RE: many worlds theory of immortality

From: Jonathan Colvin <jcolvin.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 19:22:24 -0700

>>The usual approach is that a system which is algorithmically
>>compressible is defined as random. A rule-based universe has a short
>>program that determines its evolution, or creates its state.
>A random
>>universe has no program much smaller than itself which can encode its
>>information.
>>
>>Hal Finney
>
>Jonathan Colvin replies:
>> I think you meant "algorithmically *in*compressible".
>
>Yes, I did.
>
>> The relevance was, I was thinking that those universes where
>we become
>> immortal under MWI are not the conventional rule-based
>universes such
>> as we appear to live in, but a different class of stochastic random
>> ones (which require very unlikely strings of random coincidences to
>> instantiate). The majority of such universes, being essentially
>> random, are probably not very pleasant places to live.
>
>You could look at it from the point of view of
>observer-moments. Among all observer-moments which remember
>your present situation and which also remember very long
>lifetimes, which ones have the greatest measure?
>It should be those which have the simplest explanations possible.
>As time goes on, the explanations will presumably have to be
>more and more complex, but it doesn't necessarily have to be
>extreme. It could just be, "great scientist invents
>immortality in the year 2006". Then, next year, it will be
>"great scientist invents immortality in the year 2007", etc.
>
>Once you're lying on your death bed and each breath could be
>your last, it starts to get a little more difficult. Maybe it
>will be like those movies where the condemned man is in the
>death chamber and they are about to throw the switch, as the
>lawyer rushes to the prison with news from the governor of a
>last-minute pardon. You'll be taking your last breath, and
>someone will rush in with a miraculous cure that was just
>discovered, or some such.

That's putting it mildly. I was thinking that it is more likely that a
universe tunnels out of a black hole that "just randomly" happens to contain
your precise brain state at that moment, and for all of future eternity. But
the majority of these random universes will be precisely that; random. In
most cases you will then find that your immortal experience is of a purely
random universe, which is likely a good definition of "hell".

Jonathan Colvin
Received on Mon May 09 2005 - 22:25:56 PDT