Visualization of observer moment measure
I cooked up a little program that displays the relative measure of observer-moments as a rather unfortunate person attempts to cross a couple bridges. It avoids one problem in that the person suffers from short-term memory loss and so convergent observer-moments cause increased measure where they usually would not. It's a start nevertheless. Information and images are available here: http://www.kwinter.ca/d/mwi/ If anyone can point me to more well developed methodology, I'd appreciate it. Thanks Below is the text from the demonstration: June 10, 2005 The purpose of this demonstration is to evaluate every possible sequence of observer moments (OMs) where a person survives a life or death situation. This is very similar to the Quantum Suicide thought experiment, however instead of considering 50/50 chances of being killed by gunshot, a bridge is used to show the relative measure of observer-moments derived from sequences of observer-moments which survived the bridge crossing. The computer model provides visualization and insight into quantum nudging whereby at a given time prior to a dangerous situation, the OMs with greatest measure are poised to avoid that danger. A person experiencing the most common OM sequence is therefore nudged away from danger. This demonstration cannot prove whether we live such most-common OM sequences, it just provides a visualization. This demonstration assumes that the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (MWI) is correct. IE: A person (like you and me) experiences 1 sequence of OMs throughout our lives. Between moments we branch into parallel universes which continue to split/diverge moment to moment. Consider a person walking across a bridge. The bridge is 200m above the ground. The person is not capable of knowing whether their steps will cause them to walk off the bridge and cannot avoid falling to their relatively certain death. The person staggers as he moves, from one point to the next he takes each step in one of three ways: - straight ahead (S) - ahead to the left (L) - ahead to the right (R) The cause of the direction of each step is random, with an equal 1/3 probability that at each step the person will go straight ahead, ahead to the left or ahead to the right. In fact, he does all three, branching into different universes. Presented is the result of a computer simulation which computes every possible sequence of steps that conclude in his successful (alive) crossing of the bridge. Each possible sequence is tested once and only once. In the following simulations each square represents a position or an observer-moment if the person has no short term memory. The problem being ignored in this demonstration is that typically for OMs to be identical they require the observer to experience the same mind-state for that moment, including completely identical memories. This is ignored by suggesting that for our purposes the observer has no short-term memory. So arriving at the same square via different squares constitutes a convergent OM which increases the measure of such OM. The person starts on the square 5,1 and every possible sequence thereafter is computed. Once all the sequences which resulted in the person making it to the other side of the bridge were obtained, the individual OM instances were counted, that is the number of times a successful sequence involved a step on a certain square (OM). The percentages for each represent the measure of those OMs, that is the percentage of total surviving sequences which involved a step on that square. A sequence is not successful (does not survive) if the person walks off the bridge. A sequence is successful if the person lands on a square in the top row without falling off the bridge. In this first example the bridge is straight: There are 153,273 successful sequences, the left-most being L-L-L-L-S-S-S-S-S-S-S and the right-most being R-R-R-R-S-S-S-S-S-S-S. The sequence with the most measure, though it only occurred once in simulation is of course S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S. In the second example the bridge has a hole in it, step where a box is absent and die. Observe how this affects measure prior to the hole. There are 82,782 successful sequences, the left-most being L-L-L-L-S-S-S-S-S-S-S and the right-most being R-R-S-L-L-S-R-R-R-R-S. The sequence with the most measure, though it only occurred once in simulation (each possible sequence is tested once) would be L-R-L-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S. I find it interesting that this sequence does a zigzag at the beginning, due to recombinant OMs fleeing the right side, causing the highest measure OM to temporarily move right, taking them in (5,3). The next step is of course to figure out how to represent measure with a more realistic observer (having a functioning memory). Remember that almost none of the concepts presented here have actually been proven, and so this material should be taken simply
Re: many worlds theory of immortality
