From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu Mar 06 2003 - 21:44:21 MST
Rafal writes
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Hal Finney" <hal@finney.org>
>
> > Suppose we are going to flip a biased quantum coin, one which has a 90%
> > chance of coming up heads. We will generate the good or bad experience
> > depending on the outcome of the coin flip. I claim that it is obvious
> > that it is better to give the good experience when we get the 90% outcome
> > and the bad experience when we get the 10% outcome. That's the assumption
> > I will start with.
I read this as asserting that it is better to flip such a coin
than to take an action that causes no experiences to transpire
at all.
> ### One way of avoiding the conundrum is to use Rawl's veil of ignorance,
> put yourself in the position of the experimental subject, and consider one
> additional option - not flipping the coin at all. You can decide to run the
> good experience only, giving the test subject a certainty of good experience
In other words, forget about the coin, and just proceed straight
to the generous and kind choice of supplying a beneficial
experience with 100% probability. Well... of course this "avoids"
the conundrum, and also thereby ignores its lesson.
You're quite right that this would be the more moral choice, but
we don't learn anything from it. The real question is, should you
flip this coin, thereby causing its attendant consequences, or
should you by default cause nothing to occur?
Now change the polarity so that in 90% of the cases the subject
will have a bad experience, and in only ten a good experience.
Should the coin be flipped in this case, or is the default
(nothing occurs) to be preferred?
> In level III there is the additional wrinkle of your actions causally
> influencing the quantum evolution of the whole experimental system.
> Basically, when making the decision you decohere into three versions, or
> sheaves of histories - the no-coin-flip, the choose-90% and choose-10%
> histories (the last sheaf of histories is equivalent to you turning into a
> sadist, I think). Your subjective experience of making the decision is the
> equivalent of a quantum process of decoherence, whose outcomes will have
> different measures depending on the properties of the system (your brain).
> If your brain is influenced by my words, on the classical level, it will be
> accompanied by an increase in the measure of branches with the no-coin-flip
> experiment on the MWI, or level III analysis.
Yes. Because you have benevolently assumed that the "no coin flip"
option results in the same circumstances for the subject as the
favorable outcome does. Isn't that right?
> In this case the conclusion is still the same as in level I and II,
> you should skip the flip and choose good, in accordance with Tegmark's
> statement that level III does not increase the number of distinct entities
> (or types of particle configurations) compared to level I and II. There
> will be also an infinite number of level I copies of you decohering into
> the three sheaves, but without a direct causal relationship to each other.
How does the conclusion depend on which level we are discussing?
(Although I do appreciate you clarifying what physically happens.)
> My intuition is to give the sentiences you are responsible for the best
> experience you can give them, if you decide to produce them, and the
> decision to run them should be also acceptable to the sentiences
> themselves - if you know that they will not be willing to live and be happy
> even with the best you can offer, you should not make them at all.
That seems quite correct.
> As aside to Lee, you are also not duty-bound to make them in first place.
I agree. Nor is one duty-bound to aid drowning swimmers,
or victims one comes across by chance in traffic accidents.
(Aside to Dr. Smigrodzki: are *you* duty-bound by the laws
of your state or country to go to their aid?)
It's simply not my responsibility whether or not someone
drowns who I happen to notice while walking along the beach.
Nonetheless, I adamantly claim that one *ought* to help out
when one can. But it is by no means an obligation or duty,
especially in a free country.
But suppose that I could press a button here on my desk, and
a random human being who happens to live about 10^10^29 meters
from here gets a new copy going among us. Let me further state
that he or she will neither be a burden nor an asset to the
rest of humanity in the new location, but will---after a
relatively short time of disorientation---come to experience
great happiness among us.
Then it's very clear that I *ought* to press that button
(even though I concede that I am under no obligation to do
so). It wouldn't surprise me if Hal were to come up with
another ingenious experiment that proves it.
Lee
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