From: Emlyn O'regan (oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au)
Date: Mon Feb 10 2003 - 15:52:38 MST
The classic reason for parallel universes to be depressing is because they
negate free will. No matter what "you" decide to do here, somewhere else
every other possible choice (and action) is made by "you" (and by your
environment). Here, while you are eating your breakfast, somewhere else an
infinite amount of instances of yourself are shooting themselves in the
head. Or picking their nose. Or shaving a hampster. So what ultimately
constitutes you, if your decisions are diluted by the effects of infinity?
Personally, I think that in a mwi setting, you can see yourself as an
extended probability cloud, across all universes containing you. Even though
you may take each possible course of action in infinitely many instances of
yourself, a random finite sample would see some actions occuring far more
frequently than others. You could measure that 90% of you perform action X,
9% perform action Y, and all other possibilities crowd into the remaining
1%. If action X is the one you agree with, then there is still a strong
sense of personal integrity to be found. Maybe X is an heroic sacrifice?
That 90% of any sample of you would make it should be uplifting, even if
there are an infinite amount of you that don't. Perhaps there were
extenuating circumstances in many of those other cases, anyway, that made
the choice incorrect or irrelevant? They do diverge, after all.
So I think there is still room for a sense of self in the face of an
extended multiverse. It just requires a relaxation / modification of your
self concept. Hey, it's arbitrary anyway :-)
Emlyn
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John K Clark [mailto:jonkc@att.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, 11 February 2003 8:26
> To: extropians@extropy.org
> Subject: Parallel Universes
>
>
> "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience@pobox.com> Wrote:
>
> >I once found many-world hypotheses very depressing
>
> I don't really see why. It's true that in a infinite number
> of universes
> hideous things beyond description happen to you, but it is
> equally true that
> in a infinite number of universes wonderful things beyond imagining
> happen to you; it seems to me the most logical emotional
> state regarding
> parallel universes should be neutral.
>
> John K Clark jonkc@att.net
>
>
>
***************************************************************************
Confidentiality: The contents of this email are confidential and are
intended only for the named recipient. If the reader of this e-mail is not
the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any use, reproduction,
disclosure or distribution of the information contained in the e-mail is
prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please reply to us
immediately and delete the document.
Viruses: Any loss/damage incurred by using this material is not the sender's
responsibility. Our entire liability will be limited to resupplying the
material. No warranty is made that this material is free from computer virus
or other defect.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Feb 10 2003 - 15:55:12 MST