Hi, ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Kwinter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > I mean the absolutely exact same David Kwinter or Eric Cavalcanti as > was the moment before. I agree that a moment from now there will be a number of exactly equal copies. Nevertheless, I am sure I will only experience being one of them, so this is what I mean by ' me ' - the actual experiences I will have. Maybe some copy of me will win the lottery every time I play, but that does not give me reason to spend my money on it. I still believe that the probability that 'I' win is 1/10^6, even if on a multiverse sense, the probability that at least one copy of me wins is 1. The same should be the case with death if we assume a materialistic position. > > What do you mean by *entirely equal*? > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "David Kwinter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > To: > > > Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 5:19 AM > > Subject: Re: Quantum accident survivor > > > > > >> On Tuesday, November 4, 2003, at 10:47 AM, Eric Cavalcanti wrote: > >>> > >>> Let me stress this point: *I am, for all practical purposes, > >>> one and only one specific configuration of atoms in a > >>> specific universe. I could never say that ' I ' is ALL the > >>> copies, since I NEVER experience what the other copies > >>> experience. The other copies are just similar > >>> configurations of atoms in other universes, which shared > >>> the same history, prior to a given point in time.* >> >> > >> I would consider these other copies entirely equal to myself IF AND > >> ONLY IF they are succeeding RSSA observer-moments. > >> > >> > >> > >> Glossary references : ) > >> > >> RSSA - The Relative Self-Sampling Assumption, which says that you > >> should consider your next observer-moment to be randomly sampled > >> from among all > >> observer-moments which come immediately after your current > >> observer-moment > >> and belong to the same observer. > >> > > In a materialistic framework, ' I ' am a bunch of atoms. These atoms > > happen to constitute a system that has self-referential qualities that > > we call consciousness. If it happened that these atoms temporarily > > (like in a coma or anesthesy) or permanently (death) lose this quality, > > so will ' I '. > > I respectfully disagree - parallel universes are equally REAL- you will > still be you! Quantum branches stem from the same exact atoms in the > versions of us that die in tons of possible accidents everyday. I believe that they do in fact exist, and that they do stem from the same atoms. But they are not 'me', in the sense that I don't see through their eyes. That's what matters when talking about Immortality. We want to know if WE are immortal - i.e., if our first-person experience is eternal - not if SOME copy of us will survive. What QTI assumes is that ' I ' cannot be one of the dead copies - i.e., that the dead copies should be excluded from the sampling pool. But that is a too strong assumption, which I haven't seen any justification for. Surely my next observer-moment should be alive or it would not be an observer. But what makes us believe that 'we' - our first-person individuality - must necessarily have a next observer-moment in the first place? That is the assumption that does not seem well-based. If non-observing states are prohibited, then we should never expect to be in a coma, or anesthesized, for instance. Whenever you would be submitted to a surgery, you would see that the doctor somehow failed to apply the anesthesy correctly, and you would have a *very* conscious experience. -Eric.
