On 08 Jun 2014, at 23:48, LizR wrote:
On 9 June 2014 00:30, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote:
The same with the MWI: we still have the ability to partially chose
the type of future we want to belong. We can influence the
statistics of the normal realities. This makes the end of the second
paragraph correct with respect to comp: we cannot predict the
futures notably due to the presence of persons, which can refute the
predictions, or even just makes them wrong by sheer intrinsic
complexity of the machines with introspective power.
I knew someone - gosh, it was almost 25 years ago! - who believed
that we can choose our future from the ones made available by the
MWI. He even had a couple of anecdotes of occasions when he thought
he'd done so. And he was a very good writer, although I don't know
if he every got published. He was also a member of the Society for
Psychical Research, just to round out the thumbnail sketch ... a
tall guy with frizzy hair (perhaps not so now). I am trying to
recall his name, not having thought about him much in the last 1/4
century... anyway, he had this idea that space-time was like a vast
railway marshalling yard and we could choose which rains to run
along. I always wondered what happened to the other "mes" who didn't
get to go on those lines?
Do you really think we can do this? I'd like to think so, but I
can't see how it would work in practice.
W and all machines can do this, but I was not thinking about the way
you describe. In fact we do it all the time, thanks to the relative
quasi-classical world statistics. I meant that we choose the worlds in
the branch by doing classical decision. If I want to be safe I will
use a lift instead a jumping out of the window. That will make the
measure of the futures where I am safe much bigger than in the other
case. We can do choice in the "normal worlds". Even "near death" that
choice continues, as you always find yourself in the most normal
worlds conditioned by the state you are in. So we can do this, and
machines can do this, and the MWI argument against moral moral and
sense of life is invalid. Likewise we can do that with free-will, if
you agree with the compatibilistic theory of free-will. If you want
maximize the number of future with a cup of coffee in front of you,
you will influence them a lot by deciding to do a cup of coffee right
now, or to go to a cafe or coffee-shop.
Bruno
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