Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > Johnathan Corgan writes: > >> Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> >>> If some multiverse theory happens to be true then by your way of argument >>> we >>> should all be extremely anxious all the time, because every moment terrible >>> things >>> are definitely happening to some copy of us. For example, we should be >>> constantly >>> be worrying that we will be struck by lightning, because we *will* be >>> struck by lightning. >> If MWI is true, *and* there isn't a lowest quantum of >> probability/measure as Brent Meeker speculates, there is an interesting >> corollary to the quantum theory of immortality. >> >> While one branch always exists which continues our consciousness >> forward, indeed we are constantly "shedding" branches where the most >> brutal and horrific things happen to us and result in our death. Their >> measure is extremely small, so from a subjectively probability >> perspective, we don't worry about them. >> >> I'd speculate that there are far more logically possible ways to >> experience an agonizing, lingering death than to live. Some have a >> relatively high measure, like getting hit by a car, or getting lung >> cancer (if you're a smoker), so we take steps to avoid these (though >> they still happen in some branch.) Others, like having all our >> particles spontaneously quantum tunnel into the heart of a burning >> furnace, are so low in measure, we can blissfully ignore the >> possibility. Yet if MWI is true, there is some branch where this has >> just happened to us. (modulo Brent's probability quantum.) >> >> If there are many more ways to die than to live, even of low individual >> measure, I wonder how the "integral of the measure" across all of them >> comes out. > > It's not death that is the problem (you always get out of that), it's > suffering. Final death > would be better than a living hell, but QTI denies you final death. I take > comfort in the > speculation that if I'm still alive in a few hundred years, most likely this > will be as a result > of some advanced medical or cybernetic intervention, and if science > understands the brain > well enough to do that, it would be a relatively simple matter by comparison > to ensure that I > am content. I think the hellish routes to immortality would occur mostly by > chance and would > be of much lower total measure than the deliberate, happy routes.
I think Bruno already remarked that it may well be more probable that a continuation of your consciousness arises in some other branch of the multiverse "by chance", rather than as a state of "your" erstwhile body. This would seem particularly more probable as your consciousness simplifies due to deterioration of your brain - how hard can it be to find a continuation of a near coma. Perhaps this continuation is the consciousness of a fish - and it's the Hindus rather than the Bhuddists who are right. Brent Meeker --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
