But also, I have no certainties at all, and such mood/feeling is driven much more by personal happenings, good and/or bad experiences than technics.
Now just Godel's theorem has changed very deeply my overall perception of reality in the sense that it confirms my Platonic feelings that we are always seeing the shadows of something much bigger but much unknown. It has probably made me more modest and open to others but somehow more sensible also, especially to others' suffering, which is not necessarily always funny ...
Bruno
Le 28-avr.-05, à 15:21, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit :
An interesting change from the usual technical questions! Personally, the only difference the MWI has made to me is that I am now slightly less anxious about death than I used to be. Oddly enough, this was only indirectly due to exposure to the quantum theory of immortality. Thinking about QTI and other implications of MWI made me look more closely at the philosophy of personal identity, and I realised that there is no way from a first person perspective to distinguish between "normal" persistence of identity over time and a situation where I am instantaneously killed and replaced with a near-exact replica who has the same memories and the same beliefs about who he is. In a similar vein, I can say that the person typing this email one second ago has not only died but completely vanished from the universe, to be replaced by me, who happpens to look very similar and has very similar information stored in his brain; and I know that in another second I won't be alive any more, but there will be another person who looks like me and thinks like me taking my place. So death is no big deal; I'm dying all the time, as surely as if I were being killed with an axe, the only difference being that in the latter case, I wouldn't get replaced.
I really believe all the above, but as I started by saying, it only *slightly* decreases my anxiety about dying. I still would rather not be killed with an axe! Sometimes in philosophical discussions this concern about what happens to oneself in the future is used to argue against the theory I have described. However, the argument is a fallacious one. Of course I care about what happens to "me" in the future, because this has been hardwired into all animals' brains at a very fundamental level by the evolutionary process. Also, people who believe in reincarnation as animals may try to promote animal welfare out of selfish concerns for their own future, but this does not constitute evidence that they will, in fact, be reincarnated according to their beliefs.
--Stathis Papaioannou
From: Mark Fancey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: Mark Fancey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: everything-list@eskimo.com Subject: Implications of MWI Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 10:36:03 -0400
Did accepting and understanding the MWI drastically alter your philosophical worldview? If so, how?
I cannot answer this question myself because I do not truly understand many parts of it.
Thanks
-- Mark Fancey Anti-Bushite & Bullshite
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