Hal, I believe that many "miraculous circumstances" have already occurred. This comes about because of Tegmark's hypothesis that space is infinite and that any universe that is mathematically describable must exist. (I particularly love the part where he computes the distance to a universe identical to this one.) 1) How did life originate if not through a miraculous circumstance? In other branches of the multiverse, perhaps most of them, there is no life. 2) An article at http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2003/may28/humans-528.html suggests that all of earth's present human inhabitants originated from about 2,000 breeders, about 70,000 years ago. Humans were then very close to extinction. In many other branches of the multiverse extinction did, in fact, occur. 3) Would humans have survived if the "cold war" had erupted into a nuclear exchange? In other branches of the multiverse, humans did self-destruct (and may do so in this one). 4) In my personal history, there are several "close calls" where I could easily have been killed. In some branches of the multiverse I was, in fact, killed. In this branch I survive.
Norman Samish ----- Original Message ----- From: ""Hal Finney"" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <everything-list@eskimo.com> Sent: Monday, May 30, 2005 9:23 AM Subject: Re: objections to QTI Let me pose the puzzle like this, which is a form we have discussed before: Suppose you found yourself extremely old, due to a near-miraculous set of circumstances that had kept you alive. Time after time when you were about to die of old age or some other cause, something happened and you were able to continue living. Now you are 1000 years old in a world where no one else lives past 120. (We will ignore medical progress for the purposes of this thought experiment.) Now, one of the predictions of QTI is that in fact you will experience much this state, eventually. But the question is this: given that you find yourself in this circumstances, is this fact *evidence* for the truth of the QTI? In other words, should people who find themselves extremely old through miraculous circumstances take it as more likely that the QTI is true? Hal Finney
