On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 6:05 PM, Alberto G. Corona <agocor...@gmail.com>wrote:
> " I'd like to ask a serious and honest question in good faith: what is > the place of grief and mourning given belief in one of these theories? > Is it even appropriate to grieve in a universe where "Everything > exists" and the self is simply a computation on a deeper eternal > substrate and where time is an illusion? Indeed, isn't the whole > humanistic, existentialist "point" of these theories to offer us a bit > of succor in the face of inevitable death? " > > These theories offer no relief except a vague and adolescent sense of > superiority, typical of any cult where there are people who "know" > and people who don't. But once you reject this adolescent smug and > grow your conscience of ignorance and despise the false comfort of > being in a elite of connaiseurs, then these theories become > depressing. Moreover they are probably wrong, guesses from > extrapolations of some local principles that may not work out of our > of our inmediate reality. like "less principles are better than > more", or "less complex is better than more complex". I`m talking > about the Multiverse theories or comp. Or the thermodynamic end of > the Universe. > > I personally have nightmares thinking about other "me" that die in > accident in another paralell universe. Or thinking about my daughter > suffering the same fate in some metaworld far far away. I know that > this is crazy, but your mind and mine extract lessons from what you > accept as theoretically possible. There is a theory that says that > dreams are training scenes that the mind produce to make you > accustomed to what may happen the next day. > There is a "glass half empty" and "glass half full" way of looking at it. It may be that every time you get on a plane, you are certain in some fraction of resulting future states, to experience it crashing. But you are also guaranteed (and in a much larger fraction) to make it safely. When someone dies, especially a young person dies, what makes it so tragic is the unrealized potential, the experiences they never got to have or make. But under many-worlds, that potential is realized, and those experience are had, only in other branches. Consider that in many branches, each of us has died at times where we were younger than we are now, and certainly our family in other branches would have mourned what they perceived as your death. But you are alive, here and now, despite their opinion. I think science seems depressing only on the surface, when one doesn't try to explore the implications of all the theories to their logical ends. Quantum immortality may seem to imply the horrible fate of aging forever, but this ignores the implications of the computational theory of mind, the simulation argument, universalism, etc. Though the odds that we exist in a computer simulation might be high or might be low, certainly it seems the odds are higher than living to 200 years without some form of intervention. So in many of the possible continuations where your "physical" life ends, at say a normal age, your life continues in the virtual world in which some being chose to live as you, in a "game world". This implies a type of after life not unlike those in various religions, where you can take your memories with you and you can reunite with others with whom you crossed paths in the previous life. Just from arithmetical realism, there exist ultra-intelligent, god-like minds with access to unlimited computational power. For all intents and purposes they are "Gods", with the power to explore the rest of reality, and even copy and paste beings from other "physical universes" into its own realm. Perhaps out of good-will, for introducing suffering as a process of simulating physical worlds with conscious life in them, it extends an after-life of its choice to the beings instantiated in the course of that simulation. This may be an outlandish speculation, but it follows directly from arithmetical realism, programs that do exactly this exist already. Finally, with universalism (the only theory of personal identity that does not fail in the face of the overwhelming probability against you ever being born in the first place), we can realize that all conscious moments equally belong to us all. There will never be a moment that you are not alive so long as there is life, somewhere, anywhere. In that sense, we are each of the universal soul, though most of us have forgotten our true nature. But since our consciousness continues forever, we are all on a path that will eventually lead home again. Until we decide to jump back in and do it all over again. (Not unlike Lila https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lila_%28Hinduism%29 ) I think our current theories lead us back to various ideas most would say belong exclusively to religion, such as: eternal life, immortality, reincarnation, resurrection and afterlives, a self existent ground of all being, a universal soul, and divine union. Perhaps all of these ideas is wrong, but each one is supported by one or more separate scientific theories, many of them being well-established. Special relativity -> block time -> eternal life: we each exist forever embedded in our own time, our consciousness is not extinguished when some present marches on without us, rather we are alive now despite the opinions of our descendants 2,000 years from now, despite that they might think we are long dead. They are also are equally alive and experiencing their time according to block time. Quantum mechanics -> many worlds -> quantum immortality: we are each subjectively immortal, we effectively each live an infinite number of lives, and there is no end to one's consciousness. Mechanism + Infinite universe (cosmic inflation, string theory, many-worlds, arithmetical realism) -> consciousness is copyable -> FPI -> reincarnation: whenever the state of your mind becomes sufficiently simple, it is bound to intersect the state of