of my actions as provoking a continuum
>of results rather than a single result. <snip>

>Another way it has influenced my thinking is about future
>indeterminacy.
>I now believe, for example, that there is no meaning to
>certain questions that people ask about future conditions.
>For example, who will be the next president? I don't think
>this question is meaningful. Many people will be the next
>president. My consciousness spans multiple universes where
>different people will be president.

But there are likely many many more universes where Colin Powell is the next
president than there are where my 6 year old neice is. So it is a meaningful
question.

>Any question like this which presupposes only one future has a
>similar problem. Another one we often hear is, are we in a
>speculative bubble in real estate (or stocks, or whatever).
>That's a meaningless question.
>Bubbles can only be defined retrospectively. If prices fall,
>then we were in a bubble; if they don't, then we weren't. But
>both futures exist.
>I live in worlds where we are in a bubble and worlds where we
>are not in a bubble. The question has no answer.

But again we can make a probabilistic argument that there are many more
universes where house prices continue climbing than there are where all
houses become worthless tomorrow.

Jonathan Colvin
Received on Wed Apr 27 2005 - 18:05:05 PDT