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The point is, 'you' have no 'age'. An observer
moment exists, it does not have any temporal attributes _per se_ - although it
may contain externally-meaningless concepts such as 'it is 12:45pm'. The
statement, 'one OM outlives another' is a category mistake.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, March 03, 2001 4:34
PM
Subject: QTI
I also don't think that 'Quantum Theory of
Immortality' is correct in its conventional form. I do believe, however, that
a different version is implied by James' Theory of Observer
Moments. Since there exists a set S of observer moments, one element of which
represents my state now, I will ''always'' find myself in some subset of S. This doesn't mean that I could
outlive everyone. The observer moment: I am 10^1000000 years old is simply
inconsistent with I am Saibal.
I posted earlier about an article by Caticha that explains how
fundamental laws of physics (including notions such as time and space) can be
derived from nothing more than an arbitrary probability distribution defined
over some arbitrary set.
Saibal
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, March 03, 2001 1:53
PM
Subject: Re: (Quantum) suicide not
necessary?
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 -----
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....
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.
I don't know whether to be relieved or
annoyed that I'm not the only person to think of this
;D.
I'm guessing this is quite a common
idea? Rats, I thought I was so great....
I _did_ think of 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
is wonderfully pure and cathartic, it never 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
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