Cessation of Existence is incompatible with the leading models of “standard physics” as presented at the level of core grad school physics classes. [...] the information that was “you” (using the model that seems standard on LW that ‘you’ are a collection of organized data) should, in theory, persist indefinitely into the future. [...] Now, whether that distributed information is ‘experiencing’ anything is arguable,
As far as I know, the latter is what people are worrying about when they worry about ceasing to exist. While it’s true that their information would be still out there somewhere (so they still exist in that sense), they’d no longer be/have a conscious mind within any given branch (assuming MWI). Even if universal information obliteration is incompatible with physics, minds turning into non-minds is very much compatible with physics, and the latter is quite sufficient to disturb people. (Which is presumably a reason why your comment’s been downvoted a bunch; most readers would see it as missing the point.)
Edit: on reflection, “within any given branch” is too strong. Substitute “within almost any given branch” — I think my point still goes through.
Now, whether that distributed information is ‘experiencing’ anything is arguable,
As far as I know, the latter is what people are worrying about when they worry about ceasing to exist.
Ahhh… that never occurred to me. I was thinking entirely in terms of risk of data loss.
(Which is presumably a reason why your comment’s been downvoted a bunch; most readers would see it as missing the point.)
I don’t understand the voting rules or customs. Downvoting people who see things from a different perspective is… a custom designed to keep out the undesirables? I am sorry I missed the point but I learned nothing from the downvoting. I learned a great deal from your helpful comment—thank you.
I thought one of the points of the discussion was to promote learning among the readership.
Substitute “within almost any given branch” — I think my point still goes through.
Ah… see, that’s where I think the ‘lost’ minds are likely hiding out, in branches of infinitesimal measure.
Which might sound bad, unless you have read up on the anthropic principle and realize that /we/ seem to be residing on just such a branch. (Read up on the anthropic principle if our branch of the universal tree seems less than very improbable to you.)
I’m not worried that there won’t be a future branch that what passes for my consciousness (I’m a P-zombie, I think, so I have to say “what passes for”) will surivve on. I’m worried that some consciousnesses, equivalent in awareness to ‘me’ or better, might be trapped in very unpleasant branches. If “I ” am permanently trapped in an unpleasant branch, I absolutely do want my consciousness shut down if it’s not serving some wonderful purpose that I’m unaware of. If my suffering does serve such a purpose then I’m happy to think of myself as a utility mine, where external entities can come and mine for positive utilons as long as they get more positive utlions out of me than the negative utilons they leave me with.
My perceived utility function often goes negative. When that happens, I would be extremely tempted to kill my meat body if there were a guarantee it would extinguish my perceived consciousness permanently. That would be a huge reward to me in that frame of mind, not a loss. This may be why I don’t see these questions the way most people here do.
P.S. Is there a place the rating system is explained? I have looked casually and not found it with a few minutes of effort; it seems like it should be explained prominently somewhere. Are downgradings intended as a punitive training measure (“don’t post this! bad monkey!”) or just a guide to readers (don’t bother reading this, it’s drivel, by our community standards). I was assuming the latter.
My perceived utility function often goes negative. When that happens, I would be extremely tempted to kill my meat body if there were a guarantee it would extinguish my perceived consciousness permanently. That would be a huge reward to me in that frame of mind, not a loss. This may be why I don’t see these questions the way most people here do.
!
If (all that | most of what)’s keeping you from “killing your meat body” is that being no guarantee of permanent death, stay away from this community (because we’d probably convince you such perma-death would be the highly probable outcome) and seek professional help! Instead of puzzling over the karma system.
(Just to lay that question to rest, this is a diverse community and the downvote button means many things to many people. However, in general it’s less of “this is not my opinion, so I have to downvote this because this is not my opinion” than e.g. Reddit, and more of “this argument is flawed / this comment adds too much noise to the discussion”. You can assume that most people have a good reason to downvote, but that reason can stem from various considerations.)
stay away from this community
I responded to this suggestion but deleted the response as unsuitable because it might embarass you. I would be happy to email my reply if you are interested.
we’d probably convince you such perma-death would be the highly probable outcome
Try reading what I said in more detail in both the post I made that you quoted and my explanation of how there might be a set of worlds of very small measure. Then go read Eliezer Yudkowsky’s posts on Many Worlds (or crack a book by Deutsch or someone, or check Wikipedia.) Then reread the clause you published here which I just quoted above, and see if you still stand by it, or if you can see just how very silly it is. I don’t want to bother to try to explain things again that have already been very well explained on this site.
I am trying to communicate using local community standards of courtesy, it is difficult. I am used to a very different tone of discourse.
To add to Kawoomba’s comment, there isn’t a comprehensive voting rubric that pretty much everyone agrees on, but a rule of thumb which seemsrelativelypopular is to upvote what one wants more of and downvote what one wants less of. (Ideally one tries to be fair-minded about this, putting more weight on objective features of the post, like its correctness.)
