Jon - I like the practical nihilism (as I read it) in your reply. There is something deflating (of the ego?) about honestly contemplating/answering these kinds of questions I think. Deflating ~= Freeing?
I was most recently confronted via Ted Chiang's short story in his recent collection "Exhalation" wherein a quantum-facilitated device is invented which minimally allows people to communicate laterally with parallel worlds. The technical conceit of the story involves a "fully shielded" pad of qubits such that when you first turn it on, you burn a qubit which splits your multiverse line into two threads... then subsequent qubits can be used to exchange 1-bit messages with yourself. As the qubit pads got larger and larger, the possibility of text-message, even voice/video became possible (albeit expensive) with one's dopple-self. The (long) short-story explored the social consequences of being able to have such communications, ranging from being able to pick up communication with the dopple-self of a dead loved one (one who died in your thread but not in another) to being able to team up with your alternate self(ves) to build a leveraged work team who makes leveraged progress in each parallel line, to assembling ensembles of fantasy sports-teams across parallel threads with the *realization*. No longer would it be "my team won the superbowl this year" but rather "my team won 93% of all superbowls across an ensemble of N worlds". Another side-effect would be to have a the tip of your fingers a perfect confidante... your dopple-self(ves) bifurcated when you start a new qubit-pad knows your every intimate existence right down to the quantum-state level, but then slowly diverges into an alternate experience, etc. I suppose some might want to believe that our current quantum computers ARE in some sense establishing this kind of formalizeable "Garden of Forking Paths" or "Library of Babel".... Marcus? - Steve > "Who would be on your list?" > > I put more thought into this question over the last week than I thought > I would. It is funny what questions bite us. The sad reality is that > given a time machine (or better a T.A.R.D.I.S so that I can rely on its > translator and mobility in space) I would very quickly realize that > history has forgotten exactly those I would wish to meet. I would need > a methodology for searching the past and updating what it is I value in > meeting new people. I am unsure whether I would want to find those > thinkers for whom I am simply a poor repetition or those whose ideas > would move me closer to some as-of-yet undefined way of being. Maybe, > I would seek those individuals so different from myself that I am > inevitably executed only to regenerate back in the warm bosom of my > T.A.R.D.I.S. What is funniest of all is that I could probably scrap > the whole time thing altogether if I could find who here on Earth today > I would want to meet. So far I am thinking Yo-Yo Ma or Katya Clover. > > > > -- > Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
