Saibal Mitra wrote:
Quoting Stathis Papaioannou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> On 25th May 2005 Saibal Mitra wrote:
>
> >One of the arguments in favor of the observer moment picture is that it
> >solves Tegmark's quantum suicide paradox. If you start with a set of
all
> >possible observer moments on which a measure is defined (which can be
> >calculated in principle using the laws of physics), then the paradox
> never
> >arises. At any moment you can think of yourself as being randomly drawn
> >from
> >the set of all possible observer moments. The observer moment who has
> >survived the suicide experiment time after time after time has a very
> very
> >very low measure.
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by "the paradox never arises" here. You have
> said
> in the past that although you initially believed in QTI, you later
realised
>
> that it could not possibly be true (sorry if I am misquoting you, this
is
> from memory). Or are you distinguishing between QTI and QS?
>
That's correct. In both QTI and QS one assumes conditional probabilities.
You just
throw away the branches in which you don't survive and then you conclude
that you
continue to survive into the infinitely far future (or after performing an
arbitrary
large number of suicide experiments) with probability 1.
But if you use the a priori probability distribution then you see that you
the measure
of versions of you that survive into the far future is almost zero.
What does "the measure of versions of you that survive into the far future
is almost zero" actually mean? The measure of this particular version of me
typing this email is practically zero, considering all the other versions of
me and all the other objects in the multiverse. Another way of looking at it
is that I am dead in a lot more places and times than I am alive. And yet
undeniably, here I am! Reality trumps probability every time.
--Stathis Papaioannou
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