On 3/25/2014 9:52 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 26 Mar 2014, at 1:46 pm, meekerdb <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 3/25/2014 6:50 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 26 March 2014 12:45, meekerdb <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
On 3/25/2014 6:34 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 26 March 2014 12:15, meekerdb <[email protected]
<mailto:[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.
That seems to imply that one's consciousness is unique and moves around
like
a soul.
There's no dodgy metaphysical mechanism involved. If there are multiple
physical
copies of you, and each copy has a similar consciousness to you, then you
can't
know which copy is currently generating your consciousness.
I think the idea is that the "stream of consciousness" is unified so
long as
all the copies are being realized identically, in fact they are not
"multiple" per Leibniz's identity of indiscernibles. When there is some
quantum event amplified enough to make a difference in the stream of
consciousness then the stream divides and there are two (or more)
streams.
An implication of this is that if one of the streams terminates your
consciousness will continue in the other.
But it will, at best be *similar* to the deceased "you", just as I am quite
different from Brent Meeker of 50yrs ago. And there is no quarantee that
some
stream will continue.
Similar is good enough. There is a guarantee that some branch will continue if
everything that can happen does happen.
That's a to casual reading of "can happen" there are many things in quantum mechanics
that can't happen. Just because we can imagine something happening, it doesn't follow
that it is nomologically possible.
What sorts of things that might conceivably save your life do you think are not
nomologically possible?
Anything violating the laws of physics and the boundary conditions. But that must not be
what you intended to ask. You probably meant to ask, given your death is there not some
nomologically possible event that would have prevented it? I don't know - to answer it
you would have to be able to trace the history of the multiverse. It might be that death
is entailed by the 2nd law of thermodynamics plus the holographic principle. And why pick
on death. Is it nomologically possible that I grow wings and turn into a butterfly?...or
learn modal logic and turn into Bruno Marchal?
Brent
Brent
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