Re: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Mark Buda]

Mark Buda  writes:

> Still busy, but things are looking up for finding the time. I'll have
> to revisit what I wrote before, though, because some of it was
> garbage. Nailed the red state blue state thing, though, even though I
> didn't explain adequately.

While I did nail it, I never actually said in the first place. I
misremembered that. Or I said it somewhere else, or just thought I did.

> I always had a problem with showing my work.

Yeah.

> On Monday, July 19, 2010 at 9:16:24 AM UTC-4, Mark Buda wrote:
>
> I agree with pretty much everything you are saying, Jesse;
> unfortunately, I don't have the time at the moment to respond
> adequately.
> 
> I think it would greatly improve the signal-to-noise ratio on this
> list if everybody else kept quiet on this thread until you read my
> response to Jesse. Please be patient, I have a lot of stuff to do
> today.
> 
> Waiting is. :-)
> 
> -- 
> Mark Buda 
> I get my monkeys for nothing and my chimps for free.
> 
> 
>
> 
> --
> On Jul 19, 2010 9:04 AM, Jesse Mazer 
> wrote: 
>
> How long ago did you see them? [...]
> As for the psychiatrist and therapist, did you also try to explain
> these sorts of grand ideas to them? How did they react?

Sort of irrelevant at this point.

> Mark, these kinds of sentences and paragraphs are completely
> solipsistic. Even if you have some sort of valid insight, you
> simply haven't provided enough context and intermediate steps of
> your reasoning to make it possible another person could
> *understand* why you think, for example, that "our sense of humor
> and our mathematical intuition and our genes form an impossible
> triangular loop". You're just making a lot of grand pronouncements
> whose only purpose seems to be to express how excited you are
> about your own brainstorms rather than to communicate with other
> human beings. This is, I think, one of the big reasons myself and
> others get the sense of a mental disorder from your
> posts--disorders like mania and schizophrenia are associated with
> losing the ability to (or no longer caring to) consider the the
> understanding of other people, to consider what background context
> will be shared enough that it doesn't need to be explained and
> what context is not shared and *does* need to be explained (for
> instance, on this list we can talk of 'quantum immortality'
> without explaining what it means, but with most people you'd have
> to launch into some background about the many-worlds
> interpretation before using the term), in order to communicate in
> a way that will make some sense to others.

Yes, well, exactly.

> Also, in a person with mania at least, I think this kind of
> partial mindblindness is related to being over-optimistic about
> the likelihood that others have understood/agreed with what you
> have said...in the case of the priest, you seem to have taken his
> lack of counterarguments as a sort of tacit agreement (or at least
> an acknowledgment that he found sense in your arguments), which
> may not be true at all. Did you ask him (or others you've talked
> to about your ideas) any questions to try to gauge their
> understanding of what you were saying? Along the lines of "do you
> follow" or "does this make sense to you"?

No, of course not. If I was not so self-absorbed that I bothered to ask
the question, I was certainly so self-absorbed that I ignored the
answer.

> > Back to the point. We don't have instincts to tell us how to
> care for our
> > young. We rely on culture for that. And culture is still really,
> really
> > young. The memes are just getting started! That's it! Richard
> Dawkins is
> > God, then, because he is the source of the idea of the meme.
> Whee! What a
> > marvelous yet annoying thing God hath made. Can't wait to see
> what's next.
> 
> Another example of the same solipsistic communication style here.
> *Why* does Richard Dawkin's invention of the concept of the meme
> make him "God"? It's a huge leap of logic and once again you seem
> to be too excited by your insight to bother with filling in any of
> the intermediate reasoning that might make this paragraph
> meaningful to anyone but yourself (and it doesn't really seem like
> you were thinking of the problem of whether others would
> understand when you wrote it).

Yeah.

Anyway, sorry about the delay. Some things had to be worked out. I'm
hoping to get started on explaining it soon. It really doesn't matter,
since, if I'm right, you're going to figure it out anyway. Those of you
who aren't philosophical zombies, anyway. You know who you are.
-- 
Mark Buda 

Re: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Mark Buda]

Still busy, but things are looking up for finding the time. I'll have to 
revisit what I wrote before, though, because some of it was garbage. Nailed 
the red state blue state thing, though, even though I didn't explain 
adequately.

I always had a problem with showing my work.

On Monday, July 19, 2010 at 9:16:24 AM UTC-4, Mark Buda wrote:
>
> I agree with pretty much everything you are saying, Jesse; unfortunately, 
> I don't have the time at the moment to respond adequately.
>
> I think it would greatly improve the signal-to-noise ratio on this list if 
> everybody else kept quiet on this thread until you read my response to 
> Jesse. Please be patient, I have a lot of stuff to do today.
>
> Waiting is. :-)
> -- 
> Mark Buda 
> I get my monkeys for nothing and my chimps for free.
>
>
> --
> On Jul 19, 2010 9:04 AM, Jesse Mazer  wrote: 
>
>
> > > Please, seek medical help. If you're right, you lose nothing and might
> > > convince at least the psychiatrist you talk to. If I'm right, you get
> > > cured. It can't do you any harm, but leaving what looks to me like a
> > > serious illness untreated may well do you some serious harm.
> > 
> > Look, I've already seen a psychiatrist and a priest and a therapist and
> > they don't see a problem here. 
>
> How long ago did you see them? Is it possible things have developed 
> somewhat since them? You did mention that you told the priest that you're 
> God. But what exactly does "don't see a problem" mean? Presumably the 
> priest didn't actually agree that you are God (unless he was a mystically 
> inclined priest who thought you were just saying that all of us are God), 
> so do you just mean that the priest didn't try to argue you were wrong? 
> Sometimes when people encounter someone with a mental problem their 
> instinct may be to try to show empathy and to guide the conversation in a 
> more human (less cosmic/grandiose) direction rather than trying to 
> dismantle their ideas through argument...
>
> As for the psychiatrist and therapist, did you also try to explain these 
> sorts of grand ideas to them? How did they react?
>
> > 
> > Every animal on this planet has evolved an instinctual means to care for
> > its young. Except us. We have no natural instinct. Or do we?
> > 
> > Holy crap. Richard Dawkins doesn't even understand the point of his own
> > books. Our sense of humor and our mathematical intuition and our genes
> > form an impossible triangular causal loop. Selfish gene, indeed.
>
> Mark, these kinds of sentences and paragraphs are completely solipsistic. 
> Even if you have some sort of valid insight, you simply haven't provided 
> enough context and intermediate steps of your reasoning to make it possible 
> another person could *understand* why you think, for example, that "our 
> sense of humor and our mathematical intuition and our genes form an 
> impossible triangular loop". You're just making a lot of grand 
> pronouncements whose only purpose seems to be to express how excited you 
> are about your own brainstorms rather than to communicate with other human 
> beings. This is, I think, one of the big reasons myself and others get the 
> sense of a mental disorder from your posts--disorders like mania and 
> schizophrenia are associated with losing the ability to (or no longer 
> caring to) consider the the understanding of other people, to consider what 
> background context will be shared enough that it doesn't need to be 
> explained and what context is not shared and *does* need to be explained 
> (for instance, on this list we can talk of 'quantum immortality' without 
> explaining what it means, but with most people you'd have to launch into 
> some background about the many-worlds interpretation before using the 
> term), in order to communicate in a way that will make some sense to others.
>
> Also, in a person with mania at least, I think this kind of partial 
> mindblindness is related to being over-optimistic about the likelihood that 
> others have understood/agreed with what you have said...in the case of the 
> priest, you seem to have taken his lack of counterarguments as a sort of 
> tacit agreement (or at least an acknowledgment that he found sense in your 
> arguments), which may not be true at all. Did you ask him (or others you've 
> talked to about your ideas) any questions to try to gauge their 
> understanding of what you were saying? Along the lines of "do you follow" 
> or "does this make sense to you"?
>
> > 
> > Back to the point. We don't have instincts to tell us how to care for our
> > young. We rely on culture for that. And culture is still really, really
> > young. The memes are just getting started! That's it! Richard Dawkins is
> > God, then, because he is the source of the idea of the meme. Whee! What a
> > marvelous yet annoying thing God hath made. Can't wait to see what's 
> next.
>
> Another example of the same solipsistic 

Re: Quantum Suicide and World War 3

[Bruno Marchal]

On 11 Jan 2013, at 18:14, spudboy...@aol.com wrote:

Reminds me of an old short by Larry Niven, called All the Myriad  
Ways, where a police detective tries to uncover why radom murder- 
suicides are happening, (That world is where scientists discover how  
to travel to different Earths) and had discovered one, where the  
Cuban War was just a wet firecracker.


Everett's daughter committed suicide after Everett died (she was  
afflicted by schitzophrenia) to be with Daddy.


Yes, to met Daddy in a parallel world.
She said it explicitly, apparently, but it might also be only a  
poetical way to express herself. I don't know.


Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: Quantum Suicide and World War 3

[Spudboy100]

Reminds me of an old short by Larry Niven, called All the Myriad Ways,  
where a police detective tries to uncover why radom murder-suicides are  
happening, (That world is where scientists discover how to travel to different  
Earths) and had discovered one, where the Cuban War was just a wet  
firecracker.
 
Everett's daughter committed suicide after Everett died (she was afflicted  
by schitzophrenia) to be with Daddy.

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Re: Quantum Suicide and World War 3

[Bruno Marchal]

On 10 Jan 2013, at 21:43, John Clark wrote:

Perhaps the Quantum Suicide experiment has already been performed  
and on a global scale. After Hugh Everett developed the many Worlds  
interpretation in his doctoral dissertation he was disappointed at  
the poor reception it received and never published anything on  
quantum mechanics again for the rest of his life; instead he became  
a Dr. Strangelove type character making computer nuclear war games  
and doing grim operational research for the pentagon about armageddon.


Despite his knowledge of the horrors of a nuclear war Everett, like  
most of his fellow cold warrior colleagues in the 50's and 60's,  
thought the probability of Thermonuclear war happening was very high  
and he thought it would probably happen very soon. Although there is  
no record of it I wonder if Everett used anthropic reasoning and  
privately deduced that the fact that we live in a world where such a  
very likely war has not in fact happened was more confirmation that  
his Many Worlds idea was right. And I must say that it is odd, if  
you told me right after Nagasaki that in 68 years nuclear weapons  
would not be used again in anger I would have said you were nuts.


Thanks for not dropping atomic bombs on us, the nuts people.



Perhaps we are in a bizarrely rare offshoot universe where World War  
3 never happened.



This is not entirely impossible, but I am not sure we should bet on  
that.


On the planet ZZi@, every citizen has a personal atomic bomb, fixed in  
his house, and the citizens can make it exploding each day when they  
are not satisfied by the day. By reaction , all other bombs explode  
too. The quantum politicians who favored that politics were hoping  
this would quantum select a reality where everybody is satisfied.
Unfortunately, there was mister Smith who was hating Mister Durand,  
and satisfied only by Durand's non satisfaction. The result is that  
they get into a loop where the same day repeat forever with Mister  
Smith and Mister Durand respective satisfaction. They get into a  
little two days circle, but note that no one ever notice it.


More (or less?) seriously, there is a possibility that the origin of  
life has been partially a quantum suicide kind of game, making sadly  
such an origin or life a rare event, making us rarer, if not unique,  
in the universe. I hope not.
Such an explanation is cheap, and might lead to a form don't try to  
understand, it is just a quantum miracle. Yet, if one day we have  
evidence that we are alone in our cluster of galaxies, that would be  
an evidence for a quantum miracle (rare event).


Bruno




http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: Quantum Suicide and World War 3

[John Mikes]

Everett's daughter was right in the sense of a lithothese
(double negation = positive answer) translated into
   * I don't want to be WITHOUT my father *
The rest is interpretation.
JM

On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 12:14 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote:

 **
 Reminds me of an old short by Larry Niven, called All the Myriad Ways,
 where a police detective tries to uncover why radom murder-suicides are
 happening, (That world is where scientists discover how to travel to
 different Earths) and had discovered one, where the Cuban War was just a
 wet firecracker.

 Everett's daughter committed suicide after Everett died (she was afflicted
 by schitzophrenia) to be with Daddy.

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Quantum Suicide and World War 3

[John Clark]

Perhaps the Quantum Suicide experiment has already been performed and on a
global scale. After Hugh Everett developed the many Worlds interpretation
in his doctoral dissertation he was disappointed at the poor reception it
received and never published anything on quantum mechanics again for the
rest of his life; instead he became a Dr. Strangelove type character making
computer nuclear war games and doing grim operational research for the
pentagon about armageddon.

Despite his knowledge of the horrors of a nuclear war Everett, like most of
his fellow cold warrior colleagues in the 50's and 60's, thought the
probability of Thermonuclear war happening was very high and he thought it
would probably happen very soon. Although there is no record of it I wonder
if Everett used anthropic reasoning and privately deduced that the fact
that we live in a world where such a very likely war has not in fact
happened was more confirmation that his Many Worlds idea was right. And I
must say that it is odd, if you told me right after Nagasaki that in 68
years nuclear weapons would not be used again in anger I would have said
you were nuts. Perhaps we are in a bizarrely rare offshoot universe where
World War 3 never happened.

  John K Clark

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Re: Quantum Suicide and World War 3

[Alberto G. Corona]

Perhaps we must worship Everett. Maybe he is with Einstein in a
superdimensional throne of quarks. Aleluya.


2013/1/10 John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com

 Perhaps the Quantum Suicide experiment has already been performed and on a
 global scale. After Hugh Everett developed the many Worlds interpretation
 in his doctoral dissertation he was disappointed at the poor reception it
 received and never published anything on quantum mechanics again for the
 rest of his life; instead he became a Dr. Strangelove type character making
 computer nuclear war games and doing grim operational research for the
 pentagon about armageddon.

 Despite his knowledge of the horrors of a nuclear war Everett, like most
 of his fellow cold warrior colleagues in the 50's and 60's, thought the
 probability of Thermonuclear war happening was very high and he thought it
 would probably happen very soon. Although there is no record of it I wonder
 if Everett used anthropic reasoning and privately deduced that the fact
 that we live in a world where such a very likely war has not in fact
 happened was more confirmation that his Many Worlds idea was right. And I
 must say that it is odd, if you told me right after Nagasaki that in 68
 years nuclear weapons would not be used again in anger I would have said
 you were nuts. Perhaps we are in a bizarrely rare offshoot universe where
 World War 3 never happened.

   John K Clark

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Alberto.

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Re: Quantum Suicide and World War 3

[meekerdb]

On 1/10/2013 12:43 PM, John Clark wrote:
Perhaps the Quantum Suicide experiment has already been performed and on a global scale. 
After Hugh Everett developed the many Worlds interpretation in his doctoral dissertation 
he was disappointed at the poor reception it received and never published anything on 
quantum mechanics again for the rest of his life; instead he became a Dr. Strangelove 
type character making computer nuclear war games and doing grim operational research for 
the pentagon about armageddon.


Despite his knowledge of the horrors of a nuclear war Everett, like most of his fellow 
cold warrior colleagues in the 50's and 60's, thought the probability of Thermonuclear 
war happening was very high and he thought it would probably happen very soon. Although 
there is no record of it I wonder if Everett used anthropic reasoning and privately 
deduced that the fact that we live in a world where such a very likely war has not in 
fact happened was more confirmation that his Many Worlds idea was right. And I must say 
that it is odd, if you told me right after Nagasaki that in 68 years nuclear weapons 
would not be used again in anger I would have said you were nuts. Perhaps we are in a 
bizarrely rare offshoot universe where World War 3 never happened.


Everett also famously cared little about his personal health and died young (in 
this world).

Brent

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RE: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Jesse Mazer]

  Please, seek medical help. If you're right, you lose nothing and might
  convince at least the psychiatrist you talk to. If I'm right, you get
  cured. It can't do you any harm, but leaving what looks to me like a
  serious illness untreated may well do you some serious harm.
 
 Look, I've already seen a psychiatrist and a priest and a therapist and
 they don't see a problem here. 

How long ago did you see them? Is it possible things have developed somewhat 
since them? You did mention that you told the priest that you're God. But what 
exactly does don't see a problem mean? Presumably the priest didn't actually 
agree that you are God (unless he was a mystically inclined priest who thought 
you were just saying that all of us are God), so do you just mean that the 
priest didn't try to argue you were wrong? Sometimes when people encounter 
someone with a mental problem their instinct may be to try to show empathy and 
to guide the conversation in a more human (less cosmic/grandiose) direction 
rather than trying to dismantle their ideas through argument...

As for the psychiatrist and therapist, did you also try to explain these sorts 
of grand ideas to them? How did they react?

 
 Every animal on this planet has evolved an instinctual means to care for
 its young. Except us. We have no natural instinct. Or do we?
 
 Holy crap. Richard Dawkins doesn't even understand the point of his own
 books. Our sense of humor and our mathematical intuition and our genes
 form an impossible triangular causal loop. Selfish gene, indeed.

Mark, these kinds of sentences and paragraphs are completely solipsistic. Even 
if you have some sort of valid insight, you simply haven't provided enough 
context and intermediate steps of your reasoning to make it possible another 
person could *understand* why you think, for example, that our sense of humor 
and our mathematical intuition and our genes form an impossible triangular 
loop. You're just making a lot of grand pronouncements whose only purpose 
seems to be to express how excited you are about your own brainstorms rather 
than to communicate with other human beings. This is, I think, one of the big 
reasons myself and others get the sense of a mental disorder from your 
posts--disorders like mania and schizophrenia are associated with losing the 
ability to (or no longer caring to) consider the the understanding of other 
people, to consider what background context will be shared enough that it 
doesn't need to be explained and what context is not shared and *does* need to 
be explained (for instance, on this list we can talk of 'quantum immortality' 
without explaining what it means, but with most people you'd have to launch 
into some background about the many-worlds interpretation before using the 
term), in order to communicate in a way that will make some sense to others.

Also, in a person with mania at least, I think this kind of partial 
mindblindness is related to being over-optimistic about the likelihood that 
others have understood/agreed with what you have said...in the case of the 
priest, you seem to have taken his lack of counterarguments as a sort of tacit 
agreement (or at least an acknowledgment that he found sense in your 
arguments), which may not be true at all. Did you ask him (or others you've 
talked to about your ideas) any questions to try to gauge their understanding 
of what you were saying? Along the lines of do you follow or does this make 
sense to you?

 
 Back to the point. We don't have instincts to tell us how to care for our
 young. We rely on culture for that. And culture is still really, really
 young. The memes are just getting started! That's it! Richard Dawkins is
 God, then, because he is the source of the idea of the meme. Whee! What a
 marvelous yet annoying thing God hath made. Can't wait to see what's next.

Another example of the same solipsistic communication style here. *Why* does 
Richard Dawkin's invention of the concept of the meme make him God? It's a 
huge leap of logic and once again you seem to be too excited by your insight to 
bother with filling in any of the intermediate reasoning that might make this 
paragraph meaningful to anyone but yourself (and it doesn't really seem like 
you were thinking of the problem of whether others would understand when you 
wrote it).


  

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RE: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Mark Buda]

I agree with pretty much everything you are saying, Jesse; unfortunately, I 
don't have the time at the moment to respond adequately.

I think it would greatly improve the signal-to-noise ratio on this list if 
everybody else kept quiet on this thread until you read my response to Jesse. 
Please be patient, I have a lot of stuff to do today.

Waiting is. :-)
--nbsp;
Mark Buda lt;her...@acm.orggt;
I get my monkeys for nothing and my chimps for free.


On Jul 19, 2010 9:04 AM, Jesse Mazer lt;laserma...@hotmail.comgt; wrote: 



gt; gt; Please, seek medical help. If you're right, you lose nothing and might
gt; gt; convince at least the psychiatrist you talk to. If I'm right, you get
gt; gt; cured. It can't do you any harm, but leaving what looks to me like a
gt; gt; serious illness untreated may well do you some serious harm.
gt; 
gt; Look, I've already seen a psychiatrist and a priest and a therapist and
gt; they don't see a problem here. 

How long ago did you see them? Is it possible things have developed somewhat 
since them? You did mention that you told the priest that you're God. But what 
exactly does don't see a problem mean? Presumably the priest didn't actually 
agree that you are God (unless he was a mystically inclined priest who thought 
you were just saying that all of us are God), so do you just mean that the 
priest didn't try to argue you were wrong? Sometimes when people encounter 
someone with a mental problem their instinct may be to try to show empathy and 
to guide the conversation in a more human (less cosmic/grandiose) direction 
rather than trying to dismantle their ideas through argument...

As for the psychiatrist and therapist, did you also try to explain these sorts 
of grand ideas to them? How did they react?

gt; 
gt; Every animal on this planet has evolved an instinctual means to care for
gt; its young. Except us. We have no natural instinct. Or do we?
gt; 
gt; Holy crap. Richard Dawkins doesn't even understand the point of his own
gt; books. Our sense of humor and our mathematical intuition and our genes
gt; form an impossible triangular causal loop. Selfish gene, indeed.

Mark, these kinds of sentences and paragraphs are completely solipsistic. Even 
if you have some sort of valid insight, you simply haven't provided enough 
context and intermediate steps of your reasoning to make it possible another 
person could *understand* why you think, for example, that our sense of humor 
and our mathematical intuition and our genes form an impossible triangular 
loop. You're just making a lot of grand pronouncements whose only purpose 
seems to be to express how excited you are about your own brainstorms rather 
than to communicate with other human beings. This is, I think, one of the big 
reasons myself and others get the sense of a mental disorder from your 
posts--disorders like mania and schizophrenia are associated with losing the 
ability to (or no longer caring to) consider the the understanding of other 
people, to consider what background context will be shared enough that it 
doesn't need to be explained and what context is not shared and *does* need to 
be explained (for instance, on this list we can talk of 'quantum immortality' 
without explaining what it means, but with most people you'd have to launch 
into some background about the many-worlds interpretation before using the 
term), in order to communicate in a way that will make some sense to others.

Also, in a person with mania at least, I think this kind of partial 
mindblindness is related to being over-optimistic about the likelihood that 
others have understood/agreed with what you have said...in the case of the 
priest, you seem to have taken his lack of counterarguments as a sort of tacit 
agreement (or at least an acknowledgment that he found sense in your 
arguments), which may not be true at all. Did you ask him (or others you've 
talked to about your ideas) any questions to try to gauge their understanding 
of what you were saying? Along the lines of do you follow or does this make 
sense to you?

gt; 
gt; Back to the point. We don't have instincts to tell us how to care for our
gt; young. We rely on culture for that. And culture is still really, really
gt; young. The memes are just getting started! That's it! Richard Dawkins is
gt; God, then, because he is the source of the idea of the meme. Whee! What a
gt; marvelous yet annoying thing God hath made. Can't wait to see what's next.