- Original Message - From: Jonathan Colvin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2005 7:38 PM Subject: RE: many worlds theory of immortality While I'm a supporter of Tegmark's Ultimate Ensemble, I think it is by no means clear that just because everything that can happen does happen, there will necessarily be a world where everyone becomes omniscient, or lives for ever, or spends their entire life dressed in a pink rabbit outfit. Everything that can happen does happen is not synonymous with everything we can imagine happening does happen. Worlds where we live forever or become omniscient or are born dressed in a pink rabbit suit may not be *logically possible* worlds. Just as there is no world in the multiverse where 2+2=5, there may be no worlds in the multiverse where I live forever or spend my entire life dressed in a pink rabbit suit. I think universes are more like frames of a movie, time is descreet, and we continually move from one universe to the next where continuity exists. Given this, all the universes that ever are, or will be exist right now in a platonic view. We just cruise through them. They are infinite in number and there are ones with every possible arrangement of matter, laws of physics, combinations of dimensions, etc. Once one thinks the universe is infinite, there's no reason to limit it to one universe or a multiverse with only specific components. How about a universe that is simply an empty dodecahedron? In the Level IV multiverse, all these alternative realities actually exist. [Level IV multiverses] are almost impossible to visualize; the best one can do is to think of them abstractly. -- Max Tegmark, SciAm 05/2003
Re: many worlds theory of immortality
Hi Nick, I asked a question in a thread Quantum accident survivor some time ago where, at least in my mind, it was concluded that we can indeed be removed from loved ones each time we survive a situation that was clearly deadly in most cases and that one's consciousness is nudged away from the time-lines which end in death. In a strictly interhuman relationship manner we do end up alone. However QI is far from accepted. If this is what we are going to settle on believing then it follows that for us to actually be immortal some physical processes must account for the continued survival of our bodies, no matter how far fetched/improbable. So you would have to believe that in the next 10s of years (depending on how old you are) remarkable biotechnological breakthroughs would need to occur to prevent death of old age. This seems unlikely. My thoughts then turn to what about those people who were born and died 1000s of years ago? Did their consciousnesses go down paths of immortality? Also will every conscious being living with a serious injury (broken spine) be cured? I'm not convinced either way, but it's fun to think about. - Original Message - From: Nick Prince [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything-List everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2005 4:57 PM Subject: many worlds theory of immortality My apologies to the group for bringing up questions which may have been covererd before but I cannot find an answer to the following query and I am new to the group. I have a question to put to anyone who has some ideas as follows: If the MW immortality is correct then would we not only be immortal but also very alone in the end. We know that we observe others die so since we always find ourselves in a branch of the multiverse where we live on - the conclusion seems inescapable Can anyone figure a way out of such inevitable eternal loneliness because I rather like to chat to my freinds!! Nick Prince
Re: Last-minute vs. anticipatory quantum immortality
Thank you Bruno Jesse, this anticipatory QTI is the most awesome interpretation of QM I've ever heard. Is it too optimistic to think that we are being 'nudged' toward a biotech breakthrough which will give us legitimate/objective immortality? On Wednesday, November 12, 2003, at 02:34 AM, Jesse Mazer wrote: From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Fw: Quantum accident survivor Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2003 15:56:31 +0100 At 14:36 07/11/03 -0800, Hal Finney wrote: snip Well, I do believe in continuity of consciousness, modulo the issues of measure. That is, I think some continuations would be more likely to be experienced than others. For example, if you started up 9 computers each running one copy of me (all running the same program so they stay in sync), and one computer running a different copy of me, my current theory is that I would expect to experience the first version with 90% probability. Almost OK, but perhaps false if you put *the measure* on the (infinite) computations going through those states. I mean, if the 9 computers running one copy of you just stop (in some absolute way I ask you to conceive for the benefit of the argument), and if the one computer running the different copy, instead of stopping, is multiplied eventually into many self-distinguishable copies of you, then putting the measure on the histories should make you expect to experience (and memorized) the second version more probably. It is the idea I like to summarize in the following diagram: \/ | | \/ | | \/ =| | | | | | | | That is, it is like a future bifurcation enhances your present measure. It is why I think comp confirms Deutsch idea that QM branching is really QM differentiation. What do you think? I mean, do you conceive that the measure could be put only on the maximal possible computations? Bruno This is an important point which I think people often miss about the QTI. It is sometimes spoken of as if the QTI only goes into effect at the moment you are about to die (and thus have no successor observer-moment), which would often require some fantastically improbable escape, like quantum tunneling away from a nearby nuclear explosion. But if later bifurcations can effect the first-person probability of earlier ones, this need not be the case. Consider this thought experiment. Two presidential candidates, let's say Wesley Clark and George W. Bush, are going to be running against each other in the presidential election. Two months before the election, I step into a machine that destructively scans me and recreates two