I still think that if you double everything and then annihilate only the
doubled person, the probability will be 1. This is simply a consequence of
using the absolute measure. The idea is that the future is ''already out
there''. So, the correct picture is not that suddenly the plenitude is made
larger because a copy of the person plus (part of) his universe is appended
to the plenitude. The plenitude itself is a timeless entity, containing all
possible states. If someone wants to carry out a duplication experiment then
the results of that are ''already'' present in the plenitude.
When death can be ignored then the apparent time evolution can be described
by a relative measure which is given as the ratio of absolute measures taken
before and after an experiment (as pointed out by George Levy in a previous
reply). Note that the locality of the laws of physics imply that you can
never directly experience the past. So, if you measure the z-component of a
spin polarized in the x-direction, you will find yourself in a state where
you have measured, say, spin up, while you have a memory of how you
prepaired the spin of the particle, some time before you made the
measurement. One thus has to distinguish between the three states:
S1: the experimenter prepaires the spin of the particle
S2: the experimenter finds spin up while having the memory of being in S1
S3: the experimenter finds spin down while having the memory of being in S1
These three states are ''timeless'' elements of the plenitude. They have
their own intrinsic measures. I challenge people on this list to explain why
this is not the case. If you have a plenitude you have everything. So, S1,
S2 and S3 are just ''out there''. The measure of S2 and S3 are half that of
S1. The probability of being in either S2 or S3 is thus the same as being in
S1. But if measuring spin down leads to instant death, then the probability
of being alive after the experiment is half that of being alive before the
experiment.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stathis Papaioannou" <stathispapaioannou.domain.name.hidden>
To: <smitra.domain.name.hidden>; <everything-list.domain.name.hidden.com>
Cc: <quentin.anciaux.domain.name.hidden>; <glevy.domain.name.hidden.net>
Sent: Sunday, December 04, 2005 05:32 AM
Subject: Re: Quantum Immortality and Information Flow
>
> There is, of course, a difference between being duplicated so that there
are
> multiple copies of you in the one Universe, as in teleportation, and being
> duplicated along with the rest of the Universe as a result of MWI
branching.
> In the former case your relative measure increases and problems will arise
> when it comes to deciding who will get the spouse, house, bank account
etc.
> In the latter case your relative measure stays the same because everything
> else is duplicated along with you and nothing will seem to have changed.
You
> agree that in the teleportation example if your duplicate is
instantaneously
> annihilated the moment he comes into being, you will continue living with
> probability 1, as if the duplication had not taken place. On the other
hand,
> in the MWI branching example, you would argue that if your duplicate in
one
> of the branches is annihilated, then your subjective probability of
survival
> is 1/2.
>
> Now, suppose that instead of just you the entire Earth, or Galaxy, or
> Universe is duplicated along with you, while as before your duplicate (and
> only he) is annihilated the moment he comes into being on the new Earth
(or
> Galaxy, or Universe). It could be argued that your measure relative to the
> rest of the Universe (or that part of it which is duplicated) has now
> decreased. Is your expectation of survival in this case more like the
> original teleportation example, or more like the MWI branching example?
>
> Stathis Papaioannou
>
>
>
> Saibal Mitra writes:
>
> >This doubling of the absolute measure is important. In another posting
you
> >wrote about being teleported to many places and then being annihilated
> >everywhere except at the original place. This won't affect the
probability
> >of being alive at the original place. But in a QC experiment where you
have
> >many outcomes, all leading to death except one, the probability of
> >experiencing that branch is very small.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Stathis Papaioannou" <stathispapaioannou.domain.name.hidden>
> >To: <smitra.domain.name.hidden>; <everything-list.domain.name.hidden.com>
> >Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2005 11:38 AM
> >Subject: Re: Quantum Immortality and Information Flow
> >
> >
> > > Well, I did actually intend my example to be analogous to the Tegmark
QS
> > > experiment. Are you saying that if there is only one world and
magically
> >an
> > > identical, separate world comes into being this is fundamentally
> >different
> > > to what happens in quantum branch splitting? It seems to me that in
both
> > > cases the relative measure of everything in the world stays the same,
> >even
> > > though in absolute terms there is double of everything.
> > >
> > > Stathis Papaioannou
> > >
> > >
> > > Saibal Mitra writes:
> > >
> > > >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.
> > >
> > > > > If on the basis of a coin toss the world splits, and in one branch
I
> >am
> > > > > instantaneously killed while in the other I continue living, there
> >are
> > > > > several possible ways this might be interpreted from the 1st
person
> > > > > viewpoint:
> > > > >
> > > > > (a) Pr(I live) = Pr(I die) = 0.5
> > > > >
> > > > > (b) Pr(I live) = 1, Pr(I die) = 0
> > > > >
> > > > > (c) Pr(I live) = 0, Pr(I die) = 1
> > >
> > > _________________________________________________________________
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Received on Sun Dec 04 2005 - 20:54:34 PST