Another example of the same solipsistic communication style here. *Why* does 
Richard Dawkin's invention of the concept of the meme make him God? It's a 
huge leap of logic and once again you seem to be too excited by your insight to 
bother with filling in any of the intermediate reasoning that might make this 
paragraph meaningful to anyone but yourself (and it doesn't really seem like 
you were thinking of the problem of whether others would understand when you 
wrote it).


  

RE: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Jesse Mazer]

 Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2010 16:10:23 -0700
 Subject: RE: Civilization-level quantum suicide
 From: her...@acm.org
 To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
 
  Mark, if you're not kidding here I honestly think you may be experiencing
  some kind of mental disorder, perhaps a manic state (good description of
  these kinds of states by Oliver Sacks at
  http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2008/sep/25/a-summer-of-madness/?pagination=false
  ) or even the onset of schizophrenia...please consider seeing a
  psychiatrist, just to check!
 
 I'm not kidding. I understand your concern. If you were to interact with
 me in real time I'd probably seem fairly normal (assuming I wanted to seem
 normal, of course).
 
 But I'm fairly certain now that not only am I not experiencing a mental
 disorder, but that many so-called mental disorders are in fact, um,
 well, I'm not sure how to explain it yet. That's why I want people who
 know about this stuff to talk to me. I can explain schizophrenia. I can
 explain depression. I can explain visions, dreams, hallucinations, and all
 of that stuff. I have figure out the relationship betweeen all the
 disparate fields. I'm a jack of all trades, master of none.

Well, it's impossible to know what's going on with you based on a few email 
messages but it definitely sounds like it could be a manic state to me--this 
sort of grandiosity and boundless confidence in one's own abilities and powers 
is common in mania. I definitely recommend checking out that Oliver Sacks 
article about mania I linked to above as you might recognize aspects of 
yourself in some of the descriptions (often self-descriptions from people in a 
manic state themselves). And having interacted with a friend in a manic state I 
would definitely say they can seem fairly normal if they choose to talk about 
subjects other than the grandiose and cosmic.

Have you been feeling particularly energetic or happy or alive lately? Any 
changes in your sensory experience, like colors and sounds seeming more vivid 
and beautiful? Do your body movements feel more coordinated, graceful, fluid?

From Sacks' article, here's a short description of the onset of mania from a 
manic-depressive psychiatrist:

I was a senior in high school when I had my first attack of 
manic-depressive illness; once the siege began, I lost my mind rather 
rapidly. At first, everything seemed so easy. I raced about like a 
crazed weasel, bubbling with plans and enthusiasms, immersed in sports, 
and staying up all night, night after night, out with friends, reading 
everything that wasn’t nailed down, filling manuscript books with poems 
and fragments of plays, and making expansive, completely unrealistic, 
plans for my future. The world was filled with pleasure and promise; I 
felt great. Not just great, I felt really great. I felt I could 
do anything, that no task was too difficult. My mind seemed clear, 
fabulously focused, and able to make intuitive mathematical leaps that 
had up to that point entirely eluded me. Indeed, they elude me still. 




At that time, however, not only did everything make perfect sense, 
but it all began to fit into a marvelous kind of cosmic relatedness. My 
sense of enchantment with the laws of the natural world caused me to 
fizz over, and I found myself buttonholing my friends to tell them how 
beautiful it all was. They were less than transfixed by my insights into
 the webbings and beauties of the universe, although considerably 
impressed by how exhausting it was to be around my enthusiastic 
ramblings…. Slow down, Kay…. For God’s sake, Kay, slow down.


 
  Of course it could be that you are psychologically normal but have
  just fallen under the sway of some very weird ideas...the fact that
  you can't actually explain these ideas but expect some weird
  synchronicity to occur in the physical presence of others that will
  allow you to convince them of the validity of these ideas is
  suspicious though, it seems like a form of magical thinking.
 
 But it's a testable and falsifiable hypothesis, no?

Sure. Would you consider the possibility that it is some kind of mental 
disorder if you tried to explain your ideas to some people in person and they 
didn't find your ideas coherent? Have you tried explaining them to anyone you 
know already? And on this list Kevin Fischer offered to talk to you on Skype 
for half an hour, I don't know if that would qualify as sufficiently in 
person (if not, can you say what part of the world you live?)
  

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RE: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Mark Buda]

 Well, it's impossible to know what's going on with you based on a few
 email messages but it definitely sounds like it could be a manic state to
 me--this sort of grandiosity and boundless confidence in one's own
 abilities and powers is common in mania.

Of course it is. But note that I'm not claiming any extraordinary powers -
I'm claiming that I know something ineffable, something I cannot explain
to you except by talking to you in person. And even then I can't explain
it - I can just explain part of it. You will have to figure out the rest
on your own. The thing is, the part I can explain is different for
different people. If I don't know what you believe about the world, I
can't make what I know make sense to you, because part of what I know is
literally not true, from your perspective. It's a paradox.

If I'm correct, then there are only two other people in my subjective
universe who can understand the paradox, and I can't even be sure which
people those two are. Because of the nature of the paradox. If I knew who
one of them was, I wouldn't be able to know who the other one was. It's
sort of like the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

Yes, it's exactly like the Heisenberg uncertainly principle. There are
three people in the universe who know what I know. If I interact with
somebody long enough to determine whether they know what I know, that sets
in motion a sequence of events that makes it impossible for me to know who
the other one is. I believe I know who they are, and I can't prove this
knowledge to either one of them without losing one of them. I think. It's
all very complicated, as I said.

 And having interacted with a friend in a manic state I would definitely
 say they can seem fairly normal if they choose to talk about
 subjects other than the grandiose and cosmic.

Because what we call mania is a manifestation of this same paradox in
somebody's psychology and/or brain chemistry, leading them to the eventual
resolution of the paradox in their subjective universe. They'll figure it
out eventually, although it may not appear that way to you.

 Have you been feeling particularly energetic or happy or alive lately?
 Any changes in your sensory experience, like colors and sounds seeming
 more vivid and beautiful? Do your body movements feel more coordinated,
 graceful, fluid?

No, none of that stuff.

 Would you consider the possibility that it is some kind of mental
 disorder if you tried to explain your ideas to some people in person and
 they didn't find your ideas coherent? Have you tried explaining them to
 anyone you know already?

Absolutely. And I've done so. Hell, I told a Catholic priest I was God and
I couldn't get him to admit that anything I was saying didn't make sense.
Although he wasn't sure what to do with the information. I sent email to
the pope last year asking politely what you were supposed to do to inform
the Catholic Church if you had a revelation from God, but I never got an
answer. Having been raised Catholic, I thought it fair to give them
another chance by asking a priest what I was supposed to do. He didn't
know. I talked to him twice. The first time, I couldn't explain it to him,
I just knew that I knew something important. The second time, I went into
more detail. I've figured some more stuff out, I'll probably talk to him
again. I'd rather talk to Richard Dawkins; it'd be easier to explain to
him.

You'd think the church would have some kind of procedure for dealing with
revelations, but apparently they're not as organized as they appear. I
intend to fix that.

 And on this list Kevin Fischer offered to talk to
 you on Skype for half an hour, I don't know if that would qualify as
 sufficiently in person (if not, can you say what part of the world you
 live?)

Yes, but I don't have Skype. If installing Skype and talking to Kevin
Fischer turns out to seem to be the best thing to do, I'll do it then, if
he's still willing.

I live near Washington, DC, USA.
-- 
Mark Buda her...@acm.org
I get my monkeys for nothing and my chimps for free.

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Re: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Quentin Anciaux]

Well...

Did Gene Ray died the other night as you predicted ?

No, then go consult.

Simple as that.

Regards,
Quentin

2010/7/18 Mark Buda her...@acm.org

  Well, it's impossible to know what's going on with you based on a few
  email messages but it definitely sounds like it could be a manic state to
  me--this sort of grandiosity and boundless confidence in one's own
  abilities and powers is common in mania.

 Of course it is. But note that I'm not claiming any extraordinary powers -
 I'm claiming that I know something ineffable, something I cannot explain
 to you except by talking to you in person. And even then I can't explain
 it - I can just explain part of it. You will have to figure out the rest
 on your own. The thing is, the part I can explain is different for
 different people. If I don't know what you believe about the world, I
 can't make what I know make sense to you, because part of what I know is
 literally not true, from your perspective. It's a paradox.

 If I'm correct, then there are only two other people in my subjective
 universe who can understand the paradox, and I can't even be sure which
 people those two are. Because of the nature of the paradox. If I knew who
 one of them was, I wouldn't be able to know who the other one was. It's
 sort of like the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

 Yes, it's exactly like the Heisenberg uncertainly principle. There are
 three people in the universe who know what I know. If I interact with
 somebody long enough to determine whether they know what I know, that sets
 in motion a sequence of events that makes it impossible for me to know who
 the other one is. I believe I know who they are, and I can't prove this
 knowledge to either one of them without losing one of them. I think. It's
 all very complicated, as I said.

  And having interacted with a friend in a manic state I would definitely
  say they can seem fairly normal if they choose to talk about
  subjects other than the grandiose and cosmic.

 Because what we call mania is a manifestation of this same paradox in
 somebody's psychology and/or brain chemistry, leading them to the eventual
 resolution of the paradox in their subjective universe. They'll figure it
 out eventually, although it may not appear that way to you.

  Have you been feeling particularly energetic or happy or alive lately?
  Any changes in your sensory experience, like colors and sounds seeming
  more vivid and beautiful? Do your body movements feel more coordinated,
  graceful, fluid?

 No, none of that stuff.

  Would you consider the possibility that it is some kind of mental
  disorder if you tried to explain your ideas to some people in person and
  they didn't find your ideas coherent? Have you tried explaining them to
  anyone you know already?

 Absolutely. And I've done so. Hell, I told a Catholic priest I was God and
 I couldn't get him to admit that anything I was saying didn't make sense.
 Although he wasn't sure what to do with the information. I sent email to
 the pope last year asking politely what you were supposed to do to inform
 the Catholic Church if you had a revelation from God, but I never got an
 answer. Having been raised Catholic, I thought it fair to give them
 another chance by asking a priest what I was supposed to do. He didn't
 know. I talked to him twice. The first time, I couldn't explain it to him,
 I just knew that I knew something important. The second time, I went into
 more detail. I've figured some more stuff out, I'll probably talk to him
 again. I'd rather talk to Richard Dawkins; it'd be easier to explain to
 him.

 You'd think the church would have some kind of procedure for dealing with
 revelations, but apparently they're not as organized as they appear. I
 intend to fix that.

  And on this list Kevin Fischer offered to talk to
  you on Skype for half an hour, I don't know if that would qualify as
  sufficiently in person (if not, can you say what part of the world you
  live?)

 Yes, but I don't have Skype. If installing Skype and talking to Kevin
 Fischer turns out to seem to be the best thing to do, I'll do it then, if
 he's still willing.

 I live near Washington, DC, USA.
 --
 Mark Buda her...@acm.org
 I get my monkeys for nothing and my chimps for free.

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Re: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Mark Buda]

 Did Gene Ray died the other night as you predicted ?

 No, then go consult.

 Simple as that.

I don't know whether he died or not. Google doesn't seem to know either.
Since none of you seem interested in helping me (and I don't blame you,
but it was worth a shot) I'm going to send him an email later today and
tell him how I understand him and how I am going to bring Cubic Wisdom to
the world. I think he'll like that.

I don't believe in the no-win scenario. :-)
-- 
Mark Buda her...@acm.org
I get my monkeys for nothing and my chimps for free.

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Re: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Bruno Marchal]

Jesse, Mark,


On 18 Jul 2010, at 17:20, Jesse Mazer wrote:



Well, it's impossible to know what's going on with you based on a  
few email messages but it definitely sounds like it could be a manic  
state to me--this sort of grandiosity and boundless confidence in  
one's own abilities and powers is common in mania. I definitely  
recommend checking out that Oliver Sacks article about mania I  
linked to above as you might recognize aspects of yourself in some  
of the descriptions (often self-descriptions from people in a manic  
state themselves). And having interacted with a friend in a manic  
state I would definitely say they can seem fairly normal if they  
choose to talk about subjects other than the grandiose and cosmic.



I concur. My friend did have mania (not schizophrenia). We can't  
conclude anything with Mark, but it looks, to me too, very much like  
symptoms of mania.
At some points anything in the news was interpreted by my friend as  
coincidence confirming his grandiose delirium. The most striking  
similarity here is the certainty feeling, the absence of doubt. As the  
rationalization of all defects of the theory, eventually ending by  
you can't understand but you will see. My friend also tried to  
involve notarious people from academy and media, writing letters, e- 
mail, and being absolutely sure they knew, or would understand.  
Through medication he came back to normal, but he killed himself. He  
was about defending his PhD thesis. I guess it did not bear the  
delusion.


There is a need for serious psychological support in case of  
medication. According to some, it may be better to let manic people to  
live their fantasy, which sometimes can fade away, instead of using  
medication which can lead to a too much sudden shocking awakening.


Mark, we may be wrong, but none of what you said makes very much sense  
for us. Some things you said may make sense, but seems to me humanly  
communicable only through math, fiction, art, poetry, ... and stands  
always very far away from any literal certainty.


Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Mark Buda]

 Mark, we may be wrong, but none of what you said makes very much sense
 for us. Some things you said may make sense, but seems to me humanly
 communicable only through math, fiction, art, poetry, ... and stands
 always very far away from any literal certainty.

I know it doesn't make sense. I understand why it doesn't make sense. And
I understand why that knowledge is not communicable, thanks to Bruno.

Bear with me: the reason nobody can seem to figure this out is that the
truth is a paradox. Anybody who figures out the paradox can't communicate
the nature of the paradox without sounding crazy to *somebody*, because
it's a fucking paradox. It doesn't make sense to you until you have
already understood it, and then it's too late to explain it to anybody,
because they can't understand it any more. Get it? Good grief, even if the
stuff I'm saying taken as a whole doesn't make sense, at least focus on
one piece at a time and you will agree that I'm making perfect sense. I'm
not spouting words at random. I am a very literal-minded person who
chooses his words with great care. Word mean things. Words mean different
things to different people. That is the core of any failure to
communicate. That is why I have to talk to somebody to be able to make
sense to them and explain. I need the nonverbal feedback to be able to
figure out how to explain. All of us use nonverbal communication all the
time without even realizing it. It's unconscious.

I can make sense to Gene Ray because I understand part of what he's trying
to tell the world. But what I say to him would not make sense to you.

I can make sense to a Catholic priest because I was raised Catholic and I
understand the underlying world view. But what I say to him would not make
sense to an atheist.

I can make sense to a physicist because I understand enough of physics to
communicate with him. But what I say to him would not make sense to an
evolutionary biologist.

I can make sense to an evolutionary biologist. Any evolutionary biologist
will do. I have a special personal reason for wanting to contact Richard
Dawkins, because I have something to say to him that I think he wants to
hear. But the reasoning behind my desire to speak to Richard Dawkins is
not something I know how to explain to you, the members of the list,
because I don't know you all well enough to make sense to all of you at
once.

Bruno understands much of what I understand. In fact, everybody
understands part of what I understand. What I understand is God's plan for
the universe, His tricksy mathematical clockwork fractal rollercoaster
ride of life. Ooh, composing that last sentence gave me great insight into
the workings of the schizophrenic mind, but I said it anyway because I
thought it sounded cool.

Trust me. It'll all work out. A good night's rest might help you
understand. And I can even provide you with a plausible explanation of why
that is so.

This is starting to be fun.
-- 
Mark Buda her...@acm.org
I get my monkeys for nothing and my chimps for free.

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Re: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Andrew Hickey]

On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 10:01 PM, Mark Buda her...@acm.org wrote:
 Get it? Good grief, even if the
 stuff I'm saying taken as a whole doesn't make sense, at least focus on
 one piece at a time and you will agree that I'm making perfect sense.

Mark, seriously, you're not. I worked on a psychiatric ward for
several years, and you sound just like the schizophrenic and bipolar
people I dealt with there - many of whom were also convinced they were
making perfect sense when they were trying to explain to me how they
were really Jesus, Harry Potter and Superman in one body.
Please, see a psychiatrist. If nothing else, you could try to convince
*them* of your viewpoint. But I'm seriously worried about your health.


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Re: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Mark Buda]

 On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 10:01 PM, Mark Buda her...@acm.org wrote:
 Get it? Good grief, even if the
 stuff I'm saying taken as a whole doesn't make sense, at least focus on
 one piece at a time and you will agree that I'm making perfect sense.

 Mark, seriously, you're not. I worked on a psychiatric ward for
 several years, and you sound just like the schizophrenic and bipolar
 people I dealt with there - many of whom were also convinced they were
 making perfect sense when they were trying to explain to me how they
 were really Jesus, Harry Potter and Superman in one body.
 Please, see a psychiatrist. If nothing else, you could try to convince
 *them* of your viewpoint. But I'm seriously worried about your health.

You worked on a psychiatric ward but you never understood them. If you had
taken the time to interact with them, one on one, and share their lives
and hopes and dreams, you would have been able to help them figure it out.
That's why marriage is important. Only by two people sharing the same
truth and faith can the species continue, whatever that species or truth
or faith or faith happens to be.

Don't worry. Be happy.
-- 
Mark Buda her...@acm.org
I get my monkeys for nothing and my chimps for free.

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Re: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Andrew Hickey]

On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 10:42 PM, Mark Buda her...@acm.org wrote:

 You worked on a psychiatric ward but you never understood them. If you had
 taken the time to interact with them, one on one, and share their lives
 and hopes and dreams, you would have been able to help them figure it out.

That is precisely what my job was, and what I did do - exceptionally
well, as it happens. I still have former patients see me in the street
and thank me for my help. They were ill, and now they're not. I am
becoming more and more convinced that you are, too. That's in no way a
criticism of you or failing on your part, any more than it would be if
you had a cold or a heart condition.
Please, seek medical help. If you're right, you lose nothing and might
convince at least the psychiatrist you talk to. If I'm right, you get
cured. It can't do you any harm, but leaving what looks to me like a
serious illness untreated may well do you some serious harm.

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Re: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Mark Buda]

 On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 10:42 PM, Mark Buda her...@acm.org wrote:

 You worked on a psychiatric ward but you never understood them. If
 you had taken the time to interact with them, one on one, and share
 their lives and hopes and dreams, you would have been able to help
 them figure it out.

 That is precisely what my job was, and what IY did do - exceptionally
 well, as it happens. I still have former patients see me in the street
 and thank me for my help. They were ill, and now they're not.

Yes, because that's what makes them better. Love. Or whatever you want to
call it. Love is information! Or maybe information flow. Whatever.

 I am becoming more and more convinced that you are, too. That's in no
 way a criticism of you or failing on your part, any more than it would
 be if you had a cold or a heart condition.

I don't take it personally. I understand your position.

 Please, seek medical help. If you're right, you lose nothing and might
 convince at least the psychiatrist you talk to. If I'm right, you get
 cured. It can't do you any harm, but leaving what looks to me like a
 serious illness untreated may well do you some serious harm.

Look, I've already seen a psychiatrist and a priest and a therapist and
they don't see a problem here. Look. listen, and learn:

Every animal on this planet has evolved an instinctual means to care for
its young. Except us. We have no natural instinct. Or do we?

Holy crap. Richard Dawkins doesn't even understand the point of his own
books. Our sense of humor and our mathematical intuition and our genes
form an impossible triangular causal loop. Selfish gene, indeed.

Back to the point. We don't have instincts to tell us how to care for our
young. We rely on culture for that. And culture is still really, really
young. The memes are just getting started! That's it! Richard Dawkins is
God, then, because he is the source of the idea of the meme. Whee! What a
marvelous yet annoying thing God hath made. Can't wait to see what's next.

The evolutionary purpose of religion is as a cultural artifact to guide us
in raising our offspring. We need religion for this reason. That's why we
need faith. We have no fucking idea how to raise our children otherwise.
I've got it!
-- 
Mark Buda her...@acm.org
I get my monkeys for nothing and my chimps for free.

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Re: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Mark Buda]

 On 16 Jul 2010, at 14:13, Mark Buda wrote:

 But the upshot of it is this: I have found out what happens when you
 commit quantum suicide. You discover that you believe a contradiction,
 and that even though nothing about the world has changed, you
 understand the universe.

 That seems very weird.

The whole universe is very weird. Quantum mechanics is weird. Another way
to say what I'm trying to says is that you *can't* commit quantum suicide,
because if you try, something will prevent you. Remember that guy on the
list who claimed to have planned to do it, but stopped because he fell in
love? I know why that happened. That's how it works. That's part of the
plan. You're supposed to fall in love and have children. The universe
works out that way.

 But you have a hard time explaining it.
 Because you discover that you are, in Bruno's terms, a Lobian machine
 interviewing itself for the laws of physics.

 But I am saying this to explain that we can use reason to understand
 where the laws of physics come from. Not to mystified people with a
 lack of explanation.

Bruno, I think the misunderstanding here is that you're thinking that
there's one set of laws of physics. And there isn't. There are no laws.
Reality is bound by rules, but the laws of physics aren't the real rules.
It just looks that way if you take the evidence-based approach to figuring
it out. If you take the faith-based approach to figuring it out, you find
God. It doesn't matter which way you go, it's circular, and you get to
choose.

 They're right and wrong, and I understand why, but I can't explain it,
 and Bruno understands why.

 I guess I have been unclear at some point. I am just a poor scientist
 trying to be honest with myself and the others.

Then there's something I'm assuming you understand that you don't in fact
understand. If we talked I could probably figure out what it was.

 Why do you want to convince Richard Dawkins? You give him credit.

Because I know that I know how to persuade him of the truth based on
evidence *and* emotion. I can prove to him, personally, that I am God, and
that I created the universe. And he will believe it. Because I can show
him a causal loop between the mental world, the physical world, and the
ficional world that explains both intelligent design *and* evolution. I
can show him how man's sense of humor and laughter evolved, and how
they're related to the causal loop. I can show him how love and the idea
of God evolved, and how they're related to the causal loop. I can show him
that Jesus was a real person, and was really God, and that the Catholic
Church he despises is just a bad copy of the real thing, and I can show
him how to fix it. And I can show the church how to fix it. But I have to
do it one day at a time, and I have to do it by *talking* to people, or
it's not worth my effort, because I have my own personal problems, and I
can show how *they* are related to all this. And I can explain how Hari
Seldon's psychohistory worked in Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy,
because I have figured the whole damn thing out.

What it all boils down to, guys, is that the reason marriage counseling
works is that when two people love each other but can't live together they
need a neutral third party to mediate because they can't understand each
other's arguments.

I understand Richard Dawkins and the Catholic Church well enough to get
them talking, if they'll listen to me. I don't know how to get their
attention without ruining my marriage. I'm trapped in God's logic trap.
I've done my best to talk to the Church - I have spent a couple of hours
with a priest, and he seems interested, but I can't figure out how to get
him to do anything helpful.