copies in different locations--one copy will appear in a room with a portrait of George W. on the wall, the other copy will appear in a room with a portrait of Wesley Clark. The usual interpretation of first-person probabilities is that, all other things being equal, as the scanner begins to activate I should expect a 50% chance that the next thing I see will be the portrait of George W. appearing before me, and a 50% chance that it will be Wesley Clark. But suppose all other things are *not* equal--an additional part of the plan, which I have agreed to, is that following the election, the copy who appeared in the room with the winning candidate will be duplicated 999 times, while the copy who appeared in the room with the losing candidate will not experience any further duplications. Thus, at any time after the election, 999 out of 1000 versions of me who are descended from the original who first stepped into the duplication machine two months before the election will remember appearing in the room with the candidate who ended up winning, while only 1 out of 1000 will remember appearing in the room with the losing candidate. The last minute theory of quantum immortality is based on the idea that first-person probabilities are based solely on the observer-moments that qualify as immediate successors to my current observer-moment, and this idea suggests that as I step into the duplication machine two months before the election, I should expect a 50% chance of appearing in the room with the portrait of the candidate who goes on to win the election. But as Bruno suggests, an alternate theory is that later bifurcations should be taken to influence the first-person probabilities of earlier bifurcations--under this anticipatory theory, I should expect only a 1 out of 1000 chance that I will appear in the room with the portrait of the losing candidate. This would lead to a weird sort of first-person precognition, where after the duplication but before the election, I'd have good reason to believe (from a first-person point of view) that I could predict the outcome with a high probability of being right. But this kind of prediction would be useless from a
Re: Quantum accident survivor
I mean the absolutely exact same David Kwinter or Eric Cavalcanti as was the moment before. see below for further comment On Wednesday, November 5, 2003, at 01:33 PM, Eric Cavalcanti wrote: What do you mean by *entirely equal*? - Original Message - From: David Kwinter [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 5:19 AM Subject: Re: Quantum accident survivor On Tuesday, November 4, 2003, at 10:47 AM, Eric Cavalcanti wrote: Let me stress this point: *I am, for all practical purposes, one and only one specific configuration of atoms in a specific universe. I could never say that ' I ' is ALL the copies, since I NEVER experience what the other copies experience. The other copies are just similar configurations of atoms in other universes, which shared the same history, prior to a given point in time.* I would consider these other copies entirely equal to myself IF AND ONLY IF they are succeeding RSSA observer-moments. Glossary references : ) RSSA - The Relative Self-Sampling Assumption, which says that you should consider your next observer-moment to be randomly sampled from among all observer-moments which come immediately after your current observer-moment and belong to the same observer. In a materialistic framework, ' I ' am a bunch of atoms. These atoms happen to constitute a system that has self-referential qualities that we call consciousness. If it happened that these atoms temporarily (like in a coma or anesthesy) or permanently (death) lose this quality, so will ' I '. I respectfully disagree - parallel universes are equally REAL- you will still be you! Quantum branches stem from the same exact atoms in the versions of us that die in tons of possible accidents everyday.
Re: Fw: Quantum accident survivor
On Wednesday, November 5, 2003, at 07:56 PM, Eric Cavalcanti wrote: Hi, - Original Message - From: David Kwinter [EMAIL PROTECTED] I mean the absolutely exact same David Kwinter or Eric Cavalcanti as was the moment before. I agree that a moment from now there will be a number of exactly equal copies. Nevertheless, I am sure I will only experience being one of them, so this is what I mean by ' me ' - the actual experiences I will have. Maybe some copy of me will win the lottery every time I play, but that does not give me reason to spend my money on it. I still believe that the probability that 'I' win is 1/10^6, even if on a multiverse sense, the probability that at least one copy of me wins is 1. The same should be the case with death if we assume a materialistic position. What do you mean by *entirely equal*? - Original Message - From: David Kwinter [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 5:19 AM Subject: Re: Quantum accident survivor On Tuesday, November 4, 2003, at 10:47 AM, Eric Cavalcanti wrote: Let me stress this point: *I am, for all practical purposes, one and only one specific configuration of atoms in a specific universe. I could never say that ' I ' is ALL the copies, since I NEVER experience what the other copies experience. The other copies are just similar configurations of atoms in other universes, which shared the same history, prior to a given point in time.