On 26 March 2014 11:16, chris peck <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> An infinite universe (Tegmark type 1) implies that our consciousness > flits about from one copy of us to another and that as a consequence we are > immortal, so it does affect us even if there is no physical communication > between its distant parts. > > I don't think it implies that at all. We don't know what consciousness > really is but if it turns out to emerge from or supervene on some localized > lump of stuff then there would be lots of independent consciousnesses that > experienced similar things to me, rather than one consciousness per > person-set that flits about faster than light over the set of infinite > universes; somehow making time to get back to me per time iteration. > The consciousness doesn't actually go anywhere, it's just that if there are multiple copies producing multiple similar consciousnesses (through whatever mechanism) then you can't know which copy your current consciousness is supervening on. > But even if your implication stood, it would open up a huge can of > philosophical worms. What exactly constitutes a 'me' 10^10^29 meters away > from here? In the infinite space there are a fair few mes, all of whom have > some differences, differences in history, differences in location, > differences in body, differences in vocations, beliefs even wives etc. An > infinite spectrum of me. A happy thought for women everywhere but at what > point does it become ridiculous to say this or that copy is still me? This > is the problem Lewis faces with modal realism and why he gets wishy washy > about whether these copies are me or are not me but are just similar to me > in so many regards. > It's a problem but you can't avoid it altogether. It's not as if God is going to say, OK mate, it's too difficult to keep track of who you are with all these different copies and near-copies around, so you can just stay this one here. > More importantly, when we are talking about cause and effect we are > talking about something other than dodgy metaphysical consequences such as > 'immortality'. We're want something that can be measured. > It's a pretty significant dodgy metaphysical consequence if you actually live forever. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