Is anybody willing to help me? I need help to get this done. I know the
help will come one way or another, but I'm asking the members of the list:
does anybody understand me or want to help me?
-- 
Mark Buda her...@acm.org
I get my monkeys for nothing and my chimps for free.

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RE: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Jesse Mazer]

  Why do you want to convince Richard Dawkins? You give him credit.
 
 Because I know that I know how to persuade him of the truth based on
 evidence *and* emotion. I can prove to him, personally, that I am God, and
 that I created the universe. And he will believe it. Because I can show
 him a causal loop between the mental world, the physical world, and the
 ficional world that explains both intelligent design *and* evolution. I
 can show him how man's sense of humor and laughter evolved, and how
 they're related to the causal loop. I can show him how love and the idea
 of God evolved, and how they're related to the causal loop. I can show him
 that Jesus was a real person, and was really God, and that the Catholic
 Church he despises is just a bad copy of the real thing, and I can show
 him how to fix it. And I can show the church how to fix it. But I have to
 do it one day at a time, and I have to do it by *talking* to people, or
 it's not worth my effort, because I have my own personal problems, and I
 can show how *they* are related to all this. And I can explain how Hari
 Seldon's psychohistory worked in Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy,
 because I have figured the whole damn thing out.
 
 What it all boils down to, guys, is that the reason marriage counseling
 works is that when two people love each other but can't live together they
 need a neutral third party to mediate because they can't understand each
 other's arguments.
 
 I understand Richard Dawkins and the Catholic Church well enough to get
 them talking, if they'll listen to me. I don't know how to get their
 attention without ruining my marriage. I'm trapped in God's logic trap.
 I've done my best to talk to the Church - I have spent a couple of hours
 with a priest, and he seems interested, but I can't figure out how to get
 him to do anything helpful.
 
 Is anybody willing to help me? I need help to get this done. I know the
 help will come one way or another, but I'm asking the members of the list:
 does anybody understand me or want to help me?

Mark, if you're not kidding here I honestly think you may be experiencing some 
kind of mental disorder, perhaps a manic state (good description of these kinds 
of states by Oliver Sacks at 
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2008/sep/25/a-summer-of-madness/?pagination=false
 ) or even the onset of schizophrenia...please consider seeing a psychiatrist, 
just to check! Of course it could be that you are psychologically normal but 
have just fallen under the sway of some very weird ideas...the fact that you 
can't actually explain these ideas but expect some weird synchronicity to occur 
in the physical presence of others that will allow you to convince them of the 
validity of these ideas is suspicious though, it seems like a form of magical 
thinking.
  

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RE: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Mark Buda]

 Mark, if you're not kidding here I honestly think you may be experiencing
 some kind of mental disorder, perhaps a manic state (good description of
 these kinds of states by Oliver Sacks at
 http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2008/sep/25/a-summer-of-madness/?pagination=false
 ) or even the onset of schizophrenia...please consider seeing a
 psychiatrist, just to check!

I'm not kidding. I understand your concern. If you were to interact with
me in real time I'd probably seem fairly normal (assuming I wanted to seem
normal, of course).

But I'm fairly certain now that not only am I not experiencing a mental
disorder, but that many so-called mental disorders are in fact, um,
well, I'm not sure how to explain it yet. That's why I want people who
know about this stuff to talk to me. I can explain schizophrenia. I can
explain depression. I can explain visions, dreams, hallucinations, and all
of that stuff. I have figure out the relationship betweeen all the
disparate fields. I'm a jack of all trades, master of none. I don't have
specialized knowledge of much of anything except computers, but I am a
self-organizing autodidact who has figured it all out so can somebody
*please* talk to me?

 Of course it could be that you are psychologically normal but have
 just fallen under the sway of some very weird ideas...the fact that
 you can't actually explain these ideas but expect some weird
 synchronicity to occur in the physical presence of others that will
 allow you to convince them of the validity of these ideas is
 suspicious though, it seems like a form of magical thinking.

But it's a testable and falsifiable hypothesis, no?

The reason the explanation of reality sounds crazy is that the precise
form of the explanation depends on who is doing the explaining to whom.
That's why you can't write it down. It can't all make sense at the same
time to the same person, unless you're me. Got it? That's why you need me.
You can't get the answers any other way.

I think. It's really rather confusing.
-- 
Mark Buda her...@acm.org
I get my monkeys for nothing and my chimps for free.

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Re: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Kevin Fischer]

I'm not kidding. I understand your concern

It's also statistically more likely if you're a male between 18-25... that's
when these sorts of brain farts are most common. It doesn't mean you're
crazy, but the most important step to understanding what you're thinking is
to understand that you're stuck in a set of thought patterns that is
different than your normal thought patterns.

You did post a testable prediction though -- that Gene Ray of Time Cube will
die today. Let's say that today means within 24 hours of your post.

If Gene Ray does die today, that would be reasonable evidence that you're
onto *something* here, but I would want to see three predictions like that
in a row to be sure. If he doesn't die today, would you accept that as
evidence that you have not developed superpowers of super understanding? If
Gene Ray doesn't die, the rational thing to do will be to accept your
failure and calmly move on, rather than come up with some complex reason to
rationalize it.

If you do need to talk to someone, I'm willing to talk to you via video on
Skype for 30 minutes or so. Send me an email off-list.

On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 7:10 PM, Mark Buda her...@acm.org wrote:

  Mark, if you're not kidding here I honestly think you may be experiencing
  some kind of mental disorder, perhaps a manic state (good description of
  these kinds of states by Oliver Sacks at
 
 http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2008/sep/25/a-summer-of-madness/?pagination=false
  ) or even the onset of schizophrenia...please consider seeing a
  psychiatrist, just to check!

 I'm not kidding. I understand your concern. If you were to interact with
 me in real time I'd probably seem fairly normal (assuming I wanted to seem
 normal, of course).

 But I'm fairly certain now that not only am I not experiencing a mental
 disorder, but that many so-called mental disorders are in fact, um,
 well, I'm not sure how to explain it yet. That's why I want people who
 know about this stuff to talk to me. I can explain schizophrenia. I can
 explain depression. I can explain visions, dreams, hallucinations, and all
 of that stuff. I have figure out the relationship betweeen all the
 disparate fields. I'm a jack of all trades, master of none. I don't have
 specialized knowledge of much of anything except computers, but I am a
 self-organizing autodidact who has figured it all out so can somebody
 *please* talk to me?

  Of course it could be that you are psychologically normal but have
  just fallen under the sway of some very weird ideas...the fact that
  you can't actually explain these ideas but expect some weird
  synchronicity to occur in the physical presence of others that will
  allow you to convince them of the validity of these ideas is
  suspicious though, it seems like a form of magical thinking.

 But it's a testable and falsifiable hypothesis, no?

 The reason the explanation of reality sounds crazy is that the precise
 form of the explanation depends on who is doing the explaining to whom.
 That's why you can't write it down. It can't all make sense at the same
 time to the same person, unless you're me. Got it? That's why you need me.
 You can't get the answers any other way.

 I think. It's really rather confusing.
 --
 Mark Buda her...@acm.org
 I get my monkeys for nothing and my chimps for free.

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Re: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Mark Buda]

I'm not kidding. I understand your concern

 It's also statistically more likely if you're a male between 18-25...

Statistics govern groups. I am an individual. I am 42. As was my father
when I was born. What an interesting coincidence. Not.

 You did post a testable prediction though -- that Gene Ray of Time Cube
 will die today. Let's say that today means within 24 hours of your post.

Sure.

 If Gene Ray does die today, that would be reasonable evidence that you're
 onto *something* here, but I would want to see three predictions like that
 in a row to be sure.

Not only do I predict Gene Ray's death, but I can show you the
relationship between Time Cube and string theory! I am not making this up.
Why would I make this up?

 If he doesn't die today, would you accept that as
 evidence that you have not developed superpowers of super understanding?

I'm not claiming super powers of super understanding. In fact, it is pure
random luck that I happen to be in this position. I think.

 If Gene Ray doesn't die, the rational thing to do will be to accept your
 failure and calmly move on, rather than come up with some complex reason
 to rationalize it.

It wasn't some kind of ironclad guarantee. It was just a prediction. Based
on intuition, mainly.
-- 
Mark Buda her...@acm.org
I get my monkeys for nothing and my chimps for free.

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Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Mark Buda]

I came across this link some time ago and found it interesting:

http://www.paul-almond.com/CivilizationLevelQuantumSuicide.htm

In fact, I believe it is what introduced me to the term quantum
suicide. I had been googling something I had been thinking about in
the shower one day and to my surprise this guy had written a paper
about it. What an amazing coincidence. My life since then has been an
increasingly bizarre series of meaningful coincidences. Meaningful in
a personal way that I can't explain easily. Bruno understands and can
explain why I can't explain; it's to do with his G and G* logics.

But the upshot of it is this: I have found out what happens when you
commit quantum suicide. You discover that you believe a contradiction,
and that even though nothing about the world has changed, you
understand the universe. But you have a hard time explaining it.
Because you discover that you are, in Bruno's terms, a Lobian machine
interviewing itself for the laws of physics. But you can't get the
laws of physics yourself, even though you have all the answers.
Because you don't care any more - you have a different motivation. You
understand that since you have all the answers but none of the
questions, you need to talk to people. You figure out the right people
to talk to because your intuition guides you, because that's what it's
for.

There are people all around the world killing themselves and each
other for crazy reasons. Suicide bombers, for instance. People who
read stuff about the 2012 Mayan calendar thing and kill themselves
because they think the end of the world is coming.

They're right and wrong, and I understand why, but I can't explain it,
and Bruno understands why. But all that stuff happening around the
world is happening for a reason, and it doesn't matter what you - you
can't stop it. Neither can I. But you can listen to this and think
about it, and do whatever you feel like doing: you will anyway.

If any of you can help me contact Richard Dawkins and talk to him, I
can explain all of this. I can explain all of it to anybody if they're
willing to talk to me. But I have to talk face to face, because it's
too hard for me, psychologically, to figure out how to put it in
writing or over the phone, because a lot of human communication is non-
verbal, and there's an evolutionary reason for that which is part of
the whole thing.

Perhaps I sound mad, but I have a testable prediction: if I don't
contact Richard Dawkins, sooner or later somebody, somewhere is going
to be researching the 2012 Mayan calendar thing and be led, by an
amazing chain of coincidences, to me. And I can explain how that
works.

Bruno, when you read this, you are literally an angel of God. Figure
out who you need to talk to next. I certainly don't know. Maybe it's
me. Whatever works for you.

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Re: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Quentin Anciaux]

Well your posts were funny for five minutes... but you know what ?

T'es lourd !

Bye.

2010/7/16 Mark Buda her...@acm.org

 I came across this link some time ago and found it interesting:

 http://www.paul-almond.com/CivilizationLevelQuantumSuicide.htm

 In fact, I believe it is what introduced me to the term quantum
 suicide. I had been googling something I had been thinking about in
 the shower one day and to my surprise this guy had written a paper
 about it. What an amazing coincidence. My life since then has been an
 increasingly bizarre series of meaningful coincidences. Meaningful in
 a personal way that I can't explain easily. Bruno understands and can
 explain why I can't explain; it's to do with his G and G* logics.

 But the upshot of it is this: I have found out what happens when you
 commit quantum suicide. You discover that you believe a contradiction,
 and that even though nothing about the world has changed, you
 understand the universe. But you have a hard time explaining it.
 Because you discover that you are, in Bruno's terms, a Lobian machine
 interviewing itself for the laws of physics. But you can't get the
 laws of physics yourself, even though you have all the answers.
 Because you don't care any more - you have a different motivation. You
 understand that since you have all the answers but none of the
 questions, you need to talk to people. You figure out the right people
 to talk to because your intuition guides you, because that's what it's
 for.

 There are people all around the world killing themselves and each
 other for crazy reasons. Suicide bombers, for instance. People who
 read stuff about the 2012 Mayan calendar thing and kill themselves
 because they think the end of the world is coming.

 They're right and wrong, and I understand why, but I can't explain it,
 and Bruno understands why. But all that stuff happening around the
 world is happening for a reason, and it doesn't matter what you - you
 can't stop it. Neither can I. But you can listen to this and think
 about it, and do whatever you feel like doing: you will anyway.

 If any of you can help me contact Richard Dawkins and talk to him, I
 can explain all of this. I can explain all of it to anybody if they're
 willing to talk to me. But I have to talk face to face, because it's
 too hard for me, psychologically, to figure out how to put it in
 writing or over the phone, because a lot of human communication is non-
 verbal, and there's an evolutionary reason for that which is part of
 the whole thing.

 Perhaps I sound mad, but I have a testable prediction: if I don't
 contact Richard Dawkins, sooner or later somebody, somewhere is going
 to be researching the 2012 Mayan calendar thing and be led, by an
 amazing chain of coincidences, to me. And I can explain how that
 works.

 Bruno, when you read this, you are literally an angel of God. Figure
 out who you need to talk to next. I certainly don't know. Maybe it's
 me. Whatever works for you.

 --
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All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

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Re: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Bruno Marchal]

On 16 Jul 2010, at 14:13, Mark Buda wrote:


I came across this link some time ago and found it interesting:

http://www.paul-almond.com/CivilizationLevelQuantumSuicide.htm

In fact, I believe it is what introduced me to the term quantum
suicide. I had been googling something I had been thinking about in
the shower one day and to my surprise this guy had written a paper
about it. What an amazing coincidence. My life since then has been an
increasingly bizarre series of meaningful coincidences. Meaningful in
a personal way that I can't explain easily. Bruno understands and can
explain why I can't explain; it's to do with his G and G* logics.


This is on the fringe of authoritative argument.




But the upshot of it is this: I have found out what happens when you
commit quantum suicide. You discover that you believe a contradiction,
and that even though nothing about the world has changed, you
understand the universe.


That seems very weird.



But you have a hard time explaining it.
Because you discover that you are, in Bruno's terms, a Lobian machine
interviewing itself for the laws of physics.


But I am saying this to explain that we can use reason to understand  
where the laws of physics come from. Not to mystified people with a  
lack of explanation.




But you can't get the
laws of physics yourself, even though you have all the answers.


On the contrary: you can. Everyone can. You cannot besure because you  
cannot know that you are correct, so the usual doubt of the cartesian  
scientist remains. Computationalism explains in detail why any form of  
certainty, when made public, is a symptom of non correctness.




Because you don't care any more - you have a different motivation. You
understand that since you have all the answers but none of the
questions,


I don't see any sense here.



you need to talk to people. You figure out the right people
to talk to because your intuition guides you, because that's what it's
for.

There are people all around the world killing themselves and each
other for crazy reasons. Suicide bombers, for instance. People who
read stuff about the 2012 Mayan calendar thing and kill themselves
because they think the end of the world is coming.


2012 is the year of the election in France. The Maya consider their  
own prediction as a prediction that some reasonable man will arrive.  
They never talk of apocalypse. 2012 is like prohibition: making  
money by selling fears.





They're right and wrong, and I understand why, but I can't explain it,
and Bruno understands why.


I guess I have been unclear at some point. I am just a poor scientist  
trying to be honest with myself and the others.




But all that stuff happening around the
world is happening for a reason, and it doesn't matter what you - you
can't stop it. Neither can I. But you can listen to this and think
about it, and do whatever you feel like doing: you will anyway.

If any of you can help me contact Richard Dawkins and talk to him, I
can explain all of this.


Why do you want to convince Richard Dawkins? You give him credit.  
Actually you do his very own error, because when Dawkins try to  
convince the Christians that they are wrong on God, he gives them  
credit on their notion of God. No one care about fairy tales, once we  
tackle the fundamental question with the scientific (= modest,  
hypotheses-based) approach.





I can explain all of it to anybody if they're
willing to talk to me. But I have to talk face to face, because it's
too hard for me, psychologically, to figure out how to put it in
writing or over the phone, because a lot of human communication is  
non-

verbal, and there's an evolutionary reason for that which is part of
the whole thing.


Restrain yourself to communicate what is communicable. And just hope  
that the people will figure out by themselves what is not communicable  
yet true (like consciousness to take the simplest candidate).





Perhaps I sound mad, but I have a testable prediction: if I don't
contact Richard Dawkins, sooner or later somebody, somewhere is going
to be researching the 2012 Mayan calendar thing and be led, by an
amazing chain of coincidences, to me.


I don't believe in coincidence. Or better I believe coincidences are  
just that: coincidences. The brain has an habit to over-interpret  
coincidences, and if you search them, you will find more and more, and  
you will take the risk of believing anything, that is to become  
inconsistent. The prohibition of drugs is based on similar form of  
unsound reasoning.





And I can explain how that
works.

Bruno, when you read this, you are literally an angel of God. Figure
out who you need to talk to next. I certainly don't know. Maybe it's
me. Whatever works for you.



I talk to universal machines, because I know everyone is at least such  
a machine, and this is used for showing that what I say can be  
understood by any one having enough patience and good-willingness.


I am not for introducing

SV: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Lennart Nilsson]

Now, Mark Buda is either sarcastic or mad. I think he is pulling your leg
here Bruno.

-Ursprungligt meddelande-
Från: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-l...@googlegroups.com] För Bruno Marchal
Skickat: den 16 juli 2010 16:06
Till: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Ämne: Re: Civilization-level quantum suicide


On 16 Jul 2010, at 14:13, Mark Buda wrote:

 I came across this link some time ago and found it interesting:

 http://www.paul-almond.com/CivilizationLevelQuantumSuicide.htm

 In fact, I believe it is what introduced me to the term quantum
 suicide. I had been googling something I had been thinking about in
 the shower one day and to my surprise this guy had written a paper
 about it. What an amazing coincidence. My life since then has been an
 increasingly bizarre series of meaningful coincidences. Meaningful in
 a personal way that I can't explain easily. Bruno understands and can
 explain why I can't explain; it's to do with his G and G* logics.

This is on the fringe of authoritative argument.



 But the upshot of it is this: I have found out what happens when you
 commit quantum suicide. You discover that you believe a contradiction,
 and that even though nothing about the world has changed, you
 understand the universe.

That seems very weird.


 But you have a hard time explaining it.
 Because you discover that you are, in Bruno's terms, a Lobian machine
 interviewing itself for the laws of physics.

But I am saying this to explain that we can use reason to understand  
where the laws of physics come from. Not to mystified people with a  
lack of explanation.


 But you can't get the
 laws of physics yourself, even though you have all the answers.

On the contrary: you can. Everyone can. You cannot besure because you  
cannot know that you are correct, so the usual doubt of the cartesian  
scientist remains. Computationalism explains in detail why any form of  
certainty, when made public, is a symptom of non correctness.


 Because you don't care any more - you have a different motivation. You
 understand that since you have all the answers but none of the
 questions,

I don't see any sense here.


 you need to talk to people. You figure out the right people
 to talk to because your intuition guides you, because that's what it's
 for.

 There are people all around the world killing themselves and each
 other for crazy reasons. Suicide bombers, for instance. People who
 read stuff about the 2012 Mayan calendar thing and kill themselves
 because they think the end of the world is coming.

2012 is the year of the election in France. The Maya consider their  
own prediction as a prediction that some reasonable man will arrive.  
They never talk of apocalypse. 2012 is like prohibition: making  
money by selling fears.



 They're right and wrong, and I understand why, but I can't explain it,
 and Bruno understands why.

I guess I have been unclear at some point. I am just a poor scientist  
trying to be honest with myself and the others.


 But all that stuff happening around the
 world is happening for a reason, and it doesn't matter what you - you
 can't stop it. Neither can I. But you can listen to this and think
 about it, and do whatever you feel like doing: you will anyway.

 If any of you can help me contact Richard Dawkins and talk to him, I
 can explain all of this.

Why do you want to convince Richard Dawkins? You give him credit.  
Actually you do his very own error, because when Dawkins try to  
convince the Christians that they are wrong on God, he gives them  
credit on their notion of God. No one care about fairy tales, once we  
tackle the fundamental question with the scientific (= modest,  
hypotheses-based) approach.



 I can explain all of it to anybody if they're
 willing to talk to me. But I have to talk face to face, because it's
 too hard for me, psychologically, to figure out how to put it in
 writing or over the phone, because a lot of human communication is  
 non-
 verbal, and there's an evolutionary reason for that which is part of
 the whole thing.

Restrain yourself to communicate what is communicable. And just hope  
that the people will figure out by themselves what is not communicable  
yet true (like consciousness to take the simplest candidate).



 Perhaps I sound mad, but I have a testable prediction: if I don't
 contact Richard Dawkins, sooner or later somebody, somewhere is going
 to be researching the 2012 Mayan calendar thing and be led, by an
 amazing chain of coincidences, to me.

I don't believe in coincidence. Or better I believe coincidences are  
just that: coincidences. The brain has an habit to over-interpret  
coincidences, and if you search them, you will find more and more, and  
you will take the risk of believing anything, that is to become  
inconsistent. The prohibition of drugs is based on similar form of  
unsound reasoning.



 And I can explain how that
 works.

 Bruno, when you read this, you are literally

Re: SV: Civilization-level quantum suicide

[Mark Buda]

 Now, Mark Buda is either sarcastic or mad. I think he is pulling your leg
 here Bruno.

No. I am being completely serious. I may be mad. I don't think I am. I
think I am the most rational human being on the planet right now, and I
think if you were to talk to me I could convince you of that. I think all
the 2012 Mayan calendar stuff is related to the technological singularity
and to my personal life and to the recent gamma ray burst that blinded the
NASA satellite. I think I can explain it all.

I think you had better pray I'm right. I've been struggling to figure out
what's been going on around me for over a year, and I've finally got it
worked out. I just need to tell the world. Or not. Because it's going to
happen either way, and I don't care.

I have a lot of ideas about what might happen. I don't know which of them
are true because any of them could be and I'm just one guy. I have all the
answers and none of the questions, because I no longer have free will. Or
I'm the only one left with free will, take your pick. Or ignore me. But
the problem is not going away. Something odd is going on.

Would you like to know what I think a civilization-level quantum suicide
event might look like? I think it might look like people killing
themselves and others for reasons inspired by religious fervor and fear
over all the crazy stories flying around about what might happen in 2012.
Civilizations don't kill people, people kill people. When you're *in* the
civilization approaching the technological singularity, it doesn't look
like the one world government has decided to blow up the planet to get
infinite computing power.

It looks like the end of the world.

You can believe whatever you like; you will anyway. I'm pretty certain it
will just *look* like the end of the world to a lot of people.

Nothing is as seems, even when it is.
-- 
Mark Buda her...@acm.org
I get my monkeys for nothing and my chimps for free.

