Re: Quantum Immortality and Information Flow

From: George Levy <glevy.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2005 19:49:31 -0800

Saibal Mitra wrote:

>Correction, I seem to have misunderstood Statis' set up. If you really
>create a new world and then create and kill the person there then the
>probability of survival is 1. This is different from quantum mechanical
>branch splitting.
>
>To see this, consider first what would have happened had the person not been
>killed. Then his measure would have doubled. But because he is killed in one
>of the two copies of Earth, his measure stays the same. In a quantum suicide
>experiment his measure would be reduced by a factor two.
>
>
To say that measure is doubled or halved it is not sufficient to take
the measure at the final point. You really must compare measure at two
points, in effect take a ratio. So depending where the initial point is
you could come to different conclusions. If your initial point is before
the new world is created (and the clone in that world is killed), then,
you are right. There is no change in the measure of the original person.
However, if the initial point is taken after the world is created but
before the clone is killed, then the measure of the clone goes to zero
"in that world." One could always argue that the world branches and the
clone continues living in other worlds.

George
Received on Fri Dec 02 2005 - 23:11:59 PST