On Wed, Sep 11, 2019 at 6:38 PM Bruce Kellett <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 12, 2019 at 2:55 AM Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Tuesday, September 10, 2019, Bruce Kellett <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> On Wed, Sep 11, 2019 at 10:18 AM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List < >>> [email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> On 9/10/2019 4:30 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote: >>>> > Another argument that has been given here before is that if quantum >>>> > immortality is true, then we should expect to see a number of people >>>> > who are considerably older than the normal life expectancy -- and we >>>> > do not see people who are two or three hundred years old. Even if the >>>> > probabilities are very low, there have been an awful lot of people >>>> > born within the last 500 or so years -- some must have survived on >>>> our >>>> > branch if this scenario is true. >>>> >>>> My argument was that each of us should find ourselves to be much older >>>> than even the oldest people we know. >>> >>> >>> That is probably the best single argument against quantum immortality: >>> if QI is true, then the measure of our lifetime after one reaches a normal >>> lifetime is infinitely greater than the measure before age , say, 120 yr. >>> So if one finds oneself younger than 120 years, QI is false, and if MWI is >>> still considered to be true, there must be another argument why MWI does >>> not imply QI. >>> >> >> >> Why do you think that measure only increases with age? On an objective >> level it only decreases. >> > > As Bruno would say, "you confuse the 1p with the 1pp." I am talking about > my personal measure of the number of years I have lived. As I get older, > the number of years I have lived increases. If I live to 1000, I have lived > more years between 100 and 1000 than between 1 and 100. This is arithmetic, > after all. > I see. This reasoning works only under the assumption that finding yourself in any particular year across your infinite lifespan is equiprobable (i.e. you can ignore the effects of the number or measure of the various yous in other branches). This is what I thought you mean by measure, in terms of how to calculate probabilities / weights of the various branches. > > But this discussion has gone off the rails. It started as a discussion of > quantum immortality, and the arguments against this notion, even in MWI. > The arguments against QI that have been advanced are that life-threatening > events tend not to be binary or quantum, but rather we enter a period of > slow decline, due to illness or other factors. Consequently, there is no > reason for us to expect to be immortal, even in MWI. > I don't see how that last sentence follows. It is true MWI doesn't guarantee we should expect to always survive in the same condition, but it does guarantee we should survive in some form. > The other argument is that if QI is true, then you would expect to be very > old. > We only know we are very old if our memories accumulate without limit, but MWI does not guarantee persistence of memory. It also follows from this that to know one is immortal (has lived an infinite number of years) requires an infinitely large brain and memory capacity. > This argument was advanced by Mallah (arXiv: 0905.0187) and has not been > satisfactorily rebutted. > Mallah used to contribute to this list. You can review some of his past discussions in the archives which debate this very point: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/everything-list/Mallah%7Csort:date (some now 20 years old) Jason -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CA%2BBCJUiZ0pLP7%3D2_Oyy3jYHxTVxYfXX4aZwXgri_THNoMCVSYA%40mail.gmail.com.
