Re: Quantum Immortality and Information Flow

From: Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 15:11:04 +0100

Le 10-nov.-05, à 05:45, Brian Scurfield a écrit (for-list):

> Bruno -
>
> To summarise, the quantum theory of immortality arises from the
> following considerations:
>
> 1. You cannot distinguish among all your identical first-person
> observer moments.
> 2. From a first-person perspective, you cannot experience a dead
> state, for death is no experience whatsoever.
> 3. The number of identical first-person moments is in aleph_1 (i.e.,
> the continuum).
> 4. For every path that leads to your death, there is another path
> where you remain alive (the no cul-de-sac conjecture)

OK. They are aleph_1 part (with the continuum hypothesis). The no
cul-de-sac conjecture is just the idea that the probabilities are
defined by making abstraction of the dead-end or even of finite path
leading to dead-end.

>
> Therefore, from a first-person perspective, you are immortal!
>
> Now, the argument is silent on the question of information flow. In
> many scenarios, you remain alive because the local
> thermodynamics "conspire" to remove you from a life-extinguishing
> situation: There is no information flow.

I don't see why. From the first person perspective information grows by
the measurment which selects alternative histories.


> It has often been pointed
> out on this list that universes are those parts of the multiverse
> down which information flows. So Harry Potter "universes" are not in
> fact universes.

What do you mean by "parts of the multiverse down which information
flows"?
Harry Potter universes are just improbable, and information grows to
much there. It is almost like they got singularities in the amount of
information. But death, well, really it is an open problem, because you
must take into account the normal (statistical, based on the measure on
the "observer/moment/states/worlds...") possible histories just going
locally through exceptional states, I just get the math for beginning
to state the problem, really, there could be jumps, and hard to state
identity problems).


> It would seem, then, that the no cul-de-sac
> conjecture needs to take into account information flow. Are there
> always paths where you remain alive *down which information flows*?


I don't know. I'm not sure I understand the question. Perhaps you could
elaborate a little bit and explain the expression "down which
information flows".

Bruno




>
> Brian Scurfield.
>
> --- In Fabric-of-Reality.domain.name.hidden, Bruno Marchal
> <marchal.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
>> I believe that the quantum theory does not allow cul-de-sac
>> branches. I also believe that the Godel-Lob theory of self-
>> reference not only allow cul-de-sac branches, but it imposes them
>> everywhere: from all alive states you can reach a dead end.
>> The Universal Dovetailer Argument shows that the physics (which has
>> no dead ends) should be given by the self-reference logics (with
>> reachable dead end everywhere).
>> I have been stuck in that contradiction a very long time ...
>> ... until I realized the absolute necessity of distinguishing the
>> first and third person point of views. That necessity is implied
>> itself by the incompleteness phenomena, but that is technical (ask
>> me on the everything-list if interested).
>> The intuitive point here is that you cannot have a first person
>> point of view on your own death: 1-death is not an event, and
>> should be kept out of the domain of verification of probabilistic
>> statements. Another intuition: the finite histories are of measure
>> null among the collection of all histories (the continuum).
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home
> page
> http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/pyIolB/TM
> --------------------------------------------------------------------~->
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
> <*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/
>
> <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> Fabric-of-Reality-unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden
>
> <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
>
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Received on Fri Nov 11 2005 - 09:13:21 PST

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Fri Feb 16 2018 - 13:20:11 PST