An interesting change from the usual technical questions! Personally, the
only difference the MWI has made to me is that I am now slightly less
anxious about death than I used to be. Oddly enough, this was only
indirectly due to exposure to the quantum theory of immortality. Thinking
about QTI and other implications of MWI made me look more closely at the
philosophy of personal identity, and I realised that there is no way from a
first person perspective to distinguish between "normal" persistence of
identity over time and a situation where I am instantaneously killed and
replaced with a near-exact replica who has the same memories and the same
beliefs about who he is. In a similar vein, I can say that the person typing
this email one second ago has not only died but completely vanished from the
universe, to be replaced by me, who happpens to look very similar and has
very similar information stored in his brain; and I know that in another
second I won't be alive any more, but there will be another person who looks
like me and thinks like me taking my place. So death is no big deal; I'm
dying all the time, as surely as if I were being killed with an axe, the
only difference being that in the latter case, I wouldn't get replaced.
I really believe all the above, but as I started by saying, it only
*slightly* decreases my anxiety about dying. I still would rather not be
killed with an axe! Sometimes in philosophical discussions this concern
about what happens to oneself in the future is used to argue against the
theory I have described. However, the argument is a fallacious one. Of
course I care about what happens to "me" in the future, because this has
been hardwired into all animals' brains at a very fundamental level by the
evolutionary process. Also, people who believe in reincarnation as animals
may try to promote animal welfare out of selfish concerns for their own
future, but this does not constitute evidence that they will, in fact, be
reincarnated according to their beliefs.
--Stathis Papaioannou
>From: Mark Fancey <mark.fancey.domain.name.hidden>
>Reply-To: Mark Fancey <mark.fancey.domain.name.hidden>
>To: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
>Subject: Implications of MWI
>Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 10:36:03 -0400
>
>Did accepting and understanding the MWI drastically alter your
>philosophical worldview? If so, how?
>
>I cannot answer this question myself because I do not truly understand
>many parts of it.
>
>Thanks
>
>--
>Mark Fancey
>Anti-Bushite & Bullshite
>
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Received on Thu Apr 28 2005 - 10:08:37 PDT