Hello again Alexey, I have been thinking about QI/BWI and just read your paper on it. Immediately, it occurred to me that it could be disproven through general anesthesia, or temporary death (the heart stops and you become unconscious, which can last for hours). You refute this with:
“Some suggested counterargument to QI of “impossibility of sleep”: QI-style logic implies that it is impossible to fail asleep, as in the moment of becoming asleep there will be timelines where I am still awake. However, for most humans, night dreaming starts immediately at the moment of becoming asleep, so the observations continue, but just don’t form memories. But in case of deep narcosis, the argument may be still valid with terrifying perspective of anesthesia awareness; but it also possible if the observer-states will coincide at the beginning the end of the operation, the observer will “jump” over it.”
(Mind you that some stages of sleep are dreamless, but let’s forget about sleep, let’s use general anesthesia instead since it’s more clear.)
I still don’t understand your refute completely. If QI/BWI were true, shouldn’t it be that general anesthesia would be impossible, since the observer would always branch into conscious states right after being given the anesthesia?
Or do you mean to say that most observers will “prefer” to branch into the branch with the “highest measure of consciousness”, and that’s why anesthesia will “work” for most observers, that is, most observers will branch into the end of the operation, where consciousness is stronger, instead of branching into the second right after anesthesia where consciousness is weaker?
Another objection I have against QI/BWI is that it breaks the laws of physics and biology. Even if MWI is true, the body can only sustain a limited amount of damage before dying. It’s biologically impossible to go on decaying and decaying for eternity. Eventually, you die. A bit like in Zeno’s Paradox: there’s always a halfway point between one point and another, therefore it could be argued that you can never reach your final destination, but we know in practice that we do reach it. (This makes me think that, in the end, it all adds up to normalcy, just like in Zeno’s Paradox.)
(Suppose I stop eating and drinking. It’s physically impossible to survive without it, so a world where I survive must have different laws of physics?? And the same for all other diseases and injuries, after some point it just becomes physically impossible to remain alive.)
Actually, I see now that I didn’t completely refuted the “impossibility of sleep”, as it is unobservable for the past events or in the experience of other people. It only can happen with me in the future.
Therefore, the fact that I have slept normally in the past didn’t tell much about the validity of QI. But my evening today may be different.
QI said that my next observer-moment will be most likely the one with highest measure of those which remember my current OM. (But it is less clear, does it need to be connected via continuity of consciousness, or memory continuity is enough).
OM(T+1) = maxmeasure(O(memory about O(t))
During narcosis, a few last OM moments typically are erased from memory, so situation becomes complicated. But we have dead-end observer-moments rather often in normal life. Anastasia awareness is a possible outcome here, but not that bad, as it will be partial, so no real pain and no memories about will be form.
Personally, I have some rudimentary consciousness all night, like bleak dreams, and forget almost all of them except a few last minutes.
--
Speaking about survival in rare cases, there is always a chance that you are in a simulation and it is increasing as real “you” are dying out. Some simulations may simulate all types of miracles. In other words, if you are falling from a kilometer cliff, an alien spaceship can peak you up.
“Actually, I see now that I didn’t completely refuted the “impossibility of sleep”, as it is unobservable for the past events or in the experience of other people. It only can happen with me in the future.
Therefore, the fact that I have slept normally in the past didn’t tell much about the validity of QI. But my evening today may be different.”
Agree.
On anesthesia, so, from what I understand, it becomes possible for the observer to “jump over”, because the moment right after he awakes from anesthesia has probably much more measure of consciousness than any moment right after the anesthesia takes effect, is that it?
Why would anesthesia awareness be partial/painless? (There are actually reported cases of real anesthesia awareness where people are totally consciousness and feel everything, though of course they are always correlated to innefective anesthesia and not to quantum matters). Would that also make us believe that maybe quantum immortality after the first death is probably painless since the measure of the observer is too low to feel pain (and perhaps even most other sensations)?
“Speaking about survival in rare cases, there is always a chance that you are in a simulation and it is increasing as real “you” are dying out.”
What is increasing? Sorry didn’t quite understand the wording.
It is known that some painkillers don’t kill the pain but kill only the negative valence of pain. This I meant by “partial”. Anaesthesia awareness seems to be an extreme case when the whole duration of awareness is remembered. Probably weaker forms are possible but are not reported as there is no memories or pain. The difference between death and the impossibility of sleep is that the biggest number of my future copies remain in the same world. Because of that, the past instances of quantum suicide could be remembered, but past instances of the impossibility of sleep—not.