Downvoting people who see things from a different perspective is… a custom designed to keep out the undesirables?
To a degree! Eliezer gave a rationale for this in “Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism”. Seeing things from a different perspective may be a good thing or a bad thing; it depends on the perspective. While some novel perspectives are productive and reveal powerful new insights, others are intellectual dead ends, and not a few of those are intellectual dead ends which have been discussed on Less Wrong multiple times before. When the latter rear their head for the nth time it can bring down the usefulness of the discussion here, in which case burying the conversation in downvotes can prove useful. (Quoting myself, “[s]ometimes the most efficient way to handle a crappy comment is to hit it with a downvote and move on, rather than getting bogged down in an argument.”)
I am sorry I missed the point but I learned nothing from the downvoting. I learned a great deal from your helpful comment—thank you.
No problem. The big upside of downvoting is that it’s far less work than having to explain what might be wrong with someone’s comment. (Instead of using introspection to pinpoint why my immediate reaction to your comment was “this seems like it’s missing the point”, then putting that belief into words, then adjusting what I wrote for brevity, clarity & politeness, then posting what I wrote, then reflecting on it, then editing in a correction, I could’ve just hit the little downward thumb.) The big downside of downvoting is that it communicates far less information than a verbal disagreement.
So when I encounter a comment that I think confuses things more than it clarifies things, I face a tradeoff; do I downvote and move on, at the risk of being opaque, or do I put in the time to articulate what’s wrong with it? I figured the second route was worth taking here because I didn’t see any of the usual warning signs that explaining my disagreement would be a waste of time: (1) you mentioned taking theoretical physics classes, so you weren’t one of those people who simply pontificates about a field they’re utterly ignorant of; (2) having studied physics, you probably had more of a reductionist, pro-empirical point of view than a goofy anti-reductionist and/or anti-empirical one; and (3) you don’t have a track record here of being unreceptive to disagreement.
Ah… see, that’s where I think the ‘lost’ minds are likely hiding out, in branches of infinitesimal measure. Which might sound bad, unless you have read up on the anthropic principle and realize that /we/ seem to be residing on just such a branch.
This sounds like reasoning I’ve detected in past discussions here of “quantum immortality”, “quantum suicide” and “Quantum Russian Roulette”, which runs along the lines of, “I can destroy myself in as many branches as I like, as long as I’m still standing in at least one branch, because in all the branches where I destroy myself I won’t be around to regret it”. This philosophy has never really felt right to me; if I die in branch A, the version of me in branch B may live on, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m still dead in branch A and no longer exert any influence on it, contrary to the preferences of the version of myself previously existing in branch A. (For that reason, I’m also not worried by the prospect of being trapped by quantum immortality in a torturous branch. It might be inevitable in the sense that I’ll have to experience it in at least one branch, but in any randomly selected branch my chance of escaping quantum immortal torment is nigh on 100%.)
P.S. Is there a place the rating system is explained? I have looked casually and not found it with a few minutes of effort; it seems like it should be explained prominently somewhere.
Are downgradings intended as a punitive training measure (“don’t post this! bad monkey!”) or just a guide to readers (don’t bother reading this, it’s drivel, by our community standards). I was assuming the latter.
Mostly, but it is also feedback to commenters. You have some latitude to interpret that feedback as you see fit, since downvotes don’t convey much beyond “a person didn’t like this”.
As far as I know, the latter is what people are worrying about when they worry about ceasing to exist. While it’s true that their information would be still out there somewhere (so they still exist in that sense), they’d no longer be/have a conscious mind within any given branch (assuming MWI). Even if universal information obliteration is incompatible with physics, minds turning into non-minds is very much compatible with physics, and the latter is quite sufficient to disturb people. (Which is presumably a reason why your comment’s been downvoted a bunch; most readers would see it as missing the point.)
Edit: on reflection, “within any given branch” is too strong. Substitute “within almost any given branch” — I think my point still goes through.
Ahhh… that never occurred to me. I was thinking entirely in terms of risk of data loss.
I don’t understand the voting rules or customs. Downvoting people who see things from a different perspective is… a custom designed to keep out the undesirables? I am sorry I missed the point but I learned nothing from the downvoting. I learned a great deal from your helpful comment—thank you.
I thought one of the points of the discussion was to promote learning among the readership.
Ah… see, that’s where I think the ‘lost’ minds are likely hiding out, in branches of infinitesimal measure. Which might sound bad, unless you have read up on the anthropic principle and realize that /we/ seem to be residing on just such a branch. (Read up on the anthropic principle if our branch of the universal tree seems less than very improbable to you.)
I’m not worried that there won’t be a future branch that what passes for my consciousness (I’m a P-zombie, I think, so I have to say “what passes for”) will surivve on. I’m worried that some consciousnesses, equivalent in awareness to ‘me’ or better, might be trapped in very unpleasant branches. If “I ” am permanently trapped in an unpleasant branch, I absolutely do want my consciousness shut down if it’s not serving some wonderful purpose that I’m unaware of. If my suffering does serve such a purpose then I’m happy to think of myself as a utility mine, where external entities can come and mine for positive utilons as long as they get more positive utlions out of me than the negative utilons they leave me with.
