Re: Many Pasts? Not according to QM...

From: Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 14:07:25 +0200

Le 10-juin-05, à 06:47, Daddycaylor.domain.name.hidden a écrit :


>
> I'm new to this so I haven't read about all your people's different
> theories.  I've read quite a bit on transhumanist stuff, Aubrey
> DeGrey, Freeman Dyson, ...  it seems people are trying anything they
> can imagine, and expanding into what they can't imagine, to look for
> immortality. 


I don't think most people here are looking after immortality. It is
just a consequence of most theories examined here. (Like comp, or
QM-qithout-collapse, or other everything-like hypothesis).



> Now if continuous consciousness is not necessarily required for
> immortality, then why are you waiting around for copying? 


"continuous consciousness" is ambiguous. Especially with theories which
assumes the digitality of the observers. It will depend on which
toplogy you put on which space ...



> Won't cloning come far sooner?  What is it about copying that is
> better than cloning.  If you, or one of your copies, went on a
> hyperwarp trip to a far away galaxy, saw one of your copies, or one of
> your copies of a copy of a copy, a million years from now on some
> strange planet, there's a good chance you probably wouldn't like
> him/her and he/she wouldn't like you.  Their behavior would be strange
> and probably disgusting.  So what's the big deal?  What's the
> difference between copying and having any intelligent life exist a
> million years from now in the universe?  Why not just have children,
> and pour our lives into them?  It's a lot easier, and we can do it
> now.  I'm seriously wanting to know.


You are right, but immortality is not a goal. Just a by-product of
theories we suggest to solve fundmantal question. Personally I consider
"immortality" to be a sort of defect of our theories, but both with
comp and QM we can hardly avoid it. Reasoning on the
mortality/immortality makes also simpler to single out points where we
disagree.

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Received on Fri Jun 10 2005 - 08:14:40 PDT

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