Re: Quantum Immortality and Information Flow

From: Saibal Mitra <smitra.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2005 01:02:22 +0100

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brent Meeker" <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>
To: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Cc: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2005 07:41 PM
Subject: Re: Quantum Immortality and Information Flow


> Saibal Mitra wrote:
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Jonathan Colvin" <jcolvin.domain.name.hidden>
> > To: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
> > Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2005 05:49 AM
> > Subject: RE: Quantum Immortality and Information Flow
> >
> >
> >
> >>Saibal wrote:
> >>
> >>>The answer must be a) because (and here I disagree with
> >>>Jesse), all that exists is an ensemble of isolated observer
> >>>moments. The future, the past, alternative histories, etc.
> >>>they all exist in a symmetrical way. It don't see how some
> >>>states can be more ''real'' than other states. Of course, the
> >>>universe we experience seems to be real to us while
> >>>alternative universes, or past or future states of this
> >>>universe are not being experienced by us.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>So, you must think of yourself at any time as being randomly
> >>>sampled from the set of all possible observer moments.
> >>
> >><delurk>
> >>
> >>I'm not sure how this works. Suppose I consider my state now at time <N>
> >
> > as
> >
> >>a random sample of all observer moments. Now, after having typed this
> >>sentence, I consider my state at time <N + 4 seconds>. Is this also a
> >
> > random
> >
> >>sample on all observer moments? I can do the same at now <N+10>, and
> >
> > so-on.
> >
> >>It seems very unlikely that 3 random samples would coincide so closely.
So
> >>in what sense are these states randomly sampled?
> >
> >
> > It's a bit like symmetry breaking. You have an ensemble of all possible
> > observer moment, but each observer moment can only experience its own
state.
> > So, the OM samples itself.
> >
> > There exists an observer moment representing you at N seconds, at N + 4
> > seconds and at all possible other states. They all ''just exist'' in the
> > plenitude, as Stathis wrote. The OM representing you at N + 4 has the
> > memory of being the OM at N.
>
> This I find confusing. How is there memory associated with an obserever
moment?
> Is it equivocation on "memory"? As an experience, remembering something
takes
> much longer than what I would call "a moment". It may involve a sequence
> images, words, and emotions. Of course in a materialist model of the
world the
> memories are coded in the physical configuration of your brain, even when
not
> being experienced; but an analysis that takes OM's as fundamental can't
refer to
> that kind of memories.


Well, what really matters is that the laws of physics define a probability
distribution over OMs. So, there is no problem thinking of yourself as being
sampled randomly from that probability distribution. The length of an OM
can be taken to be zero. Even if recalling something takes time, at any time
you are at a certain point in that process. There exists an OM that recalls
going through that sequence, but that is also at a specific moment in time.
Received on Fri Dec 02 2005 - 19:29:34 PST