My perceived utility function often goes negative. When that happens, I would be extremely tempted to kill my meat body if there were a guarantee it would extinguish my perceived consciousness permanently. That would be a huge reward to me in that frame of mind, not a loss. This may be why I don’t see these questions the way most people here do.
P.S. Is there a place the rating system is explained? I have looked casually and not found it with a few minutes of effort; it seems like it should be explained prominently somewhere. Are downgradings intended as a punitive training measure (“don’t post this! bad monkey!”) or just a guide to readers (don’t bother reading this, it’s drivel, by our community standards). I was assuming the latter.
!
If (all that | most of what)’s keeping you from “killing your meat body” is that being no guarantee of permanent death, stay away from this community (because we’d probably convince you such perma-death would be the highly probable outcome) and seek professional help! Instead of puzzling over the karma system.
(Just to lay that question to rest, this is a diverse community and the downvote button means many things to many people. However, in general it’s less of “this is not my opinion, so I have to downvote this because this is not my opinion” than e.g. Reddit, and more of “this argument is flawed / this comment adds too much noise to the discussion”. You can assume that most people have a good reason to downvote, but that reason can stem from various considerations.)
Try reading what I said in more detail in both the post I made that you quoted and my explanation of how there might be a set of worlds of very small measure. Then go read Eliezer Yudkowsky’s posts on Many Worlds (or crack a book by Deutsch or someone, or check Wikipedia.) Then reread the clause you published here which I just quoted above, and see if you still stand by it, or if you can see just how very silly it is. I don’t want to bother to try to explain things again that have already been very well explained on this site.
I am trying to communicate using local community standards of courtesy, it is difficult. I am used to a very different tone of discourse.
To add to Kawoomba’s comment, there isn’t a comprehensive voting rubric that pretty much everyone agrees on, but a rule of thumb which seems relatively popular is to upvote what one wants more of and downvote what one wants less of. (Ideally one tries to be fair-minded about this, putting more weight on objective features of the post, like its correctness.)
To a degree! Eliezer gave a rationale for this in “Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism”. Seeing things from a different perspective may be a good thing or a bad thing; it depends on the perspective. While some novel perspectives are productive and reveal powerful new insights, others are intellectual dead ends, and not a few of those are intellectual dead ends which have been discussed on Less Wrong multiple times before. When the latter rear their head for the nth time it can bring down the usefulness of the discussion here, in which case burying the conversation in downvotes can prove useful. (Quoting myself, “[s]ometimes the most efficient way to handle a crappy comment is to hit it with a downvote and move on, rather than getting bogged down in an argument.”)
No problem. The big upside of downvoting is that it’s far less work than having to explain what might be wrong with someone’s comment. (Instead of using introspection to pinpoint why my immediate reaction to your comment was “this seems like it’s missing the point”, then putting that belief into words, then adjusting what I wrote for brevity, clarity & politeness, then posting what I wrote, then reflecting on it, then editing in a correction, I could’ve just hit the little downward thumb.) The big downside of downvoting is that it communicates far less information than a verbal disagreement.
So when I encounter a comment that I think confuses things more than it clarifies things, I face a tradeoff; do I downvote and move on, at the risk of being opaque, or do I put in the time to articulate what’s wrong with it? I figured the second route was worth taking here because I didn’t see any of the usual warning signs that explaining my disagreement would be a waste of time: (1) you mentioned taking theoretical physics classes, so you weren’t one of those people who simply pontificates about a field they’re utterly ignorant of; (2) having studied physics, you probably had more of a reductionist, pro-empirical point of view than a goofy anti-reductionist and/or anti-empirical one; and (3) you don’t have a track record here of being unreceptive to disagreement.
This sounds like reasoning I’ve detected in past discussions here of “quantum immortality”, “quantum suicide” and “Quantum Russian Roulette”, which runs along the lines of, “I can destroy myself in as many branches as I like, as long as I’m still standing in at least one branch, because in all the branches where I destroy myself I won’t be around to regret it”. This philosophy has never really felt right to me; if I die in branch A, the version of me in branch B may live on, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m still dead in branch A and no longer exert any influence on it, contrary to the preferences of the version of myself previously existing in branch A. (For that reason, I’m also not worried by the prospect of being trapped by quantum immortality in a torturous branch. It might be inevitable in the sense that I’ll have to experience it in at least one branch, but in any randomly selected branch my chance of escaping quantum immortal torment is nigh on 100%.)
The FAQ on the wiki has a short section about it.
Mostly, but it is also feedback to commenters. You have some latitude to interpret that feedback as you see fit, since downvotes don’t convey much beyond “a person didn’t like this”.