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Quantum suicide and immortality

[ZeroSum]

The Wiki article Quantum suicide and immortality (http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_immortality) states:

Also, the philosopher David Lewis, in How Many Lives Has
Schrödinger's Cat?, remarked that in the vast majority of the worlds
in which an immortal observer might find himself (i.e. the subset of
quantum-possible worlds in which the observer does not die), he will
survive, but will be terribly maimed. This is because in each of the
scenarios typically given in thought experiments (nuclear bombing,
Russian roulette, etc.), for every world in which the observer
survives unscathed, there are likely to be far more worlds in which
the observer survives terribly disfigured, badly disabled, and so on.
It is for this reason, Lewis concludes, that we ought to hope that the
many-worlds interpretation is false.

David Lewis' statement cuts to the core of the nature of
consciousness. If each conscious observer on planet Earth (and let's
assume the laws of physics don't limit consciousness to humans but
includes any sentient animal life form) exists in Many Worlds (see
Wiki topic on physicist Hugh Everett III at 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Everett)
then Houston, we've got a problem.

The human population alone is over 6 billion conscious observers. Each
observer can cause branching into an unfathomably huge number of
parallel universes (or perhaps an infinite number). Everyone else, in
addition to an incomprehensibly large number of people only born in
some parallel universes, branches into their own parallel universes,
extrapolating logically from the Many Worlds theory. Each one of us
is essentially forced to consciously exist in parallel universes that
continue coming into existence as the result of the actions of every
other conscious observer on this planet. Include conscious non-human
observers (animal and who knows what else) and Houston, we've got a
really big problem... or is it really a problem?

Instead of using this line of thinking to debunk the Many Worlds
interpretation, I think this isn't such a big problem as it initially
appears.

For one thing, consider sleep walking.

Sleep walkers can appear conscious, carry on conversations, drive
automobiles and operate machinery, essentially do things they can do
in the awake state. Only when they're sleep walking, they do not
remember those minutes or hours they did all these things. In essence
they fast forwarded through those events, even though other
observers may have carried on coversations with them, witnessed them
driving an automobile or doing other things, all the time thinking
these sleepwalkers were wide awake and conscious.

Suppose our existences in parallel universes is similar to if we were
sleepwalking? Suppose we are not conscious observers in those parallel
universes, but other conscious observers believe we are conscious as
well? Suppose others in this parallel universe we are in, are
similarly sleepwalking in that they are not conscious in this parallel
universe (but are conscious in another)? That leads to interesting
possibilities and questions. Do we somehow choose the parallel
universe where we are consciously present and awake? Do people close
to us likely choose to be present and conscious in the same parallel
universe we are present and conscious in, so in our relationship with
them, we're not talking to someone who is sleepwalking and really not
conscious? When we are in a parallel universe where we are not
consciously present, does this mean the human brain operates the body
like a biological machine, similarly to unconscious human-like
androids in the movie I, Robot that one could swear are real
sentient people?

The questions snowball along this line of thinking, as one wonders if
our consciousness moves from one parallel universe to another? If we
don't like our lives or the way the world has become, could our
consciousness latch on to another more favorable timeline while the
sleepwalking unconscious version of ourselves continues in the
parallel universe we consciously departed from? What mechanism causes
this change? Is it intensely wishing for a different outcome in our
lives, or a different world where the recession ended?

If each observer on this planet is capable of spawning branching
parallel universes, are there unconscious sleepwalking versions of us
in an infinite number of timelines? This leads to a very scary
question, could our consciousness wake up in some bazaar timeline
caused by other conscious observers, a place where we do not want to
exist? When we open our eyes in the darkness of our bedrooms, look at
the clock radio and breathe a sigh of relief that we were only
dreaming, is it possible what we just experienced wasn't a dream but a
conscious observance looking at another parallel universe from the
perspective of Schrödinger's Cat?


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Re: Quantum suicide and immortality

[Stathis Papaioannou]

2009/5/10 ZeroSum ing...@usa.net:

 David Lewis' statement cuts to the core of the nature of
 consciousness. If each conscious observer on planet Earth (and let's
 assume the laws of physics don't limit consciousness to humans but
 includes any sentient animal life form) exists in Many Worlds (see
 Wiki topic on physicist Hugh Everett III at 
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Everett)
 then Houston, we've got a problem.

 The human population alone is over 6 billion conscious observers. Each
 observer can cause branching into an unfathomably huge number of
 parallel universes (or perhaps an infinite number). Everyone else, in
 addition to an incomprehensibly large number of people only born in
 some parallel universes, branches into their own parallel universes,
 extrapolating logically from the Many Worlds theory. Each one of us
 is essentially forced to consciously exist in parallel universes that
 continue coming into existence as the result of the actions of every
 other conscious observer on this planet. Include conscious non-human
 observers (animal and who knows what else) and Houston, we've got a
 really big problem... or is it really a problem?

 Instead of using this line of thinking to debunk the Many Worlds
 interpretation, I think this isn't such a big problem as it initially
 appears.

 For one thing, consider sleep walking.

I don't really understand what the problem is. That there are many
world in the MWI is already a given. Consciousness and quantum
immortality experiments don't create any more worlds than there
otherwise would be. In the multiverse as a whole, only a very small
number of worlds contain versions of you who survived a direct nuclear
blast. In almost all the worlds, you have died.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Quantum suicide and immortality

[Brent Meeker]

ZeroSum wrote:
 The Wiki article Quantum suicide and immortality (http://
 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_immortality) states:
 
 Also, the philosopher David Lewis, in How Many Lives Has
 Schrödinger's Cat?, remarked that in the vast majority of the worlds
 in which an immortal observer might find himself (i.e. the subset of
 quantum-possible worlds in which the observer does not die), he will
 survive, but will be terribly maimed. This is because in each of the
 scenarios typically given in thought experiments (nuclear bombing,
 Russian roulette, etc.), for every world in which the observer
 survives unscathed, there are likely to be far more worlds in which
 the observer survives terribly disfigured, badly disabled, and so on.

I think this is just a misinterpretation of the physics. All those scenarios 
and 
their effects are essentially classical.  In Julian Barbour's metaphor they are 
all strands in the same branch and are classically indistinguishable.  Since 
the 
brain is a classical information processor, they all correspond to the same 
conscious stream.  Since classically you are either killed or not, or maimed or 
not, there is are not huge numbers of worlds in which you are maimed to 
different degrees that are consciously distinct.

Brent

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Quantum Suicide as a video game

[Ron Hale-Evans]

This is extremely gratifying. Readers of Greg Egan's novel Quarantine
would also like this.

http://msm.grumpybumpers.com/?p=20

-- 
Ron Hale-Evans ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] ... http://ron.ludism.org/ ... (206) 
201-1768
Mind Performance Hacks book: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mindperfhks/
Center for Ludic Synergy: http://www.ludism.org/
(revilous life proving aye the death of ronaldses when winpower wine has
bucked the kick on poor won man)

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Botanical Entheogenic Mechanism (Was: Re: Making money via quantum suicide)

[Bruno Marchal]

On 27 Jun 2008, at 20:52, Tom Caylor wrote:




 On Jun 8, 2:43 pm, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 On 06 Jun 2008, at 23:35, Tom Caylor wrote:
 ...
 One consistent configuration is that we are all immortal and that  
 part
 of this immortal being is something that is outside of what we can
 observe scientifically, including other persons' deaths.

 I am with you. But we can address scientifically the question does
 self-introspecting machine refer correctly to something they can
 recognize as being something they cannot observe in a third person
 communicable (scientific, objective) way and yet still *know* that
 they can make the experience of it (for example through prays,
 reflexion, meditation, 1-self-introspection, starvation, accidents,
 drugs, or some other (hopefully) genuine 3-self-manipulations, ...)?

 Bruno

 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

 If the basis of everything is a Person, then this can make my above
 statement make sense.





Yes. As I said. Although perhaps from different motivation or reason.
But as you know the platonist (who believes in A V ~A) universal (who  
believes in all true Sigma_1 sentences) Lobian (who knows that)  
machine has three unique Gods available for her.

- The ONE, Plato's notion of Truth, which has to be searched for, and  
which can hardly be said to be a person, at least a priori. For each  
machine such a truth is unnameable or non definable by the machine.

- The INTELLIGIBLE, which splits into two (its terrestrial part,  
described respectively by G and its divine part described by G* , at  
the level of propositional logic). The terrestrial part is a sort of  
cold, objective, scientific, person. The divine part, is not so easily  
amenable to personhood. The universal machine and Plotinus agree that  
this is a difficult question!  Aristotle is very ambiguous here, imo.

- The SOUL, or universal self or universal mind. It is the knower, the  
unnameable self,  (the one described by the logic S4Grz). This one is  
the closer to the notion of God as a person. Perhaps even the  
*unique* person (yet an open problem here). But it is closer to the  
eastern notion of God, than to the western notion. it is the one you  
can recognize within. The one about which Alan Watts talked about in  
most of its book, including Beyond Theology, The Book, Joyous  
Cosmology, for examples. He is the subject of first person immortality.

They are dream technics which can help you to remember, by,  
curiously enough perhaps, forgetting everything else.
And there are plants which can accelerate the process (like Alan watts  
explained in Joyous cosmology). This leads to a Botanical form of  
entheogenic computationalism, where you say yes to the doctor-plant!  
Entheogen: means reveals the God within.
Actually, those who find Plotinus' way of talking a bit laborious or  
those who dislike his vocabulary, can read as well the trip reports of  
entheogenic experiences. This is especially clear with the trips made  
under Salvia Divinorum. See for example:
http://www.sagewisdom.org/experiences.html
Personally I have used mainly cafeine, (and sometimes other stuff) for  
helping to generate realistic-enough dream's state, when it does not  
prevent sleep altogether (!). See my chapter on Dreams in Conscience  
et Mécanisme: Le cerveau, le rêve et la réalité  if you want more  
on dreams as a mean to get altered state of consciousness for the  
purpose of illustrating the UD proof. Cafeine does not help for  
getting the amnesia, alas, but the amnesia  can be prepared by some  
yoga or meditation exercises. A minimal understanding of the notion of  
dream is of course an important prerequisite to get the sixth step of  
the UDA.
I don't recommand you to try Salvia Divinorum though, but if you do,  
verify it is legal in your country. It is illegal in Australia,  
Belgium, South Korea and in some US states.
In case you do, follow the user's manual:  The User's Guide in PDF  
format.  I could come back on this one day.
Of course the UDA pill is enough to get the things scientifically,  
that is in the modest (based on sharable theory) and communicable  
(polite) manner. But some experience with consciousness could help a  
lot, I guess.
Or (re)read directly Plato and Plotinus, or perhaps any mystic.


 Can we really have a scientific understanding
 of a person?



It depends what you mean by scientific understanding. We never  
understand our theories, that is why we invent them. Scientific  
understanding is always reduction of set of beliefs into other set of  
beliefs. We understand only trivially the initial chosen beliefs.






 This would by definition be one person having a
 scientific understanding of their relationship to another person.



I think you are confusing two levels. We can build a theory (and  
indeed all comp theories are necessary like that) where we can, after  
choosing some axiomatic for the notion of person, explain why we  
cannot 

Re: Making money via quantum suicide

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi jal278,


Le 23-juin-08, à 19:08, jal278 a écrit :


 First time post.


You are welcome.


 Would it be possible to use the principles of QS as
 an oracle? E.g. buy a lotto ticket before taking a flight, with the
 intention
 that if you win some improbable amount in the lotto you do not take
 the flight.
 Perhaps this flight was extremely likely to crash and your odds of
 survival are slim.
 Would then your observer moment be more likely in the universe where
 you win
 some improbable amount (odds 1:10,000 maybe) in the lotto? This could
 apply
 to any potentially dangerous choice you might make.


I think you make things a bit complex. Any decisions based on quantum 
choices will in the long run makes you believe it has helped you to 
live longer. But with QI this is not even necessary. Nor do I think 
being very old on branch is something we should wish ...
Now, if you want, you could already exploit quantum superstition by 
selling quantum choice devices, here and now, ... to make money ...


 Similarly, assuming that QI is true, the survival probabilities at the
 end cases (where you
 are 150 yrs old) would get to be incredibly small, such that perhaps
 healthy decisions
 made when you are younger (i.e. never smoke, keep fit) would *greatly*
 increase those probabilities
  (maybe even to 10^7 or in the range needed to win the lottery).
 So, if you have unhealthy habits that you have no intention of
 stopping, but bought a lotto
 ticket with the intention of never drinking/smoking again if you won
 some improbable amount,
 it seems that your observer moment might be more likely in the
 universe where you win.

Hmmm... I don't like any precaution principle, and here you are 
advocating a sort of quantum precaution principle. I am not convinced.



 My understanding of QI and the way that observer moments are chosen
 may be mistaken,
 just an idea I wanted to throw out before I gave the latter a try
 (since there is really nothing to lose like
 in QS).


The truth is that concerning immortality and Observer Moments 
selection (the recurring thema of this list), there are many open 
problems, so it is hard and perhaps premature to think about it in term 
of practical decision. I will say more on first person immortality in a 
post to Tom Caylor some day (I am still a bit busy). Third person 
immortality, i.e. very long life could make sense only if we forget 
somehow how long it is, redundancies, etc. ... but feel free to send us 
your latter try.

Bruno




 On Jun 5, 9:28 am, Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Forgive me if the following comment is ill-thought through as this is
 my first post to the group.

 It appears to me that, assuming QS is true, I should bet some
 reasonably substantial amount of cash at the local bookies that I will
 live to 110 or 120 years of age. Of course I will be around to collect
 it given QS. This does assume the bookies is still around to pay for
 it!

 Any thoughts/flames appreciated.

 Lawrence
 

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

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Re: Making money via quantum suicide

[Brent Meeker]

Bruno Marchal wrote:
 Hi jal278,
...
 Similarly, assuming that QI is true, the survival probabilities at the
 end cases (where you
 are 150 yrs old) would get to be incredibly small, such that perhaps
 healthy decisions
 made when you are younger (i.e. never smoke, keep fit) would *greatly*
 increase those probabilities
 (maybe even to 10^7 or in the range needed to win the lottery).
 So, if you have unhealthy habits that you have no intention of
 stopping, but bought a lotto
 ticket with the intention of never drinking/smoking again if you won
 some improbable amount,
 it seems that your observer moment might be more likely in the
 universe where you win.
 
 
 Hmmm... I don't like any precaution principle, and here you are 
 advocating a sort of quantum precaution principle. I am not convinced.

Interestingly, Everett smoked and otherwise led a very unhealthy lifestyle 
and died at 52 (in this world).

Brent Meeker


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Re: Making money via quantum suicide

[Tom Caylor]

On Jun 8, 2:43 pm, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 On 06 Jun 2008, at 23:35, Tom Caylor wrote:
 ...
  One consistent configuration is that we are all immortal and that part
  of this immortal being is something that is outside of what we can
  observe scientifically, including other persons' deaths.

 I am with you. But we can address scientifically the question does  
 self-introspecting machine refer correctly to something they can  
 recognize as being something they cannot observe in a third person  
 communicable (scientific, objective) way and yet still *know* that  
 they can make the experience of it (for example through prays,  
 reflexion, meditation, 1-self-introspection, starvation, accidents,  
 drugs, or some other (hopefully) genuine 3-self-manipulations, ...)?

 Bruno

 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

If the basis of everything is a Person, then this can make my above
statement make sense.  Can we really have a scientific understanding
of a person?  This would by definition be one person having a
scientific understanding of their relationship to another person.
Actually, I think that this is a downfall of many relationships among
persons.  The scientific understanding requires repeatability.  The
goal of modern science (which is what we mean by science) is control,
which requires repeatability.  Love (the mysterious force of good
relationship between persons) does not work within a scientific
framework.

Tom

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Re: Making money via quantum suicide

[Tom Caylor]

Welcome.

I see that you use the word intention several times.  It seems that
this is the word/notion on which your tries pivot, and I think this is
also the downfall.  I think that intention is a very good part of
reality, but it can find its meaning only when coupled with the
humility that we are not in total control, that there is more to
everything than scientific repeatability.  This realization actually
opens up a whole new world of relationships, a more scary world in
which we are at the mercy of other persons (and ultimately one good
Person), but a more realistic world.

Tom

On Jun 23, 10:08 am, jal278 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 First time post. Would it be possible to use the principles of QS as
 an oracle? E.g. buy a lotto ticket before taking a flight, with the
 intention
 that if you win some improbable amount in the lotto you do not take
 the flight.
 Perhaps this flight was extremely likely to crash and your odds of
 survival are slim.
 Would then your observer moment be more likely in the universe where
 you win
 some improbable amount (odds 1:10,000 maybe) in the lotto? This could
 apply
 to any potentially dangerous choice you might make.

 Similarly, assuming that QI is true, the survival probabilities at the
 end cases (where you
 are 150 yrs old) would get to be incredibly small, such that perhaps
 healthy decisions
 made when you are younger (i.e. never smoke, keep fit) would *greatly*
 increase those probabilities
  (maybe even to 10^7 or in the range needed to win the lottery).
 So, if you have unhealthy habits that you have no intention of
 stopping, but bought a lotto
 ticket with the intention of never drinking/smoking again if you won
 some improbable amount,
 it seems that your observer moment might be more likely in the
 universe where you win.

 My understanding of QI and the way that observer moments are chosen
 may be mistaken,
 just an idea I wanted to throw out before I gave the latter a try
 (since there is really nothing to lose like
 in QS).

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Re: Making money via quantum suicide

[Günther Greindl]

Tom,

 which requires repeatability.  Love (the mysterious force of good
 relationship between persons) does not work within a scientific

you should have a look at the rich literature on love, which is the 
subject of (ever growing) scientific study.

Here a small beginning:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love#Scientific_views


Love is not mysterious. That does not mean that it is not important.
There is a widely held confusion that for something to be of value it
should be mysterious.

Cheers,
Günther


-- 
Günther Greindl
Department of Philosophy of Science
University of Vienna
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.univie.ac.at/Wissenschaftstheorie/

Blog: http://dao.complexitystudies.org/
Site: http://www.complexitystudies.org/

Research Proposal:
http://www.complexitystudies.org/ph.d.-thesis.html


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Re: Making money via quantum suicide

[jal278]

First time post. Would it be possible to use the principles of QS as
an oracle? E.g. buy a lotto ticket before taking a flight, with the
intention
that if you win some improbable amount in the lotto you do not take
the flight.
Perhaps this flight was extremely likely to crash and your odds of
survival are slim.
Would then your observer moment be more likely in the universe where
you win
some improbable amount (odds 1:10,000 maybe) in the lotto? This could
apply
to any potentially dangerous choice you might make.

Similarly, assuming that QI is true, the survival probabilities at the
end cases (where you
are 150 yrs old) would get to be incredibly small, such that perhaps
healthy decisions
made when you are younger (i.e. never smoke, keep fit) would *greatly*
increase those probabilities
 (maybe even to 10^7 or in the range needed to win the lottery).
So, if you have unhealthy habits that you have no intention of
stopping, but bought a lotto
ticket with the intention of never drinking/smoking again if you won
some improbable amount,
it seems that your observer moment might be more likely in the
universe where you win.

My understanding of QI and the way that observer moments are chosen
may be mistaken,
just an idea I wanted to throw out before I gave the latter a try
(since there is really nothing to lose like
in QS).


On Jun 5, 9:28 am, Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Forgive me if the following comment is ill-thought through as this is
 my first post to the group.

 It appears to me that, assuming QS is true, I should bet some
 reasonably substantial amount of cash at the local bookies that I will
 live to 110 or 120 years of age. Of course I will be around to collect
 it given QS. This does assume the bookies is still around to pay for
 it!

 Any thoughts/flames appreciated.

 Lawrence
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Re: Making money via quantum suicide

[Bruno Marchal]

On 06 Jun 2008, at 23:35, Tom Caylor wrote:



 I guess I could see that it could be consistent that from each of our
 perspectives eventually we are the only one left in the mulitverse, if
 we were all cut-off from each other, essentially in separate universes
 or histories.  But with all of the appealing aspects (that have been
 brought up in many contexts by many people in history) of an ontology
 based on relations rather than substance, I would think that a
 multiverse that ends in isolation would be a rather disappointing
 (seemingly contrary) conclusion of that ontology.  Plus, I certainly
 wouldn't want to live like that.  And I'd even argue that from a
 relational ontology perspective that would be equivalent to non-
 existence.  How about an immortal life in relation to other persons?


Immortality itself is different from the third and first person points  
of view;
I cannot tell. It could be that 1-immortality requires some fusion, or  
merging, of all persons. This makes you out of time and out of space  
at the moment before you made up singular personal history.
I have to introspect myself more deeply, or study S4Grz and its  
aritmetical semantics for a much longer  time  ...
You ask a difficult question. But I don't think we separate, such   
that each of us converge toward solipsistic very long histories, we  
forget and merge histories too.  (all this assuming comp ...)




 One consistent configuration is that we are all immortal and that part
 of this immortal being is something that is outside of what we can
 observe scientifically, including other persons' deaths.




I am with you. But we can address scientifically the question does  
self-introspecting machine refer correctly to something they can  
recognize as being something they cannot observe in a third person  
communicable (scientific, objective) way and yet still *know* that  
they can make the experience of it (for example through prays,  
reflexion, meditation, 1-self-introspection, starvation, accidents,  
drugs, or some other (hopefully) genuine 3-self-manipulations, ...)?


Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Re: Making money via quantum suicide

[Stathis Papaioannou]

2008/6/7 Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

 You don't.  You just outlive everyone else in the (very, very tiny, and
 shrinking) hyperplane of Hilbert space where quantum randomness has
 contrived to save you from death (but not from disability  :-(   ).  On
 other very tiny, shrinking hyperplanes you and almost everyone else  you
 know has died except for one other lucky person.  In almost all of the
 Hilbert space everybody over the age of 120yrs has died.

You would expect to survive in the most likely way, even if all the
possible ways of survival add up to only a very low measure slice of
the multiverse. For example, if you find yourself living to a very
advanced age it will more likely be because of some non-bizarre reason
such as the discovery of a longevity treatment, with the corollary
that there will be others in the same position as you in the same
universe.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Making money via quantum suicide

[Tom Caylor]

Assuming comp, or quantum immortality, is it true that from my
perspective I will outlive everyone else, and from your perspective
you will outlive everyone else?  If so, how can this be?

One consistent configuration is that we are all immortal and that part
of this immortal being is something that is outside of what we can
observe scientifically, including other persons' deaths.

Tom

On Jun 6, 1:03 am, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Assuming comp, the reason is that the probability measure on your comp  
 continuations has to be restricted on the comp histories where you  
 survive. Absolute death cannot be a first person experience. death of  
 a 3-person is relative and can be lived from a 1-person perspective.
 Now, what is 1-person immortality? Very difficult question. The  
 (lobian) machine can make sense, apparently, of a sentence like that:  
 yesterday I have been immortal, but today I am mortal. The difficulty  
 is more in the fusion/amnesia than in the fission ...

