RE: Parallel Universes

From: Emlyn O'regan (oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au)
Date: Mon Feb 10 2003 - 15:52:38 MST

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    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
    >
    >
    >

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