Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > That is, once you are a conscious entity, you will follow a constrained > branching > path through the multiverse giving the illusion of a single linear history. > Measure is > redefined at every branching point: the subjective probability of your next > moment. > Since the branches of the multiverse will never come to an abrupt stop, there > will always > be a "next moment" and your stream of consciousness will never end. This the > quantum > immortality idea, underpinned by what this list has called the relative > self-sampling > assumption (RSSA). > > Stathis Papaioannou
I think a lot of confusion comes from the use of pronounds such as "you". In the realm of multiverses, block time, and many-worlds, the word "you" becomes much harder to define. Consider time: since your brain is in a different state from one moment to the next how can you be said to be the same person? As you examine your branched selves in more and more distantly branched universes, you will find a greater and greater discrepancy. You could even imagine at the moment of your conception a different sperm may have fertalized you, would a copy of "you" with only one gene's difference still be enough like you to be you? Where can the line be drawn as to who you are and who you are not? I believe that if one accepts that he or she will be conscious of their perspective five minutes from now, they must accept that they will perceive conscious perspectives of their selves in other branched universes. If one accepts they will be conscious of and perceive these other perspecties, they must also therefore be conscious of everyone else's perspective. And if you accept that, then you must be conscious of every conscious creatures perspective, in every point of time, in every branched history, in every universe. To illustrate problems with personal identity, consider these thought experiments: 1. Imagine a technologically advanced race that created simulations of their brains that run on computers. If two brains were being simulated on the same computer by sharing time on the CPU, both individuals would be conscious within the computer at the same time, but neither simulated individual remembers being the other because the programs are restricted from accessing each other's memory space. In the same way those brains were simulated on the same computer, our brains are computed by the physics of this universe. The universe experiences all conscious perspectives simultaneously, yet we as individuals do not remember being conscious of these other perspectives since our memory is not shared. 2. For a second example, consider that with each successive point in time, a new copy of you is created in a slightly modified state. However, if that state is constantly changing, you are essentially a different person from one point in time to the next. If time is indeed discrete, it should be even more apparent that we have no continuous identity. If we have no continuous identity, by what means could consciousness be tied to one creature's perspective? There could be no simple rule to define whose brain state you will perceive from one point in time to the next. All that could be said is that all conscious perspectives will be perceived, but no one could say who will perceive them. 3. Imagine that using advanced technology, the current state of your body was recorded and then an exact duplicate of you was constructed. Would you perceive the world from the viewpoint of your double? Common sense says no, but then consider this slightly different example: A recording of your state is recorded, and then you are completely destroyed. Every atom in your body is taken apart. Then the recording of your state is used to reconstruct you. Would you not have been brought back to life by this procedure? Would you not perceive the viewpoint of this recreation? In the first scenario we are less likely to claim we would perceive the duplicate's perspective, but it is no different from the second scenario where you are destroyed and recreated. Now consider this even more bizarre scenario: Your state is recorded, you are destroyed, and then 5 duplicates of yourself in the recorded state are created. Which one's perspective do you take? There can be only one answer: You take all of them. The above scenario seems unlikely and you probably have doubts as to whether or not is technically feasible. Nevertheless, duplicates of you are being created all the time as the universe branches. In each case you end up in a slightly different universe, in some you end up slightly changed yourself. To me this leaves two equally valid definitions for the term "you". Either it refers to one conscious observer's perspective, at one point of time, in one universe, in one branched history line OR it could refer to reality's single first-person perspective of itself. For this reason I don't believe there can be a simple definition of "observers", there are only observer moments, but all are perceived. There is no distinction between the consciousness that experiences any particular observer moment. This is why I disagree with Bruno's version of comp which says quantum immortality is eternal agony; considering all observer moments, reality's first-person experience becomes more likely to perceive observer-moments of other individuals than to continue along a branched history where one lives abnormally long in a state of agony. This is why I see quantum mechancs as uncessesary anthropically, but highly proabable given the disribution of observer moments among universes. I think many-worlds is analagous to a mathematical function (or program) where each state mathematically defines many other states. Such a program is only marginally more complex than a program that has a 1-to-1 mapping of states, but many more observers will find themselves in a universe defined by such a program, as it defines so many more states. This is where I ran into the apparent conflict that we are conscious of perspectives that occur apprently early in the universe's history, but I do like Stathis's point that any state we perceive has a probably very close to 0, and we should consider ourselves fortunate to be perceiving the states we currently find ourselves in. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---