As for the universe putting you in a safe place, well then, you are fortunate. How does this argument apply to people who die? Did they not have subjective experiences? What makes them different from you?
I believe the argument goes that they, too, are immortal… from their own perspective. Your consciousness traces its worldline, taking branches where you stay alive, and theirs does the same, but picking worlds where they stay alive. In other words, you can see them die, and they can see you die, but the consciousness, the qualia of the person who’s supposedly dying is not there; it’s gone down a different worldline.
I think that the theory is cute and quite seductive, but quite clearly wrong. The problem is, for example, brain damage: does quantum immortality allow you to experience Phineas Gage-type brain damage, or doesn’t it?
Also, I’ve been blackout drunk in college, and if quantum immortality is a thing, it’s not clear why my consciousness didn’t trace a path through the universes where I wasn’t blackout drunk. It was, after all, a loss of self, even if it was only temporary. The arguments QI uses for keeping you alive could be used equally easily to prove that you cannot become blackout drunk.
I believe the argument goes that they, too, are immortal… from their own perspective. Your consciousness traces its worldline, taking branches where you stay alive, and theirs does the same, but picking worlds where they stay alive. In other words, you can see them die, and they can see you die, but the consciousness, the qualia of the person who’s supposedly dying is not there; it’s gone down a different worldline.
I think that the theory is cute and quite seductive, but quite clearly wrong. The problem is, for example, brain damage: does quantum immortality allow you to experience Phineas Gage-type brain damage, or doesn’t it?
Also, I’ve been blackout drunk in college, and if quantum immortality is a thing, it’s not clear why my consciousness didn’t trace a path through the universes where I wasn’t blackout drunk. It was, after all, a loss of self, even if it was only temporary. The arguments QI uses for keeping you alive could be used equally easily to prove that you cannot become blackout drunk.
That was my point. The above QI argument broke that by going timeless and universal.