I more or less agree with Jesse. But I would say that the measure of similarity should also be an absolute measure that multiplied with the absolute measure defines a new effective absolute measure for a given observer.
Given the absolute measure you can define effective conditional probabilities, except in cases where branches lead to death. In these cases, the ''conditional probability'' of there being a next experience at all would be less than 1. Saibal ------------------------------------------------- Defeat Spammers by launching DDoS attacks on Spam-Websites: http://www.hillscapital.com/antispam/ ----- Oorspronkelijk bericht ----- Van: "Jesse Mazer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Aan: <everything-list@eskimo.com> Verzonden: Thursday, April 14, 2005 10:20 AM Onderwerp: Re: Many worlds theory of immortality > Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > > >>Stathis Papaioannou writes: > >> > QM or QTI do not imply > >> > that you can never lose consciousness. The idea is that you can never > >> > *experience* loss of consciousness. You can fall asleep, but when you > >>wake > >> > up, you don't remember being asleep. If you never wake up - i.e. if you > >>die > >> > in your sleep - then you never experience that particular branch of the > >>MW. > >> > In other words, you can only experience those worlds where the loss of > >> > consciousness is temporary. > >> > >>How about impairment of consciousness? Can you experience that? Can you > >>experience going crazy, or having a reduced level of consciousness where > >>you are drugged or barely alive? That's how death is for most people, > >>it's not like flicking off a light. Will Quantum Immortality protect you > >>from spending an eternity in a near-coma? Exactly how much consciousness > >>does it guarantee you? > >> > >>Hal Finney > >> > >Alas, you are right. Immortality is not all fun and games, and in some > >worlds you may experience a drawn out fizzling out, reduced to the > >consciousness of an infant, then a fish, then an amoeba. I believe Max > >Tegmark aknowledged this in a commentary on his original paper. If you're > >really unlucky, you will experience eternal torment in the flames of hell. > >And unlike the Christian Hell, you don't actually have to do something > >wrong to end up in QTI hell: it all depends on the fall of the cosmic dice. > > > >One question which comes up is, when do you stop being you? I suppose this > >is an answer to your "how much consciousness is guaranteed" question: when > >you lose enough consciousness that you forget who you are, that is the > >cutoff where you can really be said to have lost consciousness. > > I think that's too handwavey--I think that to really have a satisfying > answer to this question, you need some kind of formal theory of > consciousness that answers questions like, "If I am currently experiencing > observer-moment A, what is the probability that my next experience will of > observer-moment B vs. observer-moment C"? I think the answer should depend > both on some sort of measure of the "similarity" of A and B vs. A and C (to > deal with the 'when do you stop being you' question), and also on some > notion of the absolute probability of B vs. C (for example, if B and C are > both equally 'similar' to your current experience A, but B is experiencing > some kind of thermodynamic miracle while C is experiencing business as > usual, then C would be more likely). I elaborated on these ideas in my posts > in the "Request for a glossary of acronyms" thread at > http://tinyurl.com/5265d > > Jesse > >