Re: Quantum Immortality and Information Flow

From: Stathis Papaioannou <stathispapaioannou.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 23:24:23 +1100

George Levy writes:

>Hi Quentin, Stathis, Bruno
>
>It all depends how you see the plenitude, OMs and the branching. Is
>consciousness like a traveller in a network of roads traversing the
>plenitude, some roads branching some roads merging?
>
>If yes then you could have several independent consciousness occupying the
>same spot, or the same OM. Then their measure at that spot is their sum.
>This approach is a third person point of view and it leads to the concept
>of absolute measure.
>
>If you see consiousness as the road itself, then measure is not increased
>after a merge and does not decrease after a split. An OM is just a point on
>the road. If the road turns unexpectedly to avoids an obstacle (like
>quantum suicide or just plain death), then consiousness will just move on
>into a direction which has a low 3-rd person probability but unity first
>person probability. Viewing consciousness as a network of roads is a first
>person point of view and it leads to the concept of relative measure:
>Measure is always 1 where you are. From a given point you may reach many
>points - Then measure increases with respect to that point. Or reversibly,
>from many points you may reach only one point. Then measure decreases.
>
>Bruno writes:
>
> >neither elimination of information, nor duplication of
>information.
>
>The crux of the matter is the concept of indistinguishability: whether you
>consider two identical persons (OMs) occupying two identical universes the
>same person (point on the road). It is clear that if you consider the
>problem from the information angle, then duplication of information does
>not increase the measure of that information. This would support the
>relative interpretation of measure.


In addition to the above arguments, consider the problem from the point of
view of the subject. If multiple copies of a person are created and run in
parallel for a period, what difference does this make to his experience? It
seems to me that there is no test or experiment the person could do which
would allow him to determine if he is living in a period of high measure or
low measure. If an OM is the smallest discernible unit of conscious
experience, it therefore seems reasonable to treat multiple instantiations
of the same OM as one OM.


Stathis Papaioannou

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Received on Sat Dec 10 2005 - 08:24:23 PST

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