 Bruno

 PS Brent is right. Some annuity contract can be used for making money  
 via comp or quantum suicide, as far as the company handling that  
 annuity is robust enough. (Always making all the default assumptions:  
 obviously (?) science per se is totally agnostic about any first  
 person experience, knowledge ...)

 On 06 Jun 2008, at 01:44, Tom Caylor wrote:

  Why is it that from my first person perspective other people die?

  Perhaps a different question:
  Why is it that from your first person perspective other people die?

  Tom

  On Jun 5, 8:27 am, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Hi Lawrence, welcome,

  You have to be more precise on the betting procedure. You will win  
  the
  bet against people who, from your personal point of view, will most
  probably be dead at the time. How do you intent to recover the money?

  Bruno

  On 05 Jun 2008, at 15:28, Lawrence wrote:

  Forgive me if the following comment is ill-thought through as this  
  is
  my first post to the group.

  It appears to me that, assuming QS is true, I should bet some
  reasonably substantial amount of cash at the local bookies that I  
  will
  live to 110 or 120 years of age. Of course I will be around to  
  collect
  it given QS. This does assume the bookies is still around to pay for
  it!

  Any thoughts/flames appreciated.

  Lawrence

 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/- Hide quoted text -

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Re: Making money via quantum suicide

[Tom Caylor]

I guess I could see that it could be consistent that from each of our
perspectives eventually we are the only one left in the mulitverse, if
we were all cut-off from each other, essentially in separate universes
or histories.  But with all of the appealing aspects (that have been
brought up in many contexts by many people in history) of an ontology
based on relations rather than substance, I would think that a
multiverse that ends in isolation would be a rather disappointing
(seemingly contrary) conclusion of that ontology.  Plus, I certainly
wouldn't want to live like that.  And I'd even argue that from a
relational ontology perspective that would be equivalent to non-
existence.  How about an immortal life in relation to other persons?

Tom

On Jun 6, 2:13 pm, Tom Caylor [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Assuming comp, or quantum immortality, is it true that from my
 perspective I will outlive everyone else, and from your perspective
 you will outlive everyone else?  If so, how can this be?

 One consistent configuration is that we are all immortal and that part
 of this immortal being is something that is outside of what we can
 observe scientifically, including other persons' deaths.

 Tom

 On Jun 6, 1:03 am, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:



  Assuming comp, the reason is that the probability measure on your comp  
  continuations has to be restricted on the comp histories where you  
  survive. Absolute death cannot be a first person experience. death of  
  a 3-person is relative and can be lived from a 1-person perspective.
  Now, what is 1-person immortality? Very difficult question. The  
  (lobian) machine can make sense, apparently, of a sentence like that:  
  yesterday I have been immortal, but today I am mortal. The difficulty  
  is more in the fusion/amnesia than in the fission ...

  Bruno

  PS Brent is right. Some annuity contract can be used for making money  
  via comp or quantum suicide, as far as the company handling that  
  annuity is robust enough. (Always making all the default assumptions:  
  obviously (?) science per se is totally agnostic about any first  
  person experience, knowledge ...)

  On 06 Jun 2008, at 01:44, Tom Caylor wrote:

   Why is it that from my first person perspective other people die?

   Perhaps a different question:
   Why is it that from your first person perspective other people die?

   Tom

   On Jun 5, 8:27 am, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
   Hi Lawrence, welcome,

   You have to be more precise on the betting procedure. You will win  
   the
   bet against people who, from your personal point of view, will most
   probably be dead at the time. How do you intent to recover the money?

   Bruno

   On 05 Jun 2008, at 15:28, Lawrence wrote:

   Forgive me if the following comment is ill-thought through as this  
   is
   my first post to the group.

   It appears to me that, assuming QS is true, I should bet some
   reasonably substantial amount of cash at the local bookies that I  
   will
   live to 110 or 120 years of age. Of course I will be around to  
   collect
   it given QS. This does assume the bookies is still around to pay for
   it!

   Any thoughts/flames appreciated.

   Lawrence

  http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/-Hide quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

 - Show quoted text -
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Re: Making money via quantum suicide

[Brent Meeker]

Tom Caylor wrote:
 Assuming comp, or quantum immortality, is it true that from my
 perspective I will outlive everyone else, and from your perspective
 you will outlive everyone else?  If so, how can this be?
   

You don't.  You just outlive everyone else in the (very, very tiny, and 
shrinking) hyperplane of Hilbert space where quantum randomness has 
contrived to save you from death (but not from disability  :-(   ).  On 
other very tiny, shrinking hyperplanes you and almost everyone else  you 
know has died except for one other lucky person.  In almost all of the 
Hilbert space everybody over the age of 120yrs has died.

 One consistent configuration is that we are all immortal and that part
 of this immortal being is something that is outside of what we can
 observe scientifically, including other persons' deaths.
   
QM only implies we are quasi-immortal, in that our measure in the 
Hilbert space of the universe always has a finite probability of being 
non-zero though it becomes arbitrarily small.  Actually I think even 
that may be wrong.  The theory of quantum gravity may imply that there 
are smallest units of information (qubits?) that can be physically 
instantiated and hence there is a smallest non-zero probability and 
probabilities cannot become arbitrarily small without becoming zero.

Comp itself, which suggests the idea of quantum immortality, already 
assumes that there is no special soul that exists over and above the 
relations and interactions of neurons or atoms or some objects.  It just 
hypothesizes that it doesn't matter what the objects are; only their 
relations and interactions.

Brent Meeker


 Tom

 On Jun 6, 1:03 am, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
   
 Assuming comp, the reason is that the probability measure on your comp  
 continuations has to be restricted on the comp histories where you  
 survive. Absolute death cannot be a first person experience. death of  
 a 3-person is relative and can be lived from a 1-person perspective.
 Now, what is 1-person immortality? Very difficult question. The  
 (lobian) machine can make sense, apparently, of a sentence like that:  
 yesterday I have been immortal, but today I am mortal. The difficulty  
 is more in the fusion/amnesia than in the fission ...

 Bruno

 PS Brent is right. Some annuity contract can be used for making money  
 via comp or quantum suicide, as far as the company handling that  
 annuity is robust enough. (Always making all the default assumptions:  
 obviously (?) science per se is totally agnostic about any first  
 person experience, knowledge ...)

 On 06 Jun 2008, at 01:44, Tom Caylor wrote:

 
 Why is it that from my first person perspective other people die?
   
 Perhaps a different question:
 Why is it that from your first person perspective other people die?
   
 Tom
   
 On Jun 5, 8:27 am, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
   
 Hi Lawrence, welcome,
 
 You have to be more precise on the betting procedure. You will win  
 the
 bet against people who, from your personal point of view, will most
 probably be dead at the time. How do you intent to recover the money?
 
 Bruno
 
 On 05 Jun 2008, at 15:28, Lawrence wrote:
 
 Forgive me if the following comment is ill-thought through as this  
 is
 my first post to the group.
   
 It appears to me that, assuming QS is true, I should bet some
 reasonably substantial amount of cash at the local bookies that I  
 will
 live to 110 or 120 years of age. Of course I will be around to  
 collect
 it given QS. This does assume the bookies is still around to pay for
 it!
   
 Any thoughts/flames appreciated.
   
 Lawrence
   
 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
 
 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/- Hide quoted text -

 
 

   


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Re: Making money via quantum suicide

[Brent Meeker]

Tom Caylor wrote:
 I guess I could see that it could be consistent that from each of our
 perspectives eventually we are the only one left in the mulitverse, if
 we were all cut-off from each other, essentially in separate universes
 or histories.  But with all of the appealing aspects (that have been
 brought up in many contexts by many people in history) of an ontology
 based on relations rather than substance, I would think that a
 multiverse that ends in isolation would be a rather disappointing
 (seemingly contrary) conclusion of that ontology.  Plus, I certainly
 wouldn't want to live like that.  And I'd even argue that from a
 relational ontology perspective that would be equivalent to non-
 existence.  

I think you'd be right in that.  You can imagine surviving thru quantum 
luck with other persons, even a whole Earth full of people.  It's just 
that the more you imagine adding onto survival simplicipter the less 
probable that outcome.  I suspect there's a lower bound to such 
probabilities and your luck runs out at some point.  But of course in 
Bruno's ontology based on arithmetic infinities and infinitesimals are 
possible.
 How about an immortal life in relation to other persons?
   

We don't see any quasi-immortal people (e.g. 150yrs old) so it's very 
improbable.

Brent Meeker

 Tom

 On Jun 6, 2:13 pm, Tom Caylor [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
   
 Assuming comp, or quantum immortality, is it true that from my
 perspective I will outlive everyone else, and from your perspective
 you will outlive everyone else?  If so, how can this be?

 One consistent configuration is that we are all immortal and that part
 of this immortal being is something that is outside of what we can
 observe scientifically, including other persons' deaths.

 Tom

 On Jun 6, 1:03 am, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:



 
 Assuming comp, the reason is that the probability measure on your comp  
 continuations has to be restricted on the comp histories where you  
 survive. Absolute death cannot be a first person experience. death of  
 a 3-person is relative and can be lived from a 1-person perspective.
 Now, what is 1-person immortality? Very difficult question. The  
 (lobian) machine can make sense, apparently, of a sentence like that:  
 yesterday I have been immortal, but today I am mortal. The difficulty  
 is more in the fusion/amnesia than in the fission ...
   
 Bruno
   
 PS Brent is right. Some annuity contract can be used for making money  
 via comp or quantum suicide, as far as the company handling that  
 annuity is robust enough. (Always making all the default assumptions:  
 obviously (?) science per se is totally agnostic about any first  
 person experience, knowledge ...)
   
 On 06 Jun 2008, at 01:44, Tom Caylor wrote:
   
 Why is it that from my first person perspective other people die?
 
 Perhaps a different question:
 Why is it that from your first person perspective other people die?
 
 Tom
 
 On Jun 5, 8:27 am, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
 Hi Lawrence, welcome,
   
 You have to be more precise on the betting procedure. You will win  
 the
 bet against people who, from your personal point of view, will most
 probably be dead at the time. How do you intent to recover the money?
   
 Bruno
   
 On 05 Jun 2008, at 15:28, Lawrence wrote:
   
 Forgive me if the following comment is ill-thought through as this  
 is
 my first post to the group.
 
 It appears to me that, assuming QS is true, I should bet some
 reasonably substantial amount of cash at the local bookies that I  
 will
 live to 110 or 120 years of age. Of course I will be around to  
 collect
 it given QS. This does assume the bookies is still around to pay for
 it!
 
 Any thoughts/flames appreciated.
 
 Lawrence
 
 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
   
 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/-Hide quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
   
 - Show quoted text -
 
 

   


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Making money via quantum suicide

[Lawrence]

Forgive me if the following comment is ill-thought through as this is
my first post to the group.

It appears to me that, assuming QS is true, I should bet some
reasonably substantial amount of cash at the local bookies that I will
live to 110 or 120 years of age. Of course I will be around to collect
it given QS. This does assume the bookies is still around to pay for
it!

Any thoughts/flames appreciated.

Lawrence
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Re: Making money via quantum suicide

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Lawrence, welcome,

You have to be more precise on the betting procedure. You will win the  
bet against people who, from your personal point of view, will most  
probably be dead at the time. How do you intent to recover the money?

Bruno


On 05 Jun 2008, at 15:28, Lawrence wrote:


 Forgive me if the following comment is ill-thought through as this is
 my first post to the group.

 It appears to me that, assuming QS is true, I should bet some
 reasonably substantial amount of cash at the local bookies that I will
 live to 110 or 120 years of age. Of course I will be around to collect
 it given QS. This does assume the bookies is still around to pay for
 it!

 Any thoughts/flames appreciated.

 Lawrence
 

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Re: Making money via quantum suicide

[Tom Caylor]

Why is it that from my first person perspective other people die?

Perhaps a different question:
Why is it that from your first person perspective other people die?

Tom

On Jun 5, 8:27 am, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Hi Lawrence, welcome,

 You have to be more precise on the betting procedure. You will win the  
 bet against people who, from your personal point of view, will most  
 probably be dead at the time. How do you intent to recover the money?

 Bruno

 On 05 Jun 2008, at 15:28, Lawrence wrote:



  Forgive me if the following comment is ill-thought through as this is
  my first post to the group.

  It appears to me that, assuming QS is true, I should bet some
  reasonably substantial amount of cash at the local bookies that I will
  live to 110 or 120 years of age. Of course I will be around to collect
  it given QS. This does assume the bookies is still around to pay for
  it!

  Any thoughts/flames appreciated.

  Lawrence

 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Re: Quantum Immortality (was Re: Quantum Suicide)

[Bruno Marchal]

Le 28-oct.-05, à 17:54, GottferDamnt a écrit  (for-list):


Hi,

I would like talk about this quote from an old topic:



This is a rather shocking conclusion. We are conscious here and
now because our (computational state) belongs to aleph_1 (or
2^aleph_0 for those who doesn't want to rely on Cantor's continuum
hypothesis) infinite computational histories !
Remember Brice deWitt shock when he realised that at each instant
he is multiplied by 10^100. Now it seems that we are multiplied
by the continuum (!)
(Moreover this is coherent with the Z modal logics).

So it seems you are completely right Bob (at least formally), and
Russell Standish is also right when he said :Therefore QTI and the
existence of cul-de-sac branches are a mutual contradiction.
The pruning of dead-end corresponds to the adding of consistency
(the modal diamond ) in the modal definition of observation.

Bruno


What about these cul-de-sac branches? Is It definitely that dead-end
branches can exist with the quantum theory of immortality (for example,
a state of consciousness which can't be follow)?
And how comp' Bruno theory manage these cul-de-sac branches?



I believe that the quantum theory does not allow cul-de-sac branches.
I also believe that the Godel-Lob theory of self-reference not only 
allow cul-de-sac branches, but it imposes them everywhere: from all 
alive states you can reach a dead end.
The Universal Dovetailer Argument shows that the physics (which has no 
dead ends) should be given by the self-reference logics (with reachable 
dead end everywhere).

I have been stuck in that contradiction a very long time ...
... until I realized the absolute necessity of distinguishing the first 
and third person point of views. That necessity is implied itself by 
the incompleteness phenomena, but that is technical (ask me on the 
everything-list if interested).
The intuitive point here is that you cannot have a first person point 
of view on your own death: 1-death is not an event, and should be kept 
out of the domain of verification of probabilistic statements. Another 
intuition: the finite histories are of measure null among the 
collection of all histories (the continuum).


Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

Re: Quantum Immortality (was Re: Quantum Suicide)

[daddycaylor]

Bruno,

So why is it that from the 3rd person point of view everyone dies?

Also along the lines of the Let There Be Something thread, isn't it 
also true that a finite set of finite histories, or even a countable 
set of infinite histories, is of measure zero in the continuum?  If 
this is the type of selection that is being made from The Multiverse 
(whose measure = measure(continuum)) to the initial multiverse(s) of 
your and others' theories, then by the same argument that you use to 
show that the probability of dying is zero, doesn't this imply that the 
probability of having such an initial multiverse is zero?


I may be in over my head, but if my Let There Be Something inquiry is 
correct, then we're all in over our head.


Tom

-Original Message-
From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: Everything-List List everything-list@eskimo.com
Sent: Tue, 1 Nov 2005 13:27:27 +0100
Subject: Re: Quantum Immortality (was Re: Quantum Suicide)

Le 28-oct.-05, à 17:54, GottferDamnt a écrit (for-list): 
 

Hi, 
 
I would like talk about this quote from an old topic: 
 

 
This is a rather shocking conclusion. We are conscious here and 
now because our (computational state) belongs to aleph_1 (or 
2^aleph_0 for those who doesn't want to rely on Cantor's continuum 
hypothesis) infinite computational histories ! 
Remember Brice deWitt shock when he realised that at each instant 
he is multiplied by 10^100. Now it seems that we are multiplied 
by the continuum (!) 
(Moreover this is coherent with the Z modal logics). 
 
So it seems you are completely right Bob (at least formally), and 
Russell Standish is also right when he said :Therefore QTI and the 
existence of cul-de-sac branches are a mutual contradiction. 
The pruning of dead-end corresponds to the adding of consistency 
(the modal diamond ) in the modal definition of observation. 
 
Bruno 

 
What about these cul-de-sac branches? Is It definitely that 

dead-end 
branches can exist with the quantum theory of immortality (for 

example, 

a state of consciousness which can't be follow)? 
And how comp' Bruno theory manage these cul-de-sac branches? 

 
I believe that the quantum theory does not allow cul-de-sac branches. 
I also believe that the Godel-Lob theory of self-reference not only 
allow cul-de-sac branches, but it imposes them everywhere: from all 
alive states you can reach a dead end. 
The Universal Dovetailer Argument shows that the physics (which has no 
dead ends) should be given by the self-reference logics (with reachable 
dead end everywhere). 

I have been stuck in that contradiction a very long time ... 
... until I realized the absolute necessity of distinguishing the first 
and third person point of views. That necessity is implied itself by 
the incompleteness phenomena, but that is technical (ask me on the 
everything-list if interested). 
The intuitive point here is that you cannot have a first person point 
of view on your own death: 1-death is not an event, and should be kept 
out of the domain of verification of probabilistic statements. Another 
intuition: the finite histories are of measure null among the 
collection of all histories (the continuum). 

 
Bruno 
 
 
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ 
 

Re: Quantum Immortality (was Re: Quantum Suicide)

[daddycaylor]

I should have said a countable set of countable histories.

Tom

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com
Sent: Tue, 01 Nov 2005 15:05:39 -0500
Subject: Re: Quantum Immortality (was Re: Quantum Suicide)

Bruno, 
 
So why is it that from the 3rd person point of view everyone dies? 
 
Also along the lines of the Let There Be Something thread, isn't it 
also true that a finite set of finite histories, or even a countable 
set of infinite histories, is of measure zero in the continuum? If this 
is the type of selection that is being made from The Multiverse (whose 
measure = measure(continuum)) to the initial multiverse(s) of your 
and others' theories, then by the same argument that you use to show 
that the probability of dying is zero, doesn't this imply that the 
probability of having such an initial multiverse is zero? 

 
I may be in over my head, but if my Let There Be Something inquiry is 
correct, then we're all in over our head. 

 
Tom 
 
-Original Message- 
From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: Everything-List List everything-list@eskimo.com 
Sent: Tue, 1 Nov 2005 13:27:27 +0100 
Subject: Re: Quantum Immortality (was Re: Quantum Suicide) 
 
Le 28-oct.-05, à 17:54, GottferDamnt a écrit (for-list):  
  

Hi,  
  
I would like talk about this quote from an old topic:  
  

  
This is a rather shocking conclusion. We are conscious here and  
now because our (computational state) belongs to aleph_1 (or  
2^aleph_0 for those who doesn't want to rely on Cantor's continuum  
hypothesis) infinite computational histories !  
Remember Brice deWitt shock when he realised that at each instant  
he is multiplied by 10^100. Now it seems that we are multiplied  
by the continuum (!)  
(Moreover this is coherent with the Z modal logics).  
  
So it seems you are completely right Bob (at least formally), and  
Russell Standish is also right when he said :Therefore QTI and the  
existence of cul-de-sac branches are a mutual contradiction.  
The pruning of dead-end corresponds to the adding of consistency  
(the modal diamond ) in the modal definition of observation.  
  
Bruno  

  
What about these cul-de-sac branches? Is It definitely that 

dead-end  
branches can exist with the quantum theory of immortality (for 

example,  

a state of consciousness which can't be follow)?  
And how comp' Bruno theory manage these cul-de-sac branches?  

  
I believe that the quantum theory does not allow cul-de-sac branches.  
I also believe that the Godel-Lob theory of self-reference not only 
allow cul-de-sac branches, but it imposes them everywhere: from all 
alive states you can reach a dead end.  
The Universal Dovetailer Argument shows that the physics (which has no 
dead ends) should be given by the self-reference logics (with reachable 
dead end everywhere).  

I have been stuck in that contradiction a very long time ...  
... until I realized the absolute necessity of distinguishing the first 
and third person point of views. That necessity is implied itself by 
the incompleteness phenomena, but that is technical (ask me on the 
everything-list if interested).  
The intuitive point here is that you cannot have a first person point 
of view on your own death: 1-death is not an event, and should be kept 
out of the domain of verification of probabilistic statements. Another 
intuition: the finite histories are of measure null among the 
collection of all histories (the continuum).  

  
Bruno  
  
  
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/  
  
 
 

Re: Quantum Suicide Bombing

[Bruno Marchal]

Le 09-juil.-05, à 16:09, David Deutsch a écrit :



On 8 Jul 2005, at 11:25am, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


Now - what should be done about the presentation of
this concep of Quantum Suicide Bombing?

By the way: The discussion is *not* about the validity
of many worlds interpretation. In order to do a quantum
suicide attack, one only has to *believe* in
many world interpretation.


In my opinion, not *only*: one also has to have some misconceptions
about probability and decisions (and about morality too).

*The Beginning of Infinity* is going to contain a critique of the
quantum suicide argument and what I consider to be other misuses of
the concept of probability such as the simulation argument.




Which misuses?
Which misconceptions?
Schmidhuber, Bostrom, or ...


Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

Re: Quantum Suicide Bombing

[Bruno Marchal]

Le 13-juil.-05, à 01:01, Charles Goodwin a écrit :




From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:Fabric-of-
[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Lee Corbin

I don't know what you even *mean* by QS does not reduce the number
of worlds you experience, unless you mean that nothing that I can
do affects the number of worlds I can experience. (And I will not
discuss free will vs. determinism.)


I *think* what this means is based on the QTI rule (or theorem or 
whatever)

that *all* observer-moments have continuers. But I could be wrong.




It *is* a delicate matter. Recently Stathis Papaioannou, on the 
everything-list, has made a theory where to be in an alive state is 
represented by an observer-moment having at least one continuer (or 
successor as he called them).
to be (absolutely) dead is represented by an observer-moment having 
no successor (so that: to be dead = not to be alive, which is rather 
natural for a platonist).
And at some point in a reasoning Stathis said that we die at each 
instant.
This gives a theory where all transient (alive) observer moments have a 
cul-de-sac successor. Of course an observer moment could have more than 
one successor and some successor can be transient. In Stathis theory, 
at first sight, to be immortal would consist in being forever in the 
state of being able to die!


Now the problem with such a theory where there are cul-de-sac worlds 
everywhere (I mean accessible from all transient worlds) is that it 
can be shown that there is no available notion of (relative) 
probability bearing on accessible observer moments.


