Should we actually expect ‘big world immortality’ to be true? I know the standard LW response is that what we should care about is measure, but what I’m interested in is whether it should be true that from every situation in which we can find ourselves in, we should expect a never-ending continuity of consciousness?
Max Tegmark has put forth a couple of objections: the original one (apart from simple binary situations, a consciousness often undergoes diminishment before dying and there’s no way to draw continuity from it to a world in which it survives) and a newer one in Our Mathematical Universe (he doesn’t think there are “actual” infinities in nature and, therefore, a relevant world doesn’t always exist). Any others?
Quantum immortality is an example, but something similar would arguably also apply to, for example, a multiverse or a universe of infinite size or age. Basically the idea that an observer should perceive subjective immortality, since in a big world there is always a strand in which they continue to exist.
Should we actually expect ‘big world immortality’ to be true? I know the standard LW response is that what we should care about is measure, but what I’m interested in is whether it should be true that from every situation in which we can find ourselves in, we should expect a never-ending continuity of consciousness?
Max Tegmark has put forth a couple of objections: the original one (apart from simple binary situations, a consciousness often undergoes diminishment before dying and there’s no way to draw continuity from it to a world in which it survives) and a newer one in Our Mathematical Universe (he doesn’t think there are “actual” infinities in nature and, therefore, a relevant world doesn’t always exist). Any others?
Could you define exactly what you mean with ‘big world immortality’?
Quantum immortality is an example, but something similar would arguably also apply to, for example, a multiverse or a universe of infinite size or age. Basically the idea that an observer should perceive subjective immortality, since in a big world there is always a strand in which they continue to exist.
Edit: Essentially, I’m talking about cryonics without freezers.