If we look deeper, there are two personal identities and two immortalities: the immortality of the chains on observer-moments and immortality of my long-term memory. Quantum immortality works for both. In the impossibility of sleep, these two types of immortality diverge. But eternal insomnia seems not possible, as dreaming exists. The worst outcome is anaesthesia awareness. If a person has past cases of strong anaesthesia awareness—could it be evidence of the impossibility of sleep for him? Interesting question. --- I meant: “Speaking about survival in rare cases, there is always a chance that you are in a simulation which simulates your immortality. These chances are increasing after each round of a quantum suicide experiment as real timelines die out, but the number of such simulations remains the same”.
“Speaking about survival in rare cases, there is always a chance that you are in a simulation which simulates your immortality. These chances are increasing after each round of a quantum suicide experiment as real timelines die out, but the number of such simulations remains the same”.
Doesn’t make much sense. Either we are or we are not in a simulation. If we are not, then all subsequent branches that will follow from this moment also won’t be simulations, since they obey causality.
So, imo, if we are not in a simulation, QI/BWI are impossible because they break the laws of physics.
And then there are also other objections—the limitations of consciousness and of the brain. I once saw a documentary (I’m tired of looking for it but I can’t find it) where they simulated that after living for 500 years, a person’s brain would have shrunk to the size of a chicken’s brain. The brain has limits—memory limits, sensation limits, etc. Consciousness has limits—can’t go without sleep too long, can’t store infinite memories aka live forever, etc. But even if you don’t believe none of these, there’s always the pure physical limits of reality.
Also, I think BWI believers are wrong in thinking that “copies” are the same person. How can the supposed copy of me in another Hubble volume be me, if I am not seeing through his eyes, not feeling what he feels, etc? At best it’s a clone (and chaos theory tells me that there aren’t even perfectly equal clones). So it’s far-fetched to think that my consciousness is in any way connected to that person’s consciousness, and might sometime “transfer” in some way. Consciousness is limited to a single physical brain, it’s the result of the connectivity between neurons, it can’t exist anywhere else, otherwise you would be seeing through 4 eyes and thinking 2 different thought streams!
If copy=original, I am randomly selected from all my copies, including those which are in simulations.
If copy is not equal to original, some kind of soul exists. This opens new ways to immortality.
If we ignore copies, but accept MWI, there are still branches where superintelligent AI will appear tomorrow and will save me from all possible bad things and upload my mind into more durable carrier.
“If copy=original, I am randomly selected from all my copies, including those which are in simulations.”
How can you be sure you are randomly selected, instead of actually experiencing being all the copies at the same time? (which would result in instantaneous insanity and possibly short-circuit (brain death) but would be more rational nonetheless).
“If copy is not equal to original, some kind of soul exists. This opens new ways to immortality.”
No need to call it soul. Could be simply the electrical current between neurons. Even if you have 2 exactly equal copies, each one will have a separate electrical current. I think it’s less far fetched to assume this than anything else.
(But even then, again, can you really have 2 exact copies in a complex universe? No system is isolate. The slightest change in the environment is enough to make one copy slightly different.)
But even if you could have 2 exact copies… Imagine this: in a weird universe, a mother has twins. Now, normally, twins are only like 95% (just guessing) equal. But imagine these 2 twins turned out 100% equal to the atomic level. Would they be the same person? Would one twin, after dying, somehow continue living in the head of the surviving twin? That’s really far fetched.
“If we ignore copies, but accept MWI, there are still branches where superintelligent AI will appear tomorrow and will save me from all possible bad things and upload my mind into more durable carrier.”
As there will be branches where something bad happens instead. How can you be sure you will end up in the good branches?
Also, it’s not just about the limits of the carrier (brain), but of consciousness itself. Imagine I sped up your thoughts by 1000x for 1 second. You would go insane. Even in a brain 1000x more potent. (Or if you could handle it, maybe it would no longer be “you”. Can you imagine “you” thinking 1000 times as fast and still be “you”? I can’t.)
You can speed up, copy, do all things to matter and software. But maybe consciousness is different, because it has something that matter and software don’t have: experience/awareness.