some other mind elsewhere in the infinite reality. A dying brain or a brain falling asleep can reach the same state as a brain developing on a womb or one waking up. This provides an escape from the eternal aging implied by many worlds. Technological Singularity + Simulation Argument -> mind uploading -> immortality for whole civilizations: and the ability for them (or super-intelligences they create) to explore reality through simulation. Again, if the universe is infinite, then some of the explanations for your current moment of awareness right now is as the "dream" of a being who explores possibilities, limited only by their ability to imagine. If each "post biological" person experiences just a few hundred lives over the course of their possibly billions of years of existence, then it is more likely you are one of them, then the biological person you believe yourself to be. (In another sense, you are already both of them, and after the death of the biological copy the post-biological one will remain). Arithmetical realism, Universalism -> all minds are ultimately connected -> we each experience an infinite number of lives and afterlives, all lives in fact Far from being depressing I find such speculations awe inspiring. Jason > > That is unavoidable. Your assumptions influence all your life in very > important ways. I mean all your life. The comic part is that in twenty > of fifty years, like has happened before with the theories of the > past, these theories will be looked at as outdated speculations > driven by old ideas that will be no longer in fashion, like the > exagerated worship to computers or to a certain metaphisical > assumptions. > > So my advice to myself is: Play with this crap, but don't take it > seriously. Since you CAN NOT know and will not know first causes never > ever. Therefore all is a matter and belief.. So damn you, believe in > something that offer a good teleology, at least compatible with the > human psychology, or else, if you and your people take these suicide > ad depressing theories you will have a bad life and your people will > be driven to irrelevance (and, believe me, we are in this personal and > social path to oblivion as individuals and as a civilization). > > > > > 2014/1/15, freqflyer07281972 <thismindisbud...@gmail.com>: > > Hey everyone, > > > > I'm starting a new topic here so as not to derail any conversations on > > other threads -- the original thread I am commenting on seems to have > some > > interesting stuff about computer simulations etc. and I don't want to > > bother others about it. > > > > Edgar has repeatedly posted links to both his business and personal > > website, and his "life companion" request is there right on the front > page, > > > > so I'm not sure how that constitutes snooping. > > > > For Edgar, if it is true that you did lose your wife to cancer recently, > I > > am very sorry for your loss. My father died of cancer when I was young, > and > > > > I lost a close friend last Christmas to cancer as well, so I know how > that > > feels. > > > > Just digging down to nuts and bolts for a second, though, for those > members > > > > on the list that subscribe to some version of "Everything Theory," > (Bruno's > > > > UD, various forms of "computer simulation universe," Craig's multisense > > realism), I'd like to ask a serious and honest question in good faith: > what > > > > is the place of grief and mourning given belief in one of these theories? > > Is it even appropriate to grieve in a universe where "Everything exists" > > and the self is simply a computation on a deeper eternal substrate and > > where time is an illusion? Indeed, isn't the whole humanistic, > > existentialist "point" of these theories to offer us a bit of succor in > the > > > > face of inevitable death? > > > > That is why I am interested in this stuff -- not simply for the > > intellectual fun and games of it all, but because I am truly terrified of > > oblivion and of losing everything I love to that oblivion, and yet > > everything in my observed world tells me that when we die, we are > basically > > > > "broken machines" and our world completely and permanently disappears for > > us. That is why I desperately want to be convinced of any of the > Everything > > > > theories that are discussed here, although I admit that the degree to > which > > > > any of them offer any comfort at all is relative to how one is able to > > interpret the consequences of such theories to find a place for your > > personality in "the Everything." > > > > I didn't think pasting quite publicly available text from Edgar's > website > > constitutes a "personal attack." Edgar seems quite happy to keep that > > information up on the web for anyone to see, so I hardly think it > > constitutes snooping to cite it in a different forum. And my original > > observation that I could understand why he was alone was motivated by his > > continued truculence and seeming inability to incorporate and respond to > > the many pieces of feedback he had been given about his "theory"... I > > wouldn't want to be around somebody in real life who demonstrated such > > regular and fatuous disregard for what I was saying. > > > > So, just to sum up, I apologize, Edgar, for any pain that my copying and > > pasting of the text on your website caused you, and I apologize for > > suggesting that the reason you are alone is because you are probably a > > difficult person to live with in real life. I don't know anything about > you > > > > in real life (aside from what you've put on your website, assuming it is > > all true), and I realize that this forum is not the place to engage in > > personal attacks. > > > > I'll be more thoughtful in the future. > > > > Best regards, > > > > Dan Menon > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > "Everything List" group. > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > > > -- > Alberto. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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