* I would consider these other copies entirely equal to myself IF AND ONLY IF they are succeeding RSSA observer-moments. Glossary references : ) RSSA - The Relative Self-Sampling Assumption, which says that you should consider your next observer-moment to be randomly sampled from among all observer-moments which come immediately after your current observer-moment and belong to the same observer. In a materialistic framework, ' I ' am a bunch of atoms. These atoms happen to constitute a system that has self-referential qualities that we call consciousness. If it happened that these atoms temporarily (like in a coma or anesthesy) or permanently (death) lose this quality, so will ' I '. I respectfully disagree - parallel universes are equally REAL- you will still be you! Quantum branches stem from the same exact atoms in the versions of us that die in tons of possible accidents everyday. I believe that they do in fact exist, and that they do stem from the same atoms. But they are not 'me', in the sense that I don't see through their eyes. I still think that's you, especially if you just died and they lived on.. but now we're just beating a dead horse. That's what matters when talking about Immortality. We want to know if WE are immortal - i.e., if our first-person experience is eternal - not if SOME copy of us will survive. What QTI assumes is that ' I ' cannot be one of the dead copies - i.e., that the dead copies should be excluded from the sampling pool. But that is a too strong assumption, which I haven't seen any justification for. Surely my next observer-moment should be alive or it would not be an observer. But what makes us believe that 'we' - our first-person individuality - must necessarily have a next observer-moment in the first place? That is the assumption that does not seem well-based. If non-observing states are prohibited, then we should never expect to be in a coma, or anesthesized, for instance. Whenever you would be submitted to a surgery, you would see that the doctor somehow failed to apply the anesthesy correctly, and you would have a *very* conscious experience. -Eric. I think that in the case of anesthesia or any other unconscious state the true or false outcome of whether we regain consciousness with the passage of time dictates the sampling pool. The collective fates of the parallel copies of me under anesthesia aren't stricken from the sample because we must necessarily have a next observer-moment - however this is a concept which I am uncertain about.
Re: Quantum accident survivor
On Tuesday, November 4, 2003, at 10:47 AM, Eric Cavalcanti wrote: Let me stress this point: *I am, for all practical purposes, one and only one specific configuration of atoms in a specific universe. I could never say that ' I ' is ALL the copies, since I NEVER experience what the other copies experience. The other copies are just similar configurations of atoms in other universes, which shared the same history, prior to a given point in time.* I would consider these other copies entirely equal to myself IF AND ONLY IF they are succeeding RSSA observer-moments. Glossary references : ) RSSA - The Relative Self-Sampling Assumption, which says that you should consider your next observer-moment to be randomly sampled from among all observer-moments which come immediately after your current observer-moment and belong to the same observer.
Re: SAS and mathematical existence
On Thursday, November 6, 2003, at 01:24 AM, Alberto Gómez wrote: But, for these mathematical descriptions to exist, it is necessary the existence of being with a higher dimensionality and intelligence that formulate these mathematical descriptions? That is: every mathematical object does exist outside of any conscience? The issue is not to question that mathematical existence (with SAS) implies physical existence, (according with the above arguments it is equivalent). The question is the mathematical existence itself. I think Tegmark's level 4 explains-away any fine tuning of our understanding of math/physics by allowing infinite sets (MWI).. every conscience observer may wonder why their maths are setup just right. In the universes which have magical math that lacks whatever consistency evolution needs - there are presumably no observers.
Re: Quantum accident survivor
OK, what about heat? Heat fills low pressure areas uniformly so there could be no bubble of non-vaporizing heat for the scientist to live in. Isn't the heat an absolute killer? On Friday, October 31, 2003, at 10:55 AM, Hal Finney wrote: David Kwinter writes: The concept of what makes a real quantum branch irks me. Surely a man standing beside a nuclear explosion will never survive. Not necessarily. What exactly kills a man standing by a nuclear explosion? Well, probably a lot of things, but let's think about the radiant heat energy released by the blast. This heat is carried by photons, each of which is emitted by some atom in the nuclear device. When an atom emits a photon, the direction of its emission is random. With the large numbers of atoms and photons involved, the emission is, on average, uniform in all directions, which is what we expect. But each individual emission is a quantum effect, and there is a chance that all of the atoms in the nuclear device could happen to emit their photons in a different direction than towards the man. In that case he would not experience the heat energy from the device and would not be killed by it. I think similar arguments are possible for the radiation and all other sources of destruction coming from the nuclear explosion. So a man standing beside such an explosion could in fact survive. It's also possible that the photons and other radiation from the device might happen to pass through the man's body without being absorbed. Each photon has a certain probability of being absorbed, per unit distance that it travels through biological tissue. And each absorption event is governed by quantum randomness. Therefore there is a nonzero chance that a photon could pass entirely through the man's body, and in fact that all of the photons could do so. In effect the man might just happen to become transparent at the precise instant necessary to survive the blast. Probably there are other bizarre quantum coincidences which could occur to let him survive as well. Hal Finney David Kwinter
