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