Probabilities reappears when we explicitly make abstraction of the 
cul-de-sac worlds or observer-moments. It is the implicit default 
assumption of probability: if you throw a dice you will not say the 
probability of getting 6 is 1/7 giving that the possible results would 
be getting 1, getting 2, getting 3, ... , getting 6, and dying!


Doing that abstraction changes the logic, and changes the possible 
structure on the set of OMs.
With comp such a change logic can be justified logically once we 
distinguish provability and truth, that is by taking into account 
explicitly the incompleteness phenomenon. It is hard to say more 
without being a tiny bit more technical. I will explain more on the 
everything list.
The point is that quantum immortality or the more general (and older) 
comp-immortality is *provably* a personal opinion bearing on first 
person notions. But that is the case with any assertion that some 
theory are *true*.


Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

Re: Quantum Suicide without suicide

[Tim May]

On Thursday, January 9, 2003, at 08:22  PM, George Levy wrote:

OK. Let's consider the case of the guy dying of cancer and playing the 
stock market simultaneously.. In real life, the hard part is to get 
meaningful probability data. For the sake of the argument let's assume 
the following scenario:


..scenario elided, not to mislead, but because I will not be using any 
details of the calculation...

As we can see, the rate of return for Alice is 4.8 times that of Bob. 
Alice will make a profit, but not Bob.

Conclusions:
All this involves really basic probability theory.
The first person perspective probability is identical to the 
probability conditional to the person staying alive.
The probability of the event in question (stock going up) must be tied 
to the person staying alive ( a cure for cancer). In the case of a 
conventional QS suicide to world conditions matching the requested 
state: ie. winning one million dollars. In the deathrow case one could 
imagine a scenario in which the event in question (DNA test discovery) 
is tied to a reprieve from the governor coming because of a DNA test 
exhonerating the prisoner. The prisoner could bet on DNA testing as a 
good investment.  The airline case is similar. The hard part is 
figuring the probability of very unlikely saving events such as a 
scientific discovery,  ET landing on earth or the coming of the 
messiah :-)

How is this different from standard life insurance arguments, where 
buying a policy is betting one will die and not buying a policy is 
betting one will live? If one has no heirs to worry about, no concern 
about the world if and after one dies, then it has been known for a 
long time that the smart thing to do is not to buy life insurance. If 
one dies, the policy payoff is worthless (to the dead person), but if 
one lives, the money has been saved.

Similar calculations are very simple for going into a dangerous 
situation: take a bet, at nearly any odds, that one will live. If the 
odds of survival in going into a combat situation are one in a hundred, 
and betting odds reflect this, bet everything one can on survival. If 
one dies, the $10,000 lost is immaterial. If one lives, one has a 
payout of roughly a million dollars.

The scenario with cancer cures and doctors and quackery and all just 
makes this standard calculation more complicated.

And instead of couching this in terms of bets (or stock investments), 
one can phrase it in standard terms for high risk jobs: Your chance of 
succeeding is one in a hundred. But if you succeed, one million dollars 
awaits you.

(I doubt many would take on such a job. But with varying payouts, we 
all take on similar sorts of jobs. For example, flying on business.)

It's a reason some people take on very risky jobs. They figure if they 
succeed, they'll be rich. If they fail, they'll be dead and won't care. 
(Certainly not many people think this way, but some do.

But betting on yourself is not quantum suicide in any way I can 
see. It's just a straightforward calculation of odds and values of 
things like money (of no value if dead, for example) in the main 
outcomes.

Lastly, like most many worlds views, the same calculations apply 
whether one thinks in terms of actual other worlds or just as 
possible worlds in the standard probability way (having nothing to do 
with quantum mechanics per se).

Or so I believe. I would be interested in any arguments that the 
quantum view of possible worlds gives any different measures of 
probability than non-quantum views give. (If there is no movement 
between such worlds, the quantum possible worlds are identical to the 
possible worlds of Aristotle, Leibniz, Borges, C.I. Lewis, David Lewis, 
Stalnaker, Kripke, and others.)



--Tim May
How we burned in the prison camps later thinking: What would things 
have been like if every security operative, when he went out at night 
to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive? 
--Alexander Solzhenitzyn, Gulag Archipelago

Re: Quantum Suicide without suicide

[George Levy]

 
This
is a reply to Eric Hawthorne and Tim May.


Eric Hawthorne wrote: 

George Levy wrote: 
 
 
Conclusions: 
All this involves really basic probability theory. 
The first person perspective probability is identical to the  probability
conditional to the person staying alive. 

 
 
But that first-person probability is not objective, 

true. It is a first person point of view.

and not valid, and  not useful.

not true as the example demonstrates

Consider this from a purely pragmatic point of view. (Not a formal  argument
per say.) 
A person must consider the (non-zero) objective probability that they
 will die (and be then non-existent) (if they do this or that action).
If  people did not account for the probability 
that they will die if they do a foolish act, then they will probably
 die. Their subjective 
1st person sense of probability is naively optimistic and not a survival
 trait. If 
a person acts with that kind of probability belief in every possible
 world, they will 
reduce their measure beyond measure. Surely there is something incorrect
 about 
a probability view which has that detrimental effect on one's measure. 

 

Reread the example. The way the example is set up, the probability of
Alice's survival is not affected one iota by her investment. It remains
constant with a value of 20% whether she buys the stock or not. The issue
the example intends to illustrate is her decision with regard her return
on investment.

Of course one could construct another example where her survival is decreased
(as in conventional QS) or increased (Alice's investment has an impact on
Charles' research and makes Charles' success more probable). But that is
another story.

 As I mentioned earlier, if measure is infinite, there may not be any sense
in talking about increasing or decreasing absolute measure. 

If absolute measure did have meaning, one's measure should keep decreasing
as one ages since the cumulative probability of one's dying increases with
age. Yet from a subjective viewpoint an old man and a young man have the
same measure.

A concept that I discussed a few months ago, was the extension of the Cosmological
Principle to the manyworld. The Cosmological Principle asserts that the universe
is uniform in the large scale, independently of where the observer is positioned.
An extension of this principle that supported the Steady State theory asserted
that the universe looked the same at any time in its history. This extension
has been discredited by the evidence for an expanding universe. However,
one could argue that the reason the Cosmological Principle does not work
is that the scope of its application is not large enough. With the
Manyworld (or in the limit, the Plenitude) we are bound to have the largest
possible scope possible, and therefore the Cosmological Principle should
work. The Cosmological Principle is also appealing in that it describes the
Manyworld with the smallest amount of information possible.

Thus the Cosmological Principle applied to the Manyworld states that measure
is independent of the position of the 
 observer. If the Cosmological Principle holds then we should not have to
worry about absolute measure.
 



Tim May wrote:
 
On Thursday, January 9, 2003, at 08:22 PM, George Levy wrote: 
  OK. Let's consider the case of the guy dying of
cancer and playing the  stock market simultaneously.. In real life, the hard
part is to get  meaningful probability data. For the sake of the argument
let's assume  the following scenario: 
 
  
 
..scenario elided, not to mislead, but because I will not be using any  details
of the calculation... 
 
  As we can see, the rate of return for Alice is
4.8 times that of Bob.  Alice will make a profit, but not Bob. 
 
Conclusions: 
All this involves really basic probability theory. 
The first person perspective probability is identical to the  probability
conditional to the person staying alive. 
The probability of the event in question (stock going up) must be tied  to
the person staying alive ( a cure for cancer). In the case of a  "conventional"
QS suicide to world conditions matching the requested  state: ie. winning
one million dollars. In the deathrow case one could  imagine a scenario in
which the event in question (DNA test discovery)  is tied to a reprieve from
the governor coming because of a DNA test  exhonerating the prisoner. The
prisoner could bet on DNA testing as a  good investment. The airline case
is similar. The hard part is  figuring the probability of very unlikely saving
events such as a  scientific discovery, ET landing on earth or the coming
of the  messiah :-) 
  
 
How is this different from standard life insurance arguments, where  buying
a policy is betting one will die and not buying a policy is  betting one
will live? If one has no heirs to worry about, no concern  about the world
if and after one dies, then it has been known for a  long time that the "smart"
thing to do is not to buy life insurance. If  one 

Re: Quantum suicide without suicide

[George Levy]

Hi Brent.


Brent Meeker wrote:

  
  
I don't understand the point of this modification.  The idea of QS was
to arrange that in all possible worlds in which I exist, I'm rich. 
If it's just a matter of being rich in a few and not rich in the
rest, I don't need any QS.
  

Yes but you only want to know those worlds where you are rich. You
don't want to be in those worlds where your are poor.
In this example I only intended to pinpoint the crux of consciousness in
relation to QS experiment and to show how altering a minimum amount in the
memory of the observer changes his frame of reference. 

George

Re: Quantum suicide without suicide

[Bruno Marchal]

Tim May wrote



On Wednesday, January 8, 2003, at 10:58  AM, George Levy wrote:


In the original verision of Quantum Suicide (QS), as understood in 
this list, the experimenter sets up a suicide machine that kills 
him if the world does not conform to his wishes. Hence, in the 
branching many-worlds, his consciousness is erased in those worlds, 
and remains intact in the worlds that do satisfy him.

Is it possible to perform such a feat without suicide? What is the 
minimum attrition that is required and still get the effect of 
suicide?

Hawking had a good line: When I hear about Schrodinger's Cat, I 
reach for my gun.

Good line? I would say it is rather stupid (with all my respect for Hawking).
Come on. The Schroedinger's Cat paper is one of the deepest early paper on
QM conceptual issues. The notion of entanglement appears in it. It prepares
both EPR and quantum computing, which arises from taking seriously the QM
superpositions. You can only mock Schroedinger's Cat by taking a purely
instrumentalist view of QM, and with such a view quantum computing 
would not have
appear.




Slightly modify the QS conditions in another direction: instead of 
dying immediately, one goes onto death row to await execution. Or 
one is locked in a box with the air running out. And so on.

This removes the security blanket of saying Suicide is painless, 
and in all the worlds you have not died in, you are rich! In 
99....99% of all worlds, you sit in the box waiting for the air 
to run out.

It reminds me a novel I wrote (a long time ago) where computationalist
practitioners always wait for complete reconstitution before annihilating
the original. It can be consider as a fair practice letting imagine the
risk of such immortality use.





I don't know if there are other worlds in the DeWitt/Graham sense 
(there is no reason to believe Everett ever thought in these terms), 
but if they exist they appear to be either unreachable by us, or 
inaccessible beyond short times and distances (coherence issues).

I disagree. It is only by playing with word that you can suppress the many
worlds in Everett. Some of Everett's footnote are rather explicit. See
the Michael Clive Price FAQ for more on this.
http://www.hedweb.com/everett/everett.htm
People like Roland Omnes which agree with pure QM (QM without collapse)
and still postulate a unique world acknowledge their irrationality.




In particular, it seems to me there's a causal decision theory 
argument  which says that one should make decisions based on the 
maximization of the payout. And based on everything we observe in 
the world around us, which is overwhelmingly classical at the scales 
we interact in, this means the QS outlook is deprecated.


You confuse first and third person point of view. If you put yourself at the
place of Schroedinger Cat you will survive in company of people which will
*necessarily* be more and more astonished, and which should continue to bet
you will not survive. Although *where* you will survive they will 
lose their bets.



Consider this thought experiment: Alice is facing her quantum 
mechanics exam at Berkeley. She sees two main approaches to take. 
First, study hard and try to answer all of the questions as if they 
mattered. Second, take the lessons of her QS readings and simply 
_guess_, or write gibberish, killing herself if she fails to get an 
A. (Or, as above, facing execution, torture, running out of air, 
etc.,  just to repudiate the suicide is painless aspect of some 
people's argument.)

From rationality, or causal decision theory, which option should she pick?


It depends of Alice's goal. If she just want the diplom (and not the knowledge
corresponding to the field she studies) then QS is ok, but quite 
egoist and vain
at some other level. If she want the knowledge, she will be unable to find a
working criteria for her quantum suicide. By the Benacerraf 
principle we cannot
know our own level of implementation code. (I use comp here).




All indications are that there are virtually no worlds in which 
random guessers do well.


Of course! From a 3-person point of view quantum suicide is ordinary suicide.
Tegmark (and myself before in french) made this completely clear.
Also, it is an open problem if some feature in the apparition of life or even
matter-appearance does not rely on some quantum guess.




(The odds are readily calcuable, given the type of exam, grading 
details, etc. We can fairly easily see that a random guesser in the 
SATs will score around 550-600 combined, but that a random guesser 
in a non-multiple-choice QM exam will flunk with ovewhelming 
likelihood.)

What should one do? What did all of you actually do? What did 
Moravec do, what did I do, what did Tegmark do?

I think the QS point is not practical, and it is highly unethical. It is the
most egoist act possible. But QS just illustrate well conceptual nuances in the
possible interpretation of QM and MWI.

Bruno

Re: Quantum suicide without suicide

[George Levy]

Thanks Bruno, for your comments, I fully agree with you. Let me add a few
comments for Tim and Scerir

Tim May wrote:
 
Consider this thought experiment: Alice is facing her quantum mechanics  exam
at Berkeley. She sees two main approaches to take. First, study  hard and
try to answer all of the questions as if they mattered.  Second, take the
lessons of her QS readings and simply _guess_, or  write gibberish, killing
herself if she fails to get an "A." (Or, as  above, facing execution, torture,
running out of air, etc., just to  repudiate the "suicide is painless" aspect
of some people's argument.) 
 
 
What should one do? What did all of you actually do? What did Moravec  do,
what did I do, what did Tegmark do? 
 

Tim, this example is completely inapplicable to the case of QS just like
you would not set up a relativistic experiment to measure the slowing of
a clock in which the clock travels one mile per hour. To get significant
results you must travel a significant fraction of the speed of light.
QS decisions are significantly different from "classical" decisions when
the life of the experimenter is at stake, (or as I pointed out earlier the
memory of the quantum suicide machine in the mind of the experimenter must
be at stake). The amount "at stake" does not have to be 100% as I shall explain
below. Even intentional death (suicide) is not necessary. The incoming death
may be entirely unintentional!

This reminds me of a science fiction story I read about 30 years ago in which
the end of the world was forecasted for midnight. A zealous journalist was
faced with preparing a story to be published the next day (after the world
ended.) He accomplished the task by stating in the story that the forecast
was in fact in error and that the world had not ended. In the branch of
the manyworld, in which he remained alive, his story was right, and he therefore,
astonished the public with his prescience. He made the right QS decision.

As you can see, suicide is not necessary. One could be on death row - in
other words have a high probability of dying - and make decisions based on
the probability of remaining alive.

Being on death row, dying of cancer, travelling on an airline, or sleeping
in our bed involve different probability of death... These situations only
differ in degrees. We are all in the same boat so to speak. We are all likely
to die sooner or later. The closer the probability of death, the more important
QS decision becomes. 

The guy on death row must include in his QS decision making the factor that
will save his life: probably a successful appeal or a reprieve by the state
governor. The person flying in an airline should include in his QS decision
process the fact that the plane will not have a mechanical failure or be
hijacked. The person dying of cancer must include the possibility of finding
a cure to cancer, or of being successfully preserved somehow by cryogenic
means.

As you see, suicide is not necessary for QS decisions. 

In addition the whole issue of "measure" is in my opinion suspect as I have
already extensively stated on this list. See below.



Scerir wrote


Lev Vaidman wrote that we must care about all our 'successive' 
worlds in proportion to their measures of existence [Behavior 
Principle]. He does not agree to play the 'quantum Russian 
roulette' because the measure of existence of worlds with 
himself dead is be much larger than the measure of existence 
of the worlds with himself alive and rich!

I agree that QS is unethical. Yet, the reasons given by Vaidman could be unjustified because maximizing measure may not be possible if measure is already infinite - a clue that measure is infinite is that the manyworld seem to vary according to a continuum since schroedinger function is continuous.


George

Re: Quantum suicide without suicide

[Tim May]

From: Tim May [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Jan 9, 2003  1:22:32  PM US/Pacific
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Quantum suicide without suicide


On Thursday, January 9, 2003, at 12:32  PM, George Levy wrote:

As you can see, suicide is not necessary. One could be on death row - 
in other words have a high probability of dying - and make decisions 
based on the probability of remaining alive.

Being on death row, dying of cancer, travelling on an airline, or 
sleeping in our bed involve different probability of death... These 
situations only differ in degrees. We are all in the same boat so to 
speak. We are all likely to die sooner or later. The closer the 
probability of death, the more important QS decision becomes.

The guy on death row must include in his QS decision making the factor 
that will save his life: probably a successful appeal or a reprieve by 
the state governor.

No, this is the good news fallacy of evidential decision theory, as 
discussed by Joyce in his book on Causal Decision Theory. The good 
news fallacy is noncausally hoping for good news, e.g., standing in a 
long line to vote when the expected benefit of voting is nearly nil. 
(But if everyone thought that way, imagine what would happen! Indeed.)

The guy on death row should be looking for ways to causally influence 
his own survival, not consoling himself with good news fallacy notions 
that he will be alive in other realities in which the governor issues a 
reprieve. The quantum suicide strategy is without content.

As you see, suicide is not necessary for QS decisions.



No, I don't see this. I don't see _any_ of this. Whether one supports 
Savage or Jefferys or Joyce or Pearl, I see no particular importance of 
quantum suicide to the theory of decision-making.

It would help if you gave some concrete examples of what a belief in 
quantum suicide means for several obvious examples:

-- the death row case you cited

-- the airplane example you also cited

-- Newcomb's Paradox (discussed in Pearl, Joyce, Nozick, etc.)

-- stock market investments/speculations

--Tim May

Quantum suicide without suicide

[George Levy]

In the original verision of Quantum Suicide (QS), as understood in this 
list, the experimenter sets up a suicide machine that kills him if the 
world does not conform to his wishes. Hence, in the branching 
many-worlds, his consciousness is erased in those worlds, and remains 
intact in the worlds that do satisfy him.

Is it possible to perform such a feat without suicide? What is the 
minimum attrition that is required and still get the effect of suicide?

Here is a thought experiment that illustrates that this may be possible. 
There is a cost - it is not death - just a tiny weeny lobotomy. :-)

All the experimenter has to do is set up his machine to erase the 
portion of his memory that stores the information dealing with the 
machine erasing from his mind the information about the machine erasing 
from his mind the information about the machine erasing from his mind 
the portion of his memory dealing with the experiment, (phew! I thought 
I was going into infinite regress!) and then have the machine erase  (or 
destroy) itself without a trace (this is important to maintain consistency).

The outcome of the experiment in the many-world branches is as follows:

1) in some branches the experimenter's wishes are satisfied and he 
remembers the experiment. His world is consistent.

2) in the other branches the experimenter's wishes are not satisfied, 
and he does not recall performing the experiment. Whether he as done the 
experiment or not is not subjectively material to him. His world is 
consistent.

What can we deduce from this? I don't really know for sure but I 'd like 
to discuss it.

1) The erasing of the memory of the quantum suicide machine seems to be 
the minimum required in terms of information deletion. Why? What does 
the memory of the quantum suicide machine have to do with consciousness? 
Is the infinite regress relevent? - this infinite regress describing 
this machine erasing from his mind the information about the 
machine erasing from his mind the information about the machine erasing 
from his mind the information about the machine erasing from his mind 
the information about the machine... ?

2) The other worlds in which the experimenter's wishes are not 
satisfied are of two kinds.
   A) those worlds where he did not perform the experiment, and of 
course have no memory of performing the experiment
   B) those worlds where he did perform the experiment but does not 
remember performing the experiment because of the lobotomy.
In my opinion those worlds are equivalent because I believe in a 
subjective reality. But of course, many of you will disagree.

3) The lobotomy was a way to shift the experimenter subjective frame of 
reference. How does the knowledge of the machine affect the frame of 
reference? What is the essence of the frame of reference?

George Levy

Re: Quantum suicide without suicide

[Tim May]

On Wednesday, January 8, 2003, at 10:58  AM, George Levy wrote:


In the original verision of Quantum Suicide (QS), as understood in 
this list, the experimenter sets up a suicide machine that kills him 
if the world does not conform to his wishes. Hence, in the branching 
many-worlds, his consciousness is erased in those worlds, and remains 
intact in the worlds that do satisfy him.

Is it possible to perform such a feat without suicide? What is the 
minimum attrition that is required and still get the effect of 
suicide?

Hawking had a good line: When I hear about Schrodinger's Cat, I reach 
for my gun.

Slightly modify the QS conditions in another direction: instead of 
dying immediately, one goes onto death row to await execution. Or one 
is locked in a box with the air running out. And so on.

This removes the security blanket of saying Suicide is painless, and 
in all the worlds you have not died in, you are rich! In 99....99% 
of all worlds, you sit in the box waiting for the air to run out.

I don't know if there are other worlds in the DeWitt/Graham sense 
(there is no reason to believe Everett ever thought in these terms), 
but if they exist they appear to be either unreachable by us, or 
inaccessible beyond short times and distances (coherence issues).

In particular, it seems to me there's a causal decision theory 
argument  which says that one should make decisions based on the 
maximization of the payout. And based on everything we observe in the 
world around us, which is overwhelmingly classical at the scales we 
interact in, this means the QS outlook is deprecated.

Consider this thought experiment: Alice is facing her quantum mechanics 
exam at Berkeley. She sees two main approaches to take. First, study 
hard and try to answer all of the questions as if they mattered. 
Second, take the lessons of her QS readings and simply _guess_, or 
write gibberish, killing herself if she fails to get an A. (Or, as 
above, facing execution, torture, running out of air, etc.,  just to 
repudiate the suicide is painless aspect of some people's argument.)

From rationality, or causal decision theory, which option should she 
pick?

All indications are that there are virtually no worlds in which random 
guessers do well. (The odds are readily calcuable, given the type of 
exam, grading details, etc. We can fairly easily see that a random 
guesser in the SATs will score around 550-600 combined, but that a 
random guesser in a non-multiple-choice QM exam will flunk with 
ovewhelming likelihood.)

What should one do? What did all of you actually do? What did Moravec 
do, what did I do, what did Tegmark do?

--Tim May

(quantum) suicide

[Saibal Mitra]

Hall Finney: ''You might want to clarify what you mean by quantum suicide
 working.  What do you hope to accomplish via QS?  What effect will it
 have on your subjective perceptions?''

By ''quantum suicide working'' I mean that you could make the probability of
winning the lottery as close to 100% as you like, by building better and
better suicide machines. I think that quantum suicide does not work. Simply,
because the probability distribution of the states I can find myself in is a
fixed quantity. The continuous time evolution without memory loss I
(normally)experience is not a fundamental propery of the laws of nature.
Rather this follows from the conservation of probability and applies only
when the person himself in also ''conserved''. In other cases, e.g. suicide
experiments,  this breaks down. If you have a 99.9% of dying, then I would
say that you would have to assign a probability of 99.9% to experiencing
other branches inconsistent with the one you are in now. of course, this
means that you won't have any recollection of performing the experiment. The
99.9% is distributed according to the fixed probability distribution of the
states I can find myself in. To me this is the only possible consistent
picture of the plenitude.