Quantum accident survivor
Another quickie: Assume I survive a car/plane crash which we assume could have many different quantum outcomes including me (dead || alive) Since I was the same person (entire life history) up until the crash/quantum 'branch' - then can't I assume that since there was at least one outcome where I survived, that TO ME I will always survive other such life/death branches? Furthermore if I witness a crash where someone dies can I assume that the victim will survive in their own world so far as at least one quantum branch of survivability seems possible? David Kwinter
Re: Quantum accident survivor
On Thursday, October 30, 2003, at 08:11 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote: Assume I survive a car/plane crash which we assume could have many different quantum outcomes including me (dead || alive) Since I was the same person (entire life history) up until the crash/quantum 'branch' - then can't I assume that since there was at least one outcome where I survived, that TO ME I will always survive other such life/death branches? Furthermore if I witness a crash where someone dies can I assume that the victim will survive in their own world so far as at least one quantum branch of survivability seems possible? Yes, this is Quantum Immortality in a nutshell. If the MWI is correct, it is impossible to die from a subjective point of view. Hooray! Survive as what, though? And in what condition? I know from personal experience that one does not always experience oneself in that world-branch in which one is in tip-top shape. Reminds me of the ancient Greek myth of the goddess whose mortal lover was granted immortality at her request by Zeus, but not eternal youth, because it didn't occur to the goddess to ask Zeus to grant her lover that too. So the lover never died, but grew ever older, more wrinkled bent, till he became a grasshopper. Hmm sounds like quantum immorality leaves us all old, crippled and miraculously dodging (typical) eventualities. The version of quantum self-preservation I find reasonable is where accidents have an estimated survivability of ~50%. ie, If you get killed by a comet, it's very safe to say that minor quantum events could've moved it a couple feet away. Being born in the 10th century for example and living forever could not have been possible via quantum branches, right? Technological evolution takes time.. Are there any really good arguments out there for QI? (not to bother you - I will research this on my own) Thanks David Kwinter
Re: are we in a simulation?
Title: Re: are we in a simulation? I agree, by definition no one can cap many-worlds theory with a god somewhere up the ladder without some new extra-dimensional (space*time) theory (unless, does level IV allow this?) A pseudo-many-worlds multiverse can however have a god if it is of the ancestor-simulation design (http://www.simulation-argument.com/). This is of course to ignore, the whole level 1234 multiverse. It is more understandable, and a little creepier-in a believable sort of way when one considers that our universes physics cannot yet be proven to defy advanced computer-science. Ancestor-simulation is a study inwards of our universe. The whole ancestor-simulation phenomenon is certainly being considered by the inhabitants of other level 1, 2, 3 4 universes who cannot defy their mathematical physics. David Kwinter On 6/6/03 5:31 PM, John Collins [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The argument that many-worlds theory implies that we are 'almost certainly' in a computer simulation has been put forward by many people, and there are many similarly themed arguments used to suggest that many-worlds theory is 'obviously not true'; most of these arguments contain well hidden logical inconsistencies which involve switching back and forth between many-world and single world ideas. This leads to a rather strange way of counting the different possible 'classical universes' that we might be part of. The sleight of hand (or honest mistake) used in these arguments lies in the seemingly innocent assumption that a powerful god-like being who builds a simulation of our universe must then be the cause of our existence. This would be true in a single classical universe, but it is not true in many-worlds theory, where we should use a definition of 'causing' or 'implying' involving a correlation between different classical universes, ie. that [god-like being does not simulate us] =(almost always) [we do not exist]. This is discussed in David Deutsch's 'The Fabric of Reality', where he gives the example that no butterflies cause hurricanes by flapping their wings (unless you put one in a human built 'hurricane mahine' with a touch sensitive keyboard).. How we should correctly 'count the universes' in which we live is by starting with what we know exists: Ourselves, the planet Earth, evidence of our ancestry, the surrounding galaxies, etc. and looking at what we can 'append' to this universe: We could have some universes where there is everything we know exists, plus super-intelligient beings who behave as though they are controlling us, but for each of these, one would expect many more universes containing everything we know exists, plus some generic random distribution of (generally non-living) matter, such as some rocks or a cloud.