Also, how can a person be experiencing all the copies at the same time?? That person would be seeing a million different sights at the same time, thinking a million different thoughts at the same time, etc. (At least in MWI each copy is going through different things, right?)
The draft is still unpublished. But there are two types of copies, same person, and same observer-moment (OM). Here I meant OM-copies. As they are the same, there is no million different views. They all see the same thing.
The idea is that “a OM copy” is not a physical thing which has location, but information, like a number. Number 7 doesn’t have location in the physical world. It is present in each place, where 7 objects are presented. But the properties of 7, like that it is odd, are non-local.
This also comes down to our previous discussion on your other paper: it seems impossible to undo past experiences (i.e. by breaking chains of experience or some other way). Nothing will ever change the fact that you experienced x. This just seems as intuitively undeniable to me as a triangle having 3 sides. You can break past chains of information (like erasing history books) but not past chains of experience. Another indication that they might be different.
I think that could only work if you had 2 causal universes (either 2 Hubble volumes or 2 separate universes) exactly equal to each other. Only then could you have 2 persons exactly equal, having the exact same chain of experiences. But we never observe 2 complex macroscopic systems that are exactly equal to the microscopic level. The universe is too complex and chaotic for that. So, the bigger the system, the less likely to happen it becomes. Unless our universe was infinite, which seems impossible since it has been born and it will die. But maybe an infinite amount of universes including many copies of each other? Seems impossible for the same reason (universes end up dying).
(And then, even if you have 2 (or even a billion) exactly equal persons experiencing the exact same chain of experiences in exactly equal causal worlds, we can see that the causal effect is the exact same in all of them, so if one dies, all the others will die too.)
Now, in MWI it could never work, since we know that the “mes” in all different branches are experiencing different things (if each branch corresponds to a different possibility, then the mes in each branch necessarily have to be experiencing different things).
Anyway, even before all of this, I don’t believe in any kind of computationalism, because information by itself has no experience. The number 7 has no experience. Consciousness must be something more complex. Information seems to be an interpretation of the physical world by a consciousness entity.
Hello again Alexey, I have been thinking about QI/BWI and just read your paper on it. Immediately, it occurred to me that it could be disproven through general anesthesia, or temporary death (the heart stops and you become unconscious, which can last for hours). You refute this with:
“Some suggested counterargument to QI of “impossibility of sleep”: QI-style logic implies that it is impossible to fail asleep, as in the moment of becoming asleep there will be timelines where I am still awake. However, for most humans, night dreaming starts immediately at the moment of becoming asleep, so the observations continue, but just don’t form memories. But in case of deep narcosis, the argument may be still valid with terrifying perspective of anesthesia awareness; but it also possible if the observer-states will coincide at the beginning the end of the operation, the observer will “jump” over it.”
(Mind you that some stages of sleep are dreamless, but let’s forget about sleep, let’s use general anesthesia instead since it’s more clear.)
I still don’t understand your refute completely. If QI/BWI were true, shouldn’t it be that general anesthesia would be impossible, since the observer would always branch into conscious states right after being given the anesthesia?
Or do you mean to say that most observers will “prefer” to branch into the branch with the “highest measure of consciousness”, and that’s why anesthesia will “work” for most observers, that is, most observers will branch into the end of the operation, where consciousness is stronger, instead of branching into the second right after anesthesia where consciousness is weaker?
Another objection I have against QI/BWI is that it breaks the laws of physics and biology. Even if MWI is true, the body can only sustain a limited amount of damage before dying. It’s biologically impossible to go on decaying and decaying for eternity. Eventually, you die. A bit like in Zeno’s Paradox: there’s always a halfway point between one point and another, therefore it could be argued that you can never reach your final destination, but we know in practice that we do reach it. (This makes me think that, in the end, it all adds up to normalcy, just like in Zeno’s Paradox.)
(Suppose I stop eating and drinking. It’s physically impossible to survive without it, so a world where I survive must have different laws of physics?? And the same for all other diseases and injuries, after some point it just becomes physically impossible to remain alive.)
Actually, I see now that I didn’t completely refuted the “impossibility of sleep”, as it is unobservable for the past events or in the experience of other people. It only can happen with me in the future.
Therefore, the fact that I have slept normally in the past didn’t tell much about the validity of QI. But my evening today may be different.
QI said that my next observer-moment will be most likely the one with highest measure of those which remember my current OM. (But it is less clear, does it need to be connected via continuity of consciousness, or memory continuity is enough).