- Original Message -
From: Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Saturday, January 04, 2003 8:32 PM
Subject: Re: Many Worlds and Oracles
 I think we all agree with the objective consequences of QS.  Someone kills
 themself in some branch of the multiverse.  They are removed from that
 branch but continue to live on in others.  The disagreements begin when
 we consider the subjective effects.

 The most limited view, I think, is that QS will subjectively fail.
 That is, if you attempt to kill yourself in some clean way, the machine
 will work in some universes and fail in others, but you will only notice
 the result in those universes (or branches of the MWI) where it fails.

 In single-universe models, we would predict that a highly reliable
 QS machine will simply terminate your existence.  You won't perceive
 anything, after it goes off.  In multiverse models, a QS believer would
 predict that you will continue to exist even after the machine goes
 off.  Your measure will be reduced, but your existence will continue.
 This is the most limited and restricted prediction with regard to QS in
 a multiverse.

 (With some assumptions, you could get the same prediction of continued
 existence in a single-universe model.  If we assume that the universe
 is infinite in extent so there are multiple copies of you, or that some
 future civilization will simulate your mind perfectly, then this could be
 a mechanism for your existence to continue subjectively even after the QS
 machine goes off.  But in a finite and small single-universe model with
 limited future computing capacity, then a QS death is final and complete.)

 A more ambitious version of QS attempts to change and hopefully improve
 your circumstances by pruning those branches where bad things happen.
 By doing this, your total measure is reduced, but your average happiness
 (averaged over all instances of yourself) is increased.  Because your
 total measure is reduced, your total happiness is decreased (unless
 you only use QS to eliminate branches where your happiness is negative,
 that is, where you are better off dead).  So there is a tradeoff between
 increasing your average happiness while decreasing your total happiness.
 I believe it is a matter of personal preference which one is better, so I
 think on this basis that QS is right for some people and wrong for others.

 Another ambitious flavor of QS predicts that we can distinguish multiverse
 from single-universe realities by attempting QS.  It is even possible
 that all versions of death fail just like QS would, hence that everyone
 who has ever lived has experienced subjective immortality, if multiverse
 theories are true.  By this reasoning, each person will eventually become
 subjectively convinced of multiverse theories (if they deduce that this
 is the explanation for their bizarrely extended lifespans).

 Hal Finney

Re: Bruno's teleportation device is a quantum suicide device

[Bruno Marchal]

At 16:01 -0700 20/06/2002, Hal Finney wrote:
It's not clear that it means anything to say that the person could have
died.  Here is why I say that.

I think we agree that the person in the mechanical brain who leaves
the operation will not be able to tell whether it was a success or not.
He will have memories of going into the operation and coming out of it,
but is that good enough?  No, even if he is in your sense a new person,
he would still have those memories.  So the memories mean nothing.

The problem with this reasoning is that it is consistent with the
possibility that we die in this same sense every night when we sleep.
Perhaps the person who wakes up is not the same person who went to sleep.
He has memories of falling asleep, just as the mechanical man has memories
of going into the operation.  But we just agreed that the existence of
such memories proves nothing.

In fact, I don't think there is any way that we can ever prove that our
identity is maintained across sleep, or unconsciousness, or for that
matter from one moment to the next!  Maybe we are dying every instant,
but we can't tell, because we are constantly being re-created with our
memories of the previous events.

Given that there is no way for the subject or any other person to tell
the truth or false of this, isn't it possible that there is no truth or
falsity to tell?


No, because once we accept we have mechanical brain then godel-like
theorems could in principle be applied to us and this can be used to
show indirectly that there are true propositions about us that we
cannot prove. Anyway there are other powerful argument showing that
we should not equivocate truth and proofs.
Now you are right if we are mechanical device we cannot prove we survive
any instant, that's why I use logics in which we survive any instant
almost by definition. The real problem, then, is to explained the
stability of our best and short explanations (like physical laws).

It is not wrong (with explicit comp) to say that we are dying at each
instant, but this is quasi-meaningless.

Bruno

Re: Why (quantum) suicide doesn't work

[Russell Standish]

This sounds to me that you're coming around to Jacque's ASSA
position...


Even assuming your ideas about lack of continuity are correct, each
observer moment perceived must be consistent with its history. In
order to make discontinuous jumps across the Multiverse (and I'm
sure Jacques hates that term :), information must be lost by the
observer. I would think that there must be some kind of parsimony on
how this is done, severely restricting the kinds of jumps possible.

More likely, (and this would now be the RSSA type of interpretation),
as continuous transitions become more unlikely (ie escaping death becomes
extremely less likely), then forgetting style discontinuous
transitions might dominate.

I can believe that this argument will prevent us from entering Harry
Potter type universes through Quantum Suicide, but one will probably
still be able to make a buck out of a suitably structured lottery.

Does this mean that we're likely to see arbitrarily large ages? I'm no
entirely sure your argument resolves this issue, but I'm still
planning to celebrate my 200th birthday with a virtual champagne toast
(since I will most likely be a disembodied brain connected to a life
support system :).

Cheers

Saibal Mitra wrote:
 
 This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
 
 --=_NextPart_000_0054_01C192E2.237021E0
 Content-Type: text/plain;
   charset=iso-8859-1
 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
 
 I am now completely convinced that attempts to witness low probability =
 events or to travel to low measure sectors of the plenitude are doomed =
 to failure.
 
 The (hidden) assumption behind quantum suicide is that of continuity of =
 consciousness: If there is only one unlikely outcome that will preserve =
 one's consciousness, then that is what will happen as observed by the =
 person himself.
 
 But why should this be true? Even if the probability were exactly zero =
 for the person's consciousness to be preserved, the person will always =
 find himself alive somewhere in the plenitude. And therefore he will =
 always experience his consciousness to be continuous.
 
 As I see it, the plenitude contains a set of states a particular =
 observer can be in. Each element has a certain a priory probability, =
 depending on the details of the structure of the plenitude.
 =20
  If we are dealing with immortal observers, then this probability must =
 be conserved. I.e. if an experiment has three outcomes (a, b, c), the =
 sum of the a priory probabilities of the observer observing event a, b, =
 and c, must equal the a priory probability of the observer being in the =
 state before performing the experiment.
 
 In case of a mortal observer, however, the probability is not conserved =
 (from the observer's perspective). This is nothing but the definition of =
 being mortal.
 
 I claim that one might just as well consider all states the observer =
 could possibly be in as independent, the particular state he is in drawn =
 randomly from the a priory probability distribution. It really doesn't =
 matter. Consciousness will stil be experienced as continiuous from the =
 perspective of the observer. We don't have to put this in by hand. There =
 is no such thing as a conservation of consciousness. There is a =
 conservation of probability from the third person's perspective, which =
 doesn't always translate into a conservation of probability from the =
 first person's perspective.
 
 The suicide machine thus can't work. The probability of winning the =
 lottery, given that you have just boarded the suicide machine, is simply =
 the a priory probability of experiencing the desired outcome divided by =
 the a priory probability of just having boarded the suicide machine. The =
 probability of winning is thus unaffected.
 
 Saibal
 
 --=_NextPart_000_0054_01C192E2.237021E0
 Content-Type: text/html;
   charset=iso-8859-1
 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
 
 !DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC -//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN
 HTMLHEAD
 META content=3Dtext/html; charset=3Diso-8859-1 =
 http-equiv=3DContent-Type
 META content=3DMSHTML 5.00.2614.3500 name=3DGENERATOR
 STYLE/STYLE
 /HEAD
 BODY bgColor=3D#b8b8b8
 DIVFONT face=3DArial size=3D2I am now completely convinced that =
 attempts to=20
 witness low probability events or to travel to low measure sectors of =
 the=20
 plenitude are doomed to failure./FONT/DIV
 DIVnbsp;/DIV
 DIVFONT face=3DArial size=3D2The (hidden) assumption behind quantum =
 suicide is=20
 that of continuity of consciousness: If there is only one unlikely =
 outcome that=20
 will preserve one's consciousness, then that is what will happen as =
 observed by=20
 the person himself./FONT/DIV
 DIVnbsp;/DIV
 DIVFONT face=3DArial size=3D2But why should this be true? Even if =
 the=20
 probability were exactly zero for the person's consciousness to be =
 preserved,=20
 the person will always find himself alive somewhere in the plenitude

Re: (Quantum) suicide not necessary?

[James Higgo]

It seems so obvious to me that 'self' and 'time' are an 'illusion' (i.e not
representative of an external reality) that I have barely mentioned it.
That's Eastern Philosopy 1.01. Thank you, Robert, for pointing that out.

I'd also draw the list's attention to a paragraph in Robert's last post that
most members will have missed because they stopped reading much earlier,
having developed mystic-fatigue:

Again to restate the irony I perceive, the experiment
mentioned involving altering memory, is in effect,
what mystics do to transcend the physical. They
actually train themselves to ignore the memory that
binds them to this place, making the free to see what
their consciousness perceives constantly, but could
not grasp or pick out from the noise. Another example
of this is sensory deprivation. 

This is an interesting point.
- Original Message -
From: rwas rwas [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: James Higgo [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2001 9:14 PM
Subject: Re: (Quantum) suicide not necessary?



 There is no 'you'. 'You' don't 'travel'. There
  are just different observer moments, some including
  'I am Micky and  I'm, sick'.
 
 
 --

 
So? This is trivial. We still percieve ourselves
  as continuous beings,

 I think you missed it. I interpret what he's saying to
 mean that I-ness is an illusion. It implies to me that
 one's perception of time, integral to I-ness is an
 illusion. So one moves around an expression space
 depending on viewpoint.

 The perception of being continuous in time is illusory
 in my view. We are already all things we can be,
 except in consciousness. Those bound to temporal
 thinking lack the consciousness to transcend it.



 Robert W.

 __
 Do You Yahoo!?
 Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail.
 http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/

Re: (Quantum) suicide not necessary?

[James Higgo]

I have a white Rabbit. Your thought does not include a _flying_ rabbit and
hence it seems to you that there should be a reason for this. Really, all
you are saying is 'why does my thought not include anything I find strange'.
I have said this before.
- Original Message -
From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: James Higgo [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Michael Rosefield
[EMAIL PROTECTED]; Saibal Mitra [EMAIL PROTECTED];
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, March 04, 2001 9:33 PM
Subject: Re: (Quantum) suicide not necessary?


 On 03-Mar-01, James Higgo wrote:
  Your comment, 'an explanation that can explain anything explains
  nothing.' is very imporatnt, and many people have said it. It is true
  of any TOE, as you say, and implies that _you_ should stop looking for
  a TOE as you will always be dissatisfied.

 I would be satisfied with a TOE that explains everything, but not
 anything.  Some TOE's are inconsistent with white rabbits - i.e.
 couldn't explain a white rabbit, and hence have some explanatory power.
  TOE's that start with all observer moments exist don't seem to have
 even this.

 Brent Meeker

Re: (Quantum) suicide not necessary?

[rwas rwas]

I think I understand your concern. As to how to form a
complete theory, I find that kind of thinking outside
my form of expression. Finding an all encompassing
theory for consciousness I believe will be impossible.

I think all we can do is frame the understanding in
terms of what we are trying to achieve with it. 

In my thinking style, I find myself strugling to turn
intuitive thoughts and feelings into words. It's a bit
easier if I say: I want to design an AI to achieve
*this* kind of robotic cooperation. Trying to develop
a *complete* theory is something I've never been able
to do. It seems to require forming specifics for
things lost in the translation to specifics. For me,
understanding of AI and consciousness is the kind of
thing one interprets, knowing it's only a limited
expression.

Robert W.


--- Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 On 05-Mar-01, rwas rwas wrote:
  
  I think you missed it. I interpret what he's
 saying
  to
  mean that I-ness is an illusion. It implies to me
  that
  one's perception of time, integral to I-ness is
 an
  illusion. So one moves around an expression space
  depending on viewpoint. 
 
 It may be an 'illusion', but it still requires an
 explanation if the
 theory is to be anything more than hand waving.  Not
 only does the
 illusion of personal continuity, but also the
 'illusion' of space-time
 and an external (non-mental) world obeying a fairly
 specific physics.
 
 I can well accept that at some 'fundamental' level
 the ontology is just
 thoughts, observer moments, or windowless monads. 
 In fact that seems
 like a good place to start.  That's fine, but when I
 ask how this
 explains the things we're interested in -
 perception, physics,
 space-time, mathematics - all I hear is, It's just
 a web of observer
 moments. which explains nothing because it is
 consistent with
 anything.
 
 Brent Meeker
 
  
  The perception of being continuous in time is
  illusory
  in my view. We are already all things we can be,
  except in consciousness. Those bound to temporal
  thinking lack the consciousness to transcend it.
  
  
  
  Robert W.
  
 
 __
  Do You Yahoo!?
  Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. 
  http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
  
  
  
  __
  Do You Yahoo!?
  Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. 
  http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
  
 Regards
 


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Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. 
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Re: (Quantum) suicide not necessary?

[rwas rwas]

--- rwas rwas [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  versions of many-worlds theories, one might
  consider a different approach.
   
  By deleting certain sectors of one's memory
 one
  should be able to travel
  to different branches of the multiverse.
 Suppose
  you are diagnosed with 
  a rare disease. You don't have complaints yet,
  but you will die
  within a year. If you could delete the
  information that you have this
  particular disease (and also the information
  that information has
  been deleted), branches in which you don't
 have
  the disease
  merge with the branches in which you do have
 the
  disease. So with
  very high probability you have traveled to a
  different branch.
I don't know whether to be relieved or annoyed
  that I'm not the only person to think of this ;D.
 
 
 As a student of mysticism, I meditate often and
 explore mind, consciousness, and feeling. Your
 experiment points to the process of quieting the
 ego. The framework for I-ness that gives meaning
 to
 our existence here. At some point one experiences a
 complete loss of I and any constraint of
 consciousness formed by life here. One appears to
 move
 through something from here to somewhere else. The
 strange part is when you are conscious in both
 places.
 For the purpose of this convo I'll say alternate
 universes. I had read in mystic writings that time
 and
 space are an illusion. It seems physicists (masters
 of
 intellect) are coming to the same conclusion 10,000
 years after the masters of the soul and mind had.
 
 I offer this comparison not as proof, but mainly to
 demonstrate the irony I perceive. I grew up with a
 strong perpensity for intellect and mind. I was
 attracted to mysticism for some strange reason but
 found conflict between my understanding of the
 physical and myself from an intellect's point of
 view.
 Melding the two worlds of understanding was and
 still
 is difficult.
 
 I also have a strong interest in AI and have
 developed
 my own theories of synthetic consciousness.
 Interestingly enough, they seem to point to what
 I've
 found through meditation, if not exactly
 representative of the process.
 
 One particular experience involved waking up from
 sleep after meditating about 3 hours prior. I was
 aware in a place with no time or dimension. I got up
 to relieve myself and found myself slipping between
 two realities. The sensation was that of traveling
 between two points, but not travel like one expects.
 It seemed reality was being folded depending on
 where
 I went. One or the other by itself was'nt too
 impressive, but when combined (both points joined)
 the
 result was unsettling. The awareness of
 non-dimension
 while trying to stand upright is an odd experience.
 I
 had no trouble standing up but up had no meaning.
 It
 was necessary to keep from falling down but I was
 not
 consciously bound to dimension or time.
 
 Again, I provide this as an illustration of things
 that have been discussed in this list found and
 verified (at least to me) in alternate methods. One
 important point to emphasize is that in these
 realms,
 dimension is useless. This means the classical
 physics
 falls down. Without a way to measure something or
 compare something, one trained in thinking where
 observables are constrained to things measurable
 would
 be lost. Emphasis on characteristics and
 relationships
 between characteristics in a completely abstract way
 are the only way to grasp what is observed.
 
 For me, an afterlife is a certainty. I have no
 doubts
 that physical science will bridge the gap between
 *here and there*. The biggest issue I see with the
 theories I see is that they seem to demand that
 alternate places behave and act like the physical
 here. In this place, we are confined to act and
 perceive with the five senses. We do with our
 physical body as go-between, between consciousness
 and
 the physical. It seems most people proposing
 theories
 have no experience effecting outcomes with anything
 but their physical bodies, so it's not too
 surprising
 that they constrain their alternate (theories of)
realities to the
 same limitations found here.
 
 I'll provide a mystically influenced frame work to
 consider...
 
 The physical (the apparent in mystic terms) is a
 place
 where *things* persist. This is unique to this
 place.
 Trying to take something that persists (ie.,
 spacecraft, diagnostic vehicle, etc) else where,
 would
 result in the persistent object succoming to
 in-persistent laws. It would dissolve. 
 
 The discussions here seem to revolve around
 consciousness, the laws which it is found in, and
 methods to delineate consciousness. From my
 perspective, consciousness is the *only* vehicle in
 which to transcend the realm of persistence. 
 
 Again to restate the irony I perceive, the
 experiment
 mentioned involving altering memory, is in effect,
 what mystics do to transcend the physical. They
 actually train themselves to 

Re: (Quantum) suicide not necessary?

[James Higgo]

Your comment, 'an explanation that can explain anything explains nothing.'
is very imporatnt, and many people have said it. It is true of any TOE, as
you say, and implies that _you_ should stop looking for a TOE as you will
always be dissatisfied.

- Original Message -
From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: James Higgo [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Michael Rosefield
[EMAIL PROTECTED]; Saibal Mitra [EMAIL PROTECTED];
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Saturday, March 03, 2001 5:40 PM
Subject: Re: (Quantum) suicide not necessary?


 I checked out your website, but it still seems to me there is a big gap
 between saying all universes with physics that are consistent with the
 WAP are experienced and saying that all thoughts (observer moments)
 exists.  In the later case there is no explanation for the seeming
 existence of coherent sequences of thoughts such as 'me', except to say
 that if all thoughts exist then this sequence must exist too.  The
 trouble with this is that an explanation that can explain anything
 explains nothing.

 Brent Meeker


  Before I was blind but now I see.
 
  I was the one who came up with the expression, 'Quantum Theory of
  Immortality', and I now see that it's false - and all this stuff in
  this thread is based on the same mistake. See www.higgo.com/qti , a
  site dedicated to the idea.
 
  There is no 'you'. 'You' don't 'travel'. There are just different
  observer moments, some including 'I am Micky and I'm, sick'.
 
  Even thinking in your passe Newtonian terms, how can a universe in
  which 'you have a disease' be the same as one in which 'you do not
  have the disease', just because you don't know it?
 
  I see why Jacques gets so irritated by this type of thinking, but it's
  nice to see him back on the list now  then.

Re: (Quantum) suicide not necessary?

[Brent Meeker]

I checked out your website, but it still seems to me there is a big gap
between saying all universes with physics that are consistent with the
WAP are experienced and saying that all thoughts (observer moments)
exists.  In the later case there is no explanation for the seeming
existence of coherent sequences of thoughts such as 'me', except to say
that if all thoughts exist then this sequence must exist too.  The
trouble with this is that an explanation that can explain anything
explains nothing.

Brent Meeker


 Before I was blind but now I see. 
 
 I was the one who came up with the expression, 'Quantum Theory of
 Immortality', and I now see that it's false - and all this stuff in
 this thread is based on the same mistake. See www.higgo.com/qti , a
 site dedicated to the idea.
 
 There is no 'you'. 'You' don't 'travel'. There are just different
 observer moments, some including 'I am Micky and I'm, sick'.
 
 Even thinking in your passe Newtonian terms, how can a universe in
 which 'you have a disease' be the same as one in which 'you do not
 have the disease', just because you don't know it?
 
 I see why Jacques gets so irritated by this type of thinking, but it's
 nice to see him back on the list now  then.

Re: (Quantum) suicide not necessary?

[Saibal Mitra]

Bruno wrote:

 Saibal Mitra wrote:

 Instead of the previously discussed suicide experiments to test various
 versions of many-worlds theories, one might consider a different
approach.
 
 By deleting certain sectors of one's memory one should be able to travel
 to different branches of the multiverse. Suppose you are diagnosed with
 a rare disease. You don't have complaints yet, but you will die
 within a year. If you could delete the information that you have this
 particular disease (and also the information that information has
 been deleted), branches in which you don't have the disease
 merge with the branches in which you do have the disease. So with
 very high probability you have travelled to a different branch.

 Be careful because in the process you take the risk of losing a friend.
 More aptly (3 1 switch) a friend risks losing you.

 Do you agree that at *some* level we do that all the time?
 Does death works as personal local and relative memory eraser ?
 Your suggestion is risky, if not egoist, but, is there another way
 when the rare disease is fatal?

Indeed. Death will erase my memory anyway, so why not do it in a controlled
way
to maximize the probability of some desired outcome.

 Thought experiment with speculative memory capture raised quickly
 the interesting question: how many (first) person exists, really.
 I don't know the answer. One ?

Why not an infinite number?


 In another post Saibal wrote:

 I think the source of the problem is equation 1 of Jürgens paper. This
 equation supposedly gives the probability that I am in a particular
 universe, but it ignores that multiple copies of me might exist in one
 universe. Let's consider a simple example. The prior probability of
 universe i (i0) is denoted as P(i), and i copies of me exist in universe
 i. In this case, Jürgen computes the propability that if you pick a
 universe at random, sampled with the prior P, you pick universe i. This
 probability is, of course, P(i). Therefore Jürgen never has to identify
 how many times I exist in a particular universe, and can ignore what
 consciousness actually is.
 
 Surerly an open univere where an infinite number of copies of me exist is
 infinitely more likely than a closed universe where I don't have any
 copies, assuming that the priors are of the same order?


 Would you agree that a quantum multiverse could play the role of a
 particular open universe where an infinite number of
 copies of me exists?

I agree that this could be the case.
 If you agree, would that mean we have anthropic reasons to believe
 in a quantum-like multiverse?

That's an interesting point!

Saibal

Re: (Quantum) suicide not necessary?

[Michael Rosefield]

 
From: James Higgo 


 Before I was blind but 
now I see.

 I was the one who came 
up with the expression, 'Quantum Theory of Immortality', and I now see that it's 
false -  and all this stuff in this thread is based on the same mistake. See 
www.higgo.com/qti , a site dedicated to 
the  idea.



Hey, I'm still counting it as original! I 
_did_ come up with it independently And I still can't see anything wrong 
with it.

Thanks for the web-site, though.



 There is no 'you'. 'You' don't 'travel'. There 
are just different observer moments, some including 'I am Micky and  I'm, 
sick'.



