Re: fin insanity
Charles Goodwin wrote: -Original Message- From: Saibal Mitra [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] As I have written before, a person is just a computation being implemented somewhere. Suppose that the person has discovered that he suffers from a terminal ilness and he dies (the computation ends). Now in principle the person in question could have lived on if he wasn't diagnosed with this terminal ilness. Somewhere in the multiverse this person exists. Some time ago I wrote (I think on the FoR list) that the transformation from the old dying person to the new person is a continuous one. The process of death must involve the destruction of the brain. At some time the information that the person is dying will be lost to the person. The person might even think he is 20 years old while in reality he is 92. Anyway, the point is that his brain had stored so much information that adding new information would lead to an inconsistency. By dumping some of the information, the information left will be identical to the information in a similar brain somewhere else of a younger person, free from disease. Hmm.and this is a simpler theory, with more explanatory power, than that people are just material objects which eventually wear out? People are material objects, but the materials out of which people are made don't matter. If your neurons were replaced by artifiicial ones that would function in the same way, would you not be the same person? You would answer any question in the same way as the original version of you would. I conclude that it is the computation that is performed by your brain that generates you. The materials don't matter. I could just as well generate you by a primitive analog computer. What matters is the computer program that is running on the machine, not the machine itself. If you believe that all possible universes exist (universes that can be generated by a computer program), then you ``always´´ exist in some universe, because, by definition, you are a computer program. So, I would say that you will always find yourself alive somewhere. But it is interesting to consider only our universe and ignore quantum effects. Even then you will always find yourself alive somewhere, but you won't find yourself becoming infinitely old (see above). Because this is a classical continuation of you, it is much more likely than any quantum continuation that allows you to survive an atomic bomb exploding above your head. Saibal
Re: FIN too
Fred Chen wrote: Hal, Charles, I think this is an unavoidable part of the QTI or FIN debate. It seems that with QTI, you could only be entering white rabbit (magical-type) universes, not continue in probable ones. But in general I have a more fundamental objection (to quantum immortality). In QM, not all quantum states are possible for a given situation. For example, an electron orbiting a proton can only occupy certain energy states, not arbitrary ones. The energy states in between are forbidden; an electron cannot be measured and found to be in one of these forbidden states. So I do not see why immortality is allowed by QM from our universe if physical mechanisms generally ban it. Survival seems to me (and I guess most people) a forbidden state in the situations where death is certain. But all the QTI problem (or the COMP I problem) is there. QM shows that even by taking account the forbidden states, from the point of view of the observer there are enough histories making hard to define a situation where death is certain. It is plausible that comp immortality makes that death entails a deviation from normality, but you always find yourself in the most near possible world such that you survive. Not really a happy thought *a priori*, but how to escape it? Now comp is rich enough for allowing the consistency of jump between type of normal world, amnesia bactracking, etc. The mortality question is harder with comp than with QM, and with QM the solution would be provided the SE applied to the agonising: just intractable. All the problem comes from the fact that although it is easy to imagine situation where 3-death is very probable, it is not easy at all to define a situation where 1-death is certain. Comp entails big ignorance here. Bruno
RE: Conditional probability continuity of consciousness (was:
Jesse Mazer wrote: I don't really think there's some other metaphysical realm where we get dropped from, but I do think that, as an analogy, the spotlight one is not actually so bad. After all, if you think that you just *are* your current observer-moment, how can you possibly become any other one? The observer-moment itself doesn't transform--it's just sitting there timelessly in Platonia among all other possible observer-moments. So, it's better to think of continuity of consciousness as a spotlight moving between different observer-moments, with the probability of going from one to another defined by the conditional probability distribution. I think each observer moment as the quality of believing it has just been light-spotted and expect very similar moment in its immediate neigborhoods. No need for external time nor external spotlight imo. Perhaps I am taking your analogy too seriously. If we abandon the idea of an absolute probability distribution, we have no hope of explaining why I am this particular type of observer-moment experiencing this particular type of universe, and we can only explain why my future experience will have a certain amount in common with my current experience (assuming that's what the conditional probability distribution actually predicts). But that is what each observer-moment can ask an explanation for. The duplication WM experience illustrates that such question are senseless. It is like why am I in W or Why am I in M. With comp we can predict that those questions will be asked, but there are no answers. We get sort of necessary contingent propositions. No? Bruno