OM(T+1) = maxmeasure(O(memory about O(t))
During narcosis, a few last OM moments typically are erased from memory, so situation becomes complicated. But we have dead-end observer-moments rather often in normal life. Anastasia awareness is a possible outcome here, but not that bad, as it will be partial, so no real pain and no memories about will be form.
Personally, I have some rudimentary consciousness all night, like bleak dreams, and forget almost all of them except a few last minutes.
--
Speaking about survival in rare cases, there is always a chance that you are in a simulation and it is increasing as real “you” are dying out. Some simulations may simulate all types of miracles. In other words, if you are falling from a kilometer cliff, an alien spaceship can peak you up.
“Actually, I see now that I didn’t completely refuted the “impossibility of sleep”, as it is unobservable for the past events or in the experience of other people. It only can happen with me in the future.
Therefore, the fact that I have slept normally in the past didn’t tell much about the validity of QI. But my evening today may be different.”
Agree.
On anesthesia, so, from what I understand, it becomes possible for the observer to “jump over”, because the moment right after he awakes from anesthesia has probably much more measure of consciousness than any moment right after the anesthesia takes effect, is that it?
Why would anesthesia awareness be partial/painless? (There are actually reported cases of real anesthesia awareness where people are totally consciousness and feel everything, though of course they are always correlated to innefective anesthesia and not to quantum matters). Would that also make us believe that maybe quantum immortality after the first death is probably painless since the measure of the observer is too low to feel pain (and perhaps even most other sensations)?
“Speaking about survival in rare cases, there is always a chance that you are in a simulation and it is increasing as real “you” are dying out.”
What is increasing? Sorry didn’t quite understand the wording.
It is known that some painkillers don’t kill the pain but kill only the negative valence of pain. This I meant by “partial”.
Anaesthesia awareness seems to be an extreme case when the whole duration of awareness is remembered. Probably weaker forms are possible but are not reported as there is no memories or pain.
The difference between death and the impossibility of sleep is that the biggest number of my future copies remain in the same world. Because of that, the past instances of quantum suicide could be remembered, but past instances of the impossibility of sleep—not.
If we look deeper, there are two personal identities and two immortalities: the immortality of the chains on observer-moments and immortality of my long-term memory. Quantum immortality works for both. In the impossibility of sleep, these two types of immortality diverge.
But eternal insomnia seems not possible, as dreaming exists. The worst outcome is anaesthesia awareness. If a person has past cases of strong anaesthesia awareness—could it be evidence of the impossibility of sleep for him? Interesting question.
---
I meant: “Speaking about survival in rare cases, there is always a chance that you are in a simulation which simulates your immortality. These chances are increasing after each round of a quantum suicide experiment as real timelines die out, but the number of such simulations remains the same”.
“Speaking about survival in rare cases, there is always a chance that you are in a simulation which simulates your immortality. These chances are increasing after each round of a quantum suicide experiment as real timelines die out, but the number of such simulations remains the same”.
Doesn’t make much sense. Either we are or we are not in a simulation. If we are not, then all subsequent branches that will follow from this moment also won’t be simulations, since they obey causality.
So, imo, if we are not in a simulation, QI/BWI are impossible because they break the laws of physics.
And then there are also other objections—the limitations of consciousness and of the brain. I once saw a documentary (I’m tired of looking for it but I can’t find it) where they simulated that after living for 500 years, a person’s brain would have shrunk to the size of a chicken’s brain. The brain has limits—memory limits, sensation limits, etc. Consciousness has limits—can’t go without sleep too long, can’t store infinite memories aka live forever, etc. But even if you don’t believe none of these, there’s always the pure physical limits of reality.
Also, I think BWI believers are wrong in thinking that “copies” are the same person. How can the supposed copy of me in another Hubble volume be me, if I am not seeing through his eyes, not feeling what he feels, etc? At best it’s a clone (and chaos theory tells me that there aren’t even perfectly equal clones). So it’s far-fetched to think that my consciousness is in any way connected to that person’s consciousness, and might sometime “transfer” in some way. Consciousness is limited to a single physical brain, it’s the result of the connectivity between neurons, it can’t exist anywhere else, otherwise you would be seeing through 4 eyes and thinking 2 different thought streams!
If copy=original, I am randomly selected from all my copies, including those which are in simulations.