So? This is trivial. We still percieve ourselves as continuous 
beings, and the qualia is what I'm talking about here. The point is that one 
will _always_ have observer moments to go to. The illusion of self is 
maintained. I'm pretty sure at least one of us is misunderstanding the 
other.



 Even thinking in your passe Newtonian 
terms,how can a universe in which 'you have a disease' be the 
same  as one in which 'you do not have the disease', just 
because you don't know it?



Oh Please don't do that. You don't know how I think, and I 
really don't see why you jumped to this conclusion. 

The wayI see it now, the observer moment is all we have. 
I think I may have picked up the followingmetaphor here, but I'll use it 
nonetheless: did Jack and Jill go up the hill in August? Does it 
matter?

The rhyme leaves it undefined, so it's a meaningless question; 
they did and they didn't. We belong to all universes that generate this observer 
moment, and only a sort of statistical Ockham's Razor says which ones we'll 
perceive ourselves to be in next. What's the problem here?



 I see why Jacques gets 
so irritated by this type of thinking, but it's nice to see him back on the list 
now  then. 


What type of thinking? Please, I don't want to get into a 
catfight here. I'm on this list, presumably, for the same reasonyou are: 
to try and see the whole picture.

Re: (Quantum) suicide not necessary?

[James Higgo]

Oh, as to 'this is trivial - we still perceive 
ourselves as continuous beings' - I guess as far as you're concerned,the 
Earth does not move.

  - Original Message - 
  From: 
  Michael Rosefield 
  To: James Higgo ; Saibal Mitra ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
  Sent: Saturday, March 03, 2001 3:34 
  PM
  Subject: Re: (Quantum) suicide not 
  necessary?
  
  
   
  From: James Higgo 
  
  
   Before I was blind 
  but now I see.
  
   I was the one who 
  came up with the expression, 'Quantum Theory of Immortality', and I now see 
  that it's false -  and all this stuff in this thread is based on the same 
  mistake. See www.higgo.com/qti , a site 
  dedicated to the  idea.
  
  
  
  Hey, I'm still counting it as original! 
  I _did_ come up with it independently And I still can't see anything wrong 
  with it.
  
  Thanks for the web-site, though.
  
  
  
   There is no 'you'. 'You' don't 'travel'. 
  There are just different observer moments, some including 'I am Micky and  
  I'm, sick'.
  
  
  
  So? This is trivial. We still percieve ourselves as 
  continuous beings, and the qualia is what I'm talking about here. The point is 
  that one will _always_ have observer moments to go to. The illusion of self is 
  maintained. I'm pretty sure at least one of us is misunderstanding the 
  other.
  
  
  
   Even thinking in your passe Newtonian 
  terms,how can a universe in which 'you have a disease' be the 
  same  as one in which 'you do not have the disease', just 
  because you don't know it?
  
  
  
  Oh Please don't do that. You don't know how I think, and 
  I really don't see why you jumped to this conclusion. 
  
  The wayI see it now, the observer moment is all we 
  have. I think I may have picked up the followingmetaphor here, but I'll 
  use it nonetheless: did Jack and Jill go up the hill in August? Does it 
  matter?
  
  The rhyme leaves it undefined, so it's a meaningless 
  question; they did and they didn't. We belong to all universes that generate 
  this observer moment, and only a sort of statistical Ockham's Razor says which 
  ones we'll perceive ourselves to be in next. What's the problem 
  here?
  
  
  
   I see why Jacques 
  gets so irritated by this type of thinking, but it's nice to see him back on 
  the list now  then. 
  
  
  What type of thinking? Please, I don't want to get into a 
  catfight here. I'm on this list, presumably, for the same reasonyou are: 
  to try and see the whole picture. 

Re: (Quantum) suicide not necessary?

[James Higgo]

You miss the point. You do not go anywhere. You are 
this observer moment. No observer moment 'becomes' another OM, or it would be a 
different OM to begin with. I guess this is extremely hard for people to 
understand, because it denies that people exist.

  - Original Message - 
  From: 
  Michael Rosefield 
  To: James Higgo ; Saibal Mitra ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
  Sent: Saturday, March 03, 2001 3:34 
  PM
  Subject: Re: (Quantum) suicide not 
  necessary?
  
  
   
  From: James Higgo 
  
  
   Before I was blind 
  but now I see.
  
   I was the one who 
  came up with the expression, 'Quantum Theory of Immortality', and I now see 
  that it's false -  and all this stuff in this thread is based on the same 
  mistake. See www.higgo.com/qti , a site 
  dedicated to the  idea.
  
  
  
  Hey, I'm still counting it as original! 
  I _did_ come up with it independently And I still can't see anything wrong 
  with it.
  
  Thanks for the web-site, though.
  
  
  
   There is no 'you'. 'You' don't 'travel'. 
  There are just different observer moments, some including 'I am Micky and  
  I'm, sick'.
  
  
  
  So? This is trivial. We still percieve ourselves as 
  continuous beings, and the qualia is what I'm talking about here. The point is 
  that one will _always_ have observer moments to go to. The illusion of self is 
  maintained. I'm pretty sure at least one of us is misunderstanding the 
  other.
  
  
  
   Even thinking in your passe Newtonian 
  terms,how can a universe in which 'you have a disease' be the 
  same  as one in which 'you do not have the disease', just 
  because you don't know it?
  
  
  
  Oh Please don't do that. You don't know how I think, and 
  I really don't see why you jumped to this conclusion. 
  
  The wayI see it now, the observer moment is all we 
  have. I think I may have picked up the followingmetaphor here, but I'll 
  use it nonetheless: did Jack and Jill go up the hill in August? Does it 
  matter?
  
  The rhyme leaves it undefined, so it's a meaningless 
  question; they did and they didn't. We belong to all universes that generate 
  this observer moment, and only a sort of statistical Ockham's Razor says which 
  ones we'll perceive ourselves to be in next. What's the problem 
  here?
  
  
  
   I see why Jacques 
  gets so irritated by this type of thinking, but it's nice to see him back on 
  the list now  then. 
  
  
  What type of thinking? Please, I don't want to get into a 
  catfight here. I'm on this list, presumably, for the same reasonyou are: 
  to try and see the whole picture. 

Re: (Quantum) suicide not necessary?

[James Higgo]

Before I was blind but now 
I see.

I was the one who came up 
with the expression, 'Quantum Theory of Immortality', and I now see that it's 
false - and all this stuff in this thread is based on the same mistake. See www.higgo.com/qti , a site dedicated to the 
idea.

There is no 'you'. 'You' don't 'travel'. There are 
just different observer moments, some including 'I am Micky and I'm, 
sick'.

Even thinking in your passe Newtonian 
terms,how can a universe in which 'you have a disease' be the same as one 
in which 'you do not have the disease', just because you don't know 
it?

I see why Jacques gets so 
irritated by this type of thinking, but it's nice to see him back on the list 
now  then. 

  - Original Message - 
  From: 
  Michael Rosefield 
  To: Saibal Mitra ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
  Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2001 3:30 
  PM
  Subject: Re: (Quantum) suicide not 
  necessary?
  
  
  *Phew!*; this afternoon I finally got round to 
  reading the 190-odd messages I have received from this 
  list
  
  
  From: Saibal Mitra 
  
Instead of the previously discussed suicide 
experiments to test variousversions of many-worlds theories, one might 
consider a different approach.

By deleting certain sectors of one's memory one 
should be able to travelto different branches of the multiverse. Suppose 
you are diagnosed with a rare disease. You don't have complaints yet, 
but you will diewithin a year. If you could delete the information that 
you have thisparticular disease (and also the information that 
information hasbeen deleted), branches in which you don't have the 
diseasemerge with the branches in which you do have the disease. So 
withvery high probability you have travelled to a different 
branch.
  I don't know whether to be relieved or annoyed 
  that I'm not the only person to think of this ;D.
  http://pub45.ezboard.com/fwastelandofwondersfrm1.showMessage?topicID=353.topicindex=5
  I'm guessing this is quite a common idea? 
  Rats, I thought I was so great
  
  
  I_did_ thinkof the following today, 
  though:
  
  If you take this sort of thing one step further, an 
  afterlife is inevitable; there will always be systems - however improbable - 
  where the mind lives on. For instance, you could just be the victim of an 
  hallucination, your mind could be downloaded, you could be miraculously cured, 
  and other _much_ more bizzare ones. Since you won't be around to notice the 
  worlds where you did die, they don't count, and you are effectively immortal. 
  Or at least you will perceive yourself to live on, which is the same 
  thing.
  
  When I thought of it, it seemed startlingly original and clever. Looking 
  at the posts I have from this list, I'm beginning to suspect it's neither 
  Anyhow, while this sort of wild thinking iswonderfully pure 
  andcathartic, itnever seems to lead anywhere with testable or 
  useful implications. So far, anyway
  
  What's the opinion here on which are more fundamental - 
  minds or universes? I'd say they're both definable and hence exist de facto, 
  and that each implies the other.
  
  Well,I'm new here. Is there anything I should know 
  about this list? Apart from the fact that everyone's so terribly educated 
  Feel free to go a bit OT ;). 
  
  Michael Rosefield, Sheffield, England
  "I'm a Solipsist, and I must say I'm surprised there aren't more of us." 
  -- letter to Bertrand 
Russell

Re: (Quantum) suicide not necessary?

[Michael Rosefield]

*Phew!*; this afternoon I finally got round to 
reading the 190-odd messages I have received from this 
list


From: Saibal Mitra 

  Instead of the previously discussed suicide 
  experiments to test variousversions of many-worlds theories, one might 
  consider a different approach.
  
  By deleting certain sectors of one's memory one 
  should be able to travelto different branches of the multiverse. Suppose 
  you are diagnosed with a rare disease. You don't have complaints yet, but 
  you will diewithin a year. If you could delete the information that you 
  have thisparticular disease (and also the information that information 
  hasbeen deleted), branches in which you don't have the diseasemerge 
  with the branches in which you do have the disease. So withvery high 
  probability you have travelled to a different 
branch.
I don't know whether to be relieved or annoyed 
that I'm not the only person to think of this ;D.
http://pub45.ezboard.com/fwastelandofwondersfrm1.showMessage?topicID=353.topicindex=5
I'm guessing this is quite a common idea? 
Rats, I thought I was so great


I_did_ thinkof the following today, 
though:

If you take this sort of thing one step further, an 
afterlife is inevitable; there will always be systems - however improbable - 
where the mind lives on. For instance, you could just be the victim of an 
hallucination, your mind could be downloaded, you could be miraculously cured, 
and other _much_ more bizzare ones. Since you won't be around to notice the 
worlds where you did die, they don't count, and you are effectively immortal. Or 
at least you will perceive yourself to live on, which is the same 
thing.

When I thought of it, it seemed startlingly original and clever. Looking at 
the posts I have from this list, I'm beginning to suspect it's neither Anyhow, while this sort of wild thinking iswonderfully pure 
andcathartic, itnever seems to lead anywhere with testable or useful 
implications. So far, anyway

What's the opinion here on which are more fundamental - minds 
or universes? I'd say they're both definable and hence exist de facto, and that 
each implies the other.

Well,I'm new here. Is there anything I should know about 
this list? Apart from the fact that everyone's so terribly educated Feel 
free to go a bit OT ;). 

Michael Rosefield, Sheffield, England
"I'm a Solipsist, and I must say I'm surprised there aren't more of us." -- 
letter to Bertrand Russell

Re: (Quantum) suicide not necessary?

[Marchal]

Saibal Mitra wrote:

Instead of the previously discussed suicide experiments to test various
versions of many-worlds theories, one might consider a different approach.

By deleting certain sectors of one's memory one should be able to travel
to different branches of the multiverse. Suppose you are diagnosed with 
a rare disease. You don't have complaints yet, but you will die
within a year. If you could delete the information that you have this
particular disease (and also the information that information has
been deleted), branches in which you don't have the disease
merge with the branches in which you do have the disease. So with
very high probability you have travelled to a different branch.

Be careful because in the process you take the risk of losing a friend.
More aptly (3 1 switch) a friend risks losing you.

Do you agree that at *some* level we do that all the time? 
Does death works as personal local and relative memory eraser ?
Your suggestion is risky, if not egoist, but, is there another way 
when the rare disease is fatal?

Thought experiment with speculative memory capture raised quickly
the interesting question: how many (first) person exists, really.
I don't know the answer. One ?


In another post Saibal wrote:

I think the source of the problem is equation 1 of Jürgens paper. This 
equation supposedly gives the probability that I am in a particular 
universe, but it ignores that multiple copies of me might exist in one 
universe. Let's consider a simple example. The prior probability of 
universe i (i0) is denoted as P(i), and i copies of me exist in universe 
i. In this case, Jürgen computes the propability that if you pick a 
universe at random, sampled with the prior P, you pick universe i. This 
probability is, of course, P(i). Therefore Jürgen never has to identify 
how many times I exist in a particular universe, and can ignore what 
consciousness actually is.

Surerly an open univere where an infinite number of copies of me exist is 
infinitely more likely than a closed universe where I don't have any 
copies, assuming that the priors are of the same order?


Would you agree that a quantum multiverse could play the role of a 
particular open universe where an infinite number of 
copies of me exists?
If you agree, would that mean we have anthropic reasons to believe
in a quantum-like multiverse?

Bruno

(Quantum) suicide not necessary?

[Saibal Mitra]

Instead of the previously discussed suicide 
experiments to test variousversions of many-worlds theories, one might 
consider a different approach.

By deleting certain sectors of one's memory one 
should be able to travelto different branches of the multiverse. Suppose you 
are diagnosed with a rare disease. You don't have complaints yet, but you 
will diewithin a year. If you could delete the information that you have 
thisparticular disease (and also the information that information 
hasbeen deleted), branches in which you don't have the diseasemerge with 
the branches in which you do have the disease. So withvery high probability 
you have travelled to a different branch.

Re: Quantum Suicide

[Marchal]

Bob Hearn wrote (from [EMAIL PROTECTED] question):

I asked Tegmark what he thought about the idea that one could view 
life as a quantum suicide experiment, in the sense that if it is at 
all possible that I will be alive in, say, 100 years, then I will 
experience this - by definition, I won't experience the branches in 
which I'm not!  This could mean everyone is immortal in their own 
world.  Tegmark did not agree.

But I do agree. I have even shown that a minimal platonistic assumption
together with mechanism (the doctrine that I'm finitely descriptible)
entails a similar form of immortality. I have also developped the
quantum suicide idea in my 1988 and 1991 paper. (ref. in my thesis
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal).

I also derive in the thesis a Quantum Logic from the (godelian-like)
arithmetisation of the idea that by definition, I won't experience 
the branches in which I'm not.

More about Mechanist or Quantum immortality, related to the idea that
Everything Exist (but then what is a thing?) can be find in
the everything list discussion at http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/. 

Not all everythinger agrees with such form of immortality (to be sure).

I'm not quite sure I *like* the idea but I don't believe it is easy
to logically escape it when you accept either QM-without-collapse, 
or just Digital Mechanism.

See also James Higgo web page on that question: 
http://www.higgo.com/quantum/qtidebate.htm

About [EMAIL PROTECTED]'s original question:

Can an observer really decide if the Copenhagen interpretation is 
false by performing a quantum suicide experiment as proposed by 
Tegmark (See http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/9709032 )?

I think that if a CopenhagenQM repeats quantum suicides, and
survives, then he will either become an Everett fan or he will
become a quite a-la-von-Neumann solipsist (believing he is the 
only one able to reduce the wave packet!).

Bruno

Re: Quantum suicide

[Jacques M Mallah]

Hello.  Max, you haven't responded to the arguments I've made
against it.  (e.g. http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/msg00287.html, 
http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/msg00306.html,
http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/msg00313.html,
http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/msg00349.html, etc.)
If you will be in NYC again or want to come up here and have a
discussion about about it, we could arrange a meeting, since that would
probably allow a more effective discussion than by email.

 - - - - - - -
  Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
   Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate
I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum
My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
| Add   C |
| ono |
|   n |
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|xoox   t |
| J.M.  4 |

Jacques, champion of quantum suicide

[Higgo James]

Jacques, Darwin has a lot of work to do before I become a slave to my genes,
which is what you advocate.  I don't say consciousness jumps magically.
Our consciousness, like anything, exists in the same form in very many sets
of universes. It doesn't make sense to say 'I am that one' or 'no, I'm that
one'.  You are all of them, and as many sets you could call 'you' get 'shut
down' because of a vacuum collapse or supernova or quantum suicide
experiemnt, they become no longer you, and irrelevant to you. This is not an
everyday concept, and I am not surprised you have difficulty with it. But
please persevere.  Like Bryce DeWitt and MWI, you will eventually be its
most ardent champion.

 -Original Message-
 From: Jacques M Mallah [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
 Sent: 25 January 1999 23:04
 To:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Cc:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Subject:  Re: Misc.measurement
 
 On Fri, 22 Jan 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Jacques Mallah,  we don't care about our measure, we only
  care if we should buy a tontine in the knowledge that we will
  benefit from it in 100, 1000, 10'1000 years. We know that in
  some branches we will, but we don't know if we will experience
  a smooth flow of consciousness which will inevitably mean we
  awake one morning to find ourselves 1000 years old.
  Obviously we don't intend to try to commit suicide (at least until
  this issue is resolved).
 
   I see.  You think that if you are killed, your consciousness would
 magically jump into the other parts of the universe where you-like beings
 continue to exist.  That's what your 'smooth flow of consciousness 
 amounts to.
   Well, if that were true, then the amount of 'you' in the universe
 would not really decrease.  Your measure would by definition be conserved
 as a function of time, but would become more concentrated in the 
 survivors.  But of course there is absolutely no reason to think that;
 it's nothing more than your version of religion.
   Logic says that since copies are independent, your measure would
 be proportional to the number of surving copies and would decrease.  
   The fact that you are still saying you don't care about measure,
 indicates to me that you still don't understand the concept.  Perhaps
 Darwin has more work to do.
 
  - - - - - - -
   Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate
 I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum
 My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/

Re: quantum suicide = deadly dumb

[Gilles HENRI]

On Wed, Dec 09, 1998 at 08:12:38PM -0500, Jacques M. Mallah wrote:
  On the contrary, it's the same.  That is easy to prove: suppose
 the MWI was false but assume the universe is spacially infinite, so there
 are other people like you in distant galaxies.  Clearly they have no
 bearing on what you do, so you should make the usual decisions, including
 of course any suicide decisions.  It is no different in the MWI; the only
 difference is that the others are in different parts of wavefunction
 configuration space, rather than regular space.

Unfortunately because currently accepted decision theory makes some
metaphysical assumptions, it can be compatible with a spacially infinite
universe but not with MWI. Basicly decision theory depends on the idea of
alternate realities and the notion that an individual chooses the actual
reality among the alternatives as he makes decisions and acts upon them.
But according to MWI, all alternatives are real and have predetermined
measures.

I can't figure out how to apply decision theory with the MWI. If you can,
show us how, and please include an example.

maybe the decision theory itself (I must confess that my only knowledge of
it comes from what Wei writes here) is somewhat metaphysical because it
assumes that an individual can actually change the evolution of the world
(acts upon it). In any model (not only MWI) where human beings are
nothing but rather complicated physical systems, free will is an illusion.
They evolve simply (including in their choices) following the physical
laws. So you can theoretically determine what would be the best choice
following some criteria, but you are never certain that a given physical
system will follow this way. In MWI, you can also calculate a best way, but
you are certain that other ways will be followed as well. In one world
interpretation, you can try to programm a system (or a brain) to maximise
the probability of evolving along a good way, but I think it is also true
in MWI (maximise the number of worlds where the good way is followed).

Gilles

Re: quantum suicide = deadly dumb

[Wei Dai]

On Thu, Dec 10, 1998 at 03:20:58PM +0100, Gilles HENRI wrote:
 maybe the decision theory itself (I must confess that my only knowledge of
 it comes from what Wei writes here) is somewhat metaphysical because it
 assumes that an individual can actually change the evolution of the world
 (acts upon it). In any model (not only MWI) where human beings are
 nothing but rather complicated physical systems, free will is an illusion.
 They evolve simply (including in their choices) following the physical
 laws. So you can theoretically determine what would be the best choice
 following some criteria, but you are never certain that a given physical
 system will follow this way. In MWI, you can also calculate a best way, but
 you are certain that other ways will be followed as well. In one world
 interpretation, you can try to programm a system (or a brain) to maximise
 the probability of evolving along a good way, but I think it is also true
 in MWI (maximise the number of worlds where the good way is followed).

But in the MWI, you can't maximize anything since all of the measures are
predetermined by boundary conditions.

I agree the problem is with decision theory, and that's why I suggest we
find a new decision theory rather than reject the MWI. I think this is
serious and of interest to more than just economists, because decision
theory appears to be the only justification we have for Bayesian
probability theory. Probability theory was invented for gambling and its
axioms are still justified by showing that they lead (via decision theory)
to reasonable behavior. Without a viable decision theory, an MWIer would
have to either give up probability theory or accept it as a given without
justification. Then it won't even be clear what probabilities mean, since
they'll just be useless numbers.

RE: quantum suicide = a jolly good idea

[Higgo James]

Max's point is that this is a flaw in the argument you're criticising.  You
should have said 'yes way!'.  But you propose a neat solution with your
brain-zapper. Where can I buy one?

 -Original Message-
 From: Jacques M. Mallah [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
 Sent: 04 December 1998 18:10
 To:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Subject:  RE: quantum suicide = deadly dumb
 
 Higgo James wrote:
  Jaques, try reading what Max wrote, then post a better reply.
 
   Higgo, try reading what I wrote, then post a better reply.
 
 Jacques Mallah wrote:
  Max Tegmark wrote:
   However, I think there's a flaw.
   After all, dying isn't a binary thing where you're either dead or
   alive - rather, there's a whole continuum of states of progressively
   decreasing self-awareness. What makes the quantum suicide work is
   that you force an abrupt transition.
   I suspect that when I get old, my brain cells will gradually give out
   (indeed, that's already started happening...)
   so that I keep feeling self-aware, but less and less so, the final
   death being quite anti-climactic, sort of like when
   an amoeba croaks. Do you buy this?
 
  No way.  It's a desperate attempt to save a very bad idea, and it
  shows.  I can't blame you for wanting to, but what I really respect is
  when someone admits he made a mistake.
 
   I assume this is what you (Higgo) are referring to?  I stand by
 it.  Would you have us believe that if only I could hook up a device to my
 head, that could measure my neurons to see if they are giving out (which
 is of course a quantum process), and instantly kill me if they are, then
 since only the few copies of me with healthy brains will exist, that I
 would be immortal?  Ridiculous.
 
   BTW, for more on the anthropic principle, see my page on it at
 http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/anth.htm
 
  - - - - - - -
   Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate
 I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum
 My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/