The weirdnesss of the Many Worlds Interpretation (was Re: Cryonics and uploading as leaps of faith?)

From: Brett Paatsch (paatschb@optusnet.com.au)
Date: Thu Jul 03 2003 - 20:54:57 MDT

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    Lee Corbin writes:

    > Emyln writes
    >
    > > Is it clear that making the effort to exist, or to make sure that
    > > there are 10 copies of yourself rather than 1 actually impacts in
    > > any way on the space of possibilities in any meaningful way?
    >
    > I would say yes, and the reason once again is the "fraction". The
    > idea of fraction is spiffed up in a branch of mathematics called
    > measure theory, wherein one speaks of something's "measure"
    > and one should read that as "fraction" or "percentage".
    >
    > *Almost* everything is the same as it would be without MWI
    > or all the infinitely many other solar systems---but *not*
    > everything.
    >
    > One difference is that if you had integrated these latest findings
    > into your emotional responses, then when a friend says that his
    > brother has died after a terrible bout with cancer, you are properly
    > sympathetic. But if his brother died from having been struck by
    > a meteorite, you merely console your friend by reinforcing his
    > knowledge that this was a fluke, and that his brother is doing
    > well in almost all the other solar systems and universes.

    Really? Is this a standard version of the MWI? (I am not really familiar
    with Many World's and regard it with a degree of scepticism that
    virges on outright suspicion). But are you saying that in alternative
    universes under MW's a meteorite strike can happen or not but that
    cancer is a given in all of them? This seems pretty bizarre.

    It is far from clear to me that the "randomness" or "determinism" is
    essentially of a different class when one is considering a person
    being hit by a meteorite or not, on the one hand, and a person
    having the misfortune to have mutations occur in the the particular
    part of a genome that will give rise to a malignant tumor or not
    on the other hand.

    Are you using "standard" Many Worlds Interpretation here?

    Brett



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