If copy is not equal to original, some kind of soul exists. This opens new ways to immortality.
If we ignore copies, but accept MWI, there are still branches where superintelligent AI will appear tomorrow and will save me from all possible bad things and upload my mind into more durable carrier.
“If copy=original, I am randomly selected from all my copies, including those which are in simulations.”
How can you be sure you are randomly selected, instead of actually experiencing being all the copies at the same time? (which would result in instantaneous insanity and possibly short-circuit (brain death) but would be more rational nonetheless).
“If copy is not equal to original, some kind of soul exists. This opens new ways to immortality.”
No need to call it soul. Could be simply the electrical current between neurons. Even if you have 2 exactly equal copies, each one will have a separate electrical current. I think it’s less far fetched to assume this than anything else.
(But even then, again, can you really have 2 exact copies in a complex universe? No system is isolate. The slightest change in the environment is enough to make one copy slightly different.)
But even if you could have 2 exact copies… Imagine this: in a weird universe, a mother has twins. Now, normally, twins are only like 95% (just guessing) equal. But imagine these 2 twins turned out 100% equal to the atomic level. Would they be the same person? Would one twin, after dying, somehow continue living in the head of the surviving twin? That’s really far fetched.
“If we ignore copies, but accept MWI, there are still branches where superintelligent AI will appear tomorrow and will save me from all possible bad things and upload my mind into more durable carrier.”
As there will be branches where something bad happens instead. How can you be sure you will end up in the good branches?
Also, it’s not just about the limits of the carrier (brain), but of consciousness itself. Imagine I sped up your thoughts by 1000x for 1 second. You would go insane. Even in a brain 1000x more potent. (Or if you could handle it, maybe it would no longer be “you”. Can you imagine “you” thinking 1000 times as fast and still be “you”? I can’t.)
You can speed up, copy, do all things to matter and software. But maybe consciousness is different, because it has something that matter and software don’t have: experience/awareness.
The copy problem is notoriously difficult, I wrote a 100 page draft on it. But check the other thread there I discuss the suggestion “actually experiencing being all the copies at the same time” in comments here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/X7vdn4ANkdNwoSyxB/simulation-arguments?commentId=9WNTqJFhvZ5dk3uxg#AbGqrjXmH7acGrzDZ
Got a link for the 100 page draft?
Also, how can a person be experiencing all the copies at the same time?? That person would be seeing a million different sights at the same time, thinking a million different thoughts at the same time, etc. (At least in MWI each copy is going through different things, right?)
The draft is still unpublished. But there are two types of copies, same person, and same observer-moment (OM). Here I meant OM-copies. As they are the same, there is no million different views. They all see the same thing.
The idea is that “a OM copy” is not a physical thing which has location, but information, like a number. Number 7 doesn’t have location in the physical world. It is present in each place, where 7 objects are presented. But the properties of 7, like that it is odd, are non-local.
This also comes down to our previous discussion on your other paper: it seems impossible to undo past experiences (i.e. by breaking chains of experience or some other way). Nothing will ever change the fact that you experienced x. This just seems as intuitively undeniable to me as a triangle having 3 sides. You can break past chains of information (like erasing history books) but not past chains of experience. Another indication that they might be different.
I think that could only work if you had 2 causal universes (either 2 Hubble volumes or 2 separate universes) exactly equal to each other. Only then could you have 2 persons exactly equal, having the exact same chain of experiences. But we never observe 2 complex macroscopic systems that are exactly equal to the microscopic level. The universe is too complex and chaotic for that. So, the bigger the system, the less likely to happen it becomes. Unless our universe was infinite, which seems impossible since it has been born and it will die. But maybe an infinite amount of universes including many copies of each other? Seems impossible for the same reason (universes end up dying).
(And then, even if you have 2 (or even a billion) exactly equal persons experiencing the exact same chain of experiences in exactly equal causal worlds, we can see that the causal effect is the exact same in all of them, so if one dies, all the others will die too.)
Now, in MWI it could never work, since we know that the “mes” in all different branches are experiencing different things (if each branch corresponds to a different possibility, then the mes in each branch necessarily have to be experiencing different things).
Anyway, even before all of this, I don’t believe in any kind of computationalism, because information by itself has no experience. The number 7 has no experience. Consciousness must be something more complex. Information seems to be an interpretation of the physical world by a consciousness entity.