Re: Many worlds theory of immortality

From: Stathis Papaioannou <stathispapaioannou.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 23:25:28 +1000

The obvious and sensible-sounding response to Jeanne's question whether it
may be possible to access other universes through dreams or hallucinations
is that it is not really any more credible than speculation that people can
contact the dead, or have been kidnapped by aliens, or any other of the
millions of weird things that so many seem to believe despite the total lack
of supporting evidence. However, this response is completely wrong if MWI is
correct. If I dream tonight that a big green monster has eaten the Sydney
Opera House, then definitely, in some branch of the MW, a big green monster
will eat the Sydney Opera House. Of course, this unfortunate event will
occur even if I *don't* dream it, but I'm not saying that my dream caused
it, only that I saw it happening. It might also be argued that I didn't
really "receive" this information from another branch, but that it was just
a coincidence that my dream matched the reality in the other branch. But
seers don't see things by putting two and two together; they just, well,
*see* them. And if I really could, godlike, enter at random another branch
of the MW and return to this branch to report what I saw, how would the
information provided be any different from my dream? The only difference I
can think of is that with the direct method I would be more likely to visit
a branch with greater measure, but I can probably achieve the same thing by
trying not to think about green monsters when I go to sleep tonight.

--Stathis Papaioannou

>I once read an article in, I believe, Time Magazine, about the relatively
>new field of "neurotheology" which investigates what goes on in the brain
>during ecstatic states, etc. One suggestion that intrigued me was that it
>may be possible that in such a state, and I believe that schizophrenics
>were
>also mentioned, that the brain is malfunctioning in such a way as to allow
>it to perceive states of reality other than that which the normal brain
>would perceive. In other words, the "antenna" (brain) is picking-up
>signals
>that are usually beyond the scope of the normal brain. I wondered if
>anyone
>could comment on this, and if there was any reason to even entertain the
>thought that perhaps some people have passed through a crack in the
>division
>between our universe or dimension, into perhaps another? I read this
>several years ago and wish that I could recall the details of the article,
>but I don't have it anymore.
>
>Jeanne

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Received on Thu May 12 2005 - 09:29:51 PDT

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