Given plenty of time and some effort on my part, a future generation with the technology and gumption could re-animate me.
Given an infinite amount of time and no effort on my part, a future generation with the technology will re-animate me.
I call this passive cryonics [1]. In an infinitely large and timeless universe, plenty of combinations of things happen. One of them is me waking up again, somewhere, someday, no matter what I do. Even if I try to prevent it.
If I’m mistaken (in my preference) that the universe goes on infinitely beyond my perception, then I guess this is it. Y’all who make it, say nice things about me when I’m gone.
You don’t find your subjective self go somewhere else when you get drunk or something of this kind, do you? Why should death be different? Why if you are to be anaesthetised, then suffer some minor brain damage, you don’t expect to be saved by vastness of the universe? If you end up in ‘closest match’, clearly the enormous spatial distance (where all the information within your head is encoded into spatial coordinates) should make those more distant from you. Are you sure they are closest to you when you die, rather than someone alive and well nearby?
I believe that such notions are easily falsifiable and have been already falsified in just about anyone’s subjective history. If I had a subjective history of crazy rare coincidences happening to prevent me from ever bumping my head on anything, or indeed prevent me from any other changes in the brain such as maturation, then yes i’d be a believer in this. Alas, none of that was observed, so no.
This is also known as quantum suicide and/or quantum immortality.
Note that it is dependent on an underlying reality with splitting branches, such as in Many-worlds. If the universe is highly deterministic and only has one time-path, then you may very well die for real. In either case, cryonics is a good hedge bet.
Many worlds don’t make quantum suicide a reasonable position if you care about measure, and you very likely should. See Preference For (Many) Future Worlds.
Should I care about Everett branches in which I do not exist? This seems like a tragedy of the commons scenario—I have a strong interest in having others care about such scenarios, but I see no reason why I myself should.
Note: I don’t think I could ever think like this is day-to-day life, but I’m trying to follow the logic here. Also, is the downvote to my parent in regards to an incorrect statement, or as a social signal against moral relativism?
Should I care about Everett branches in which I do not exist?
Right now you should certainly care about branches descended from this one but in which you no longer exist. Allow the assumption “you care at least epsilon about anything except your own physical form”. Whether, at a time where there is an everett branch in which you already no longer exist, you should still care about that branch is more arbitrary. However, what is not arbitrary is that the you now should prefer to self modify to be the kind of person who does care about Everett branches descended from this one in which you no longer exist, since that gives better expected results (from your current perspective).
you now should prefer to self modify to be the kind of person who does care about Everett branches descended from this one in which you no longer exist, since that gives better expected results (from your current perspective).
Makes sense, thanks for articulating it. This is the reason I don’t consider quantum suicide (via cryonics) a reasonable position until a normal end of life situation.
And without using cryonics, quantum suicide has the potential to be a very bad experience. Cryonics is a rather all-or-nothing approach, which is good in that it reduces the very large middle ground where I survive but with 40% brain function. (As noted in Valdimir_Nesov’s link)
This is the reason I don’t consider quantum suicide (via cryonics) a reasonable position until a normal end of life situation.
I’m not sure where the cryonics/quantum suicide link is coming from. Do you just mean ‘cryonics’ in the sense “use something to make the patient clearly unconscious and then either wake them up or destroy them”? (As opposed to any long-term-storage connotations.)
Given plenty of time and some effort on my part, a future generation with the technology and gumption could re-animate me.
Given an infinite amount of time and no effort on my part, a future generation with the technology will re-animate me.
I call this passive cryonics [1]. In an infinitely large and timeless universe, plenty of combinations of things happen. One of them is me waking up again, somewhere, someday, no matter what I do. Even if I try to prevent it.
If I’m mistaken (in my preference) that the universe goes on infinitely beyond my perception, then I guess this is it. Y’all who make it, say nice things about me when I’m gone.
[1] http://ovo127.com/2010/01/27/trevor-blake-passive-cryonics/
You don’t find your subjective self go somewhere else when you get drunk or something of this kind, do you? Why should death be different? Why if you are to be anaesthetised, then suffer some minor brain damage, you don’t expect to be saved by vastness of the universe? If you end up in ‘closest match’, clearly the enormous spatial distance (where all the information within your head is encoded into spatial coordinates) should make those more distant from you. Are you sure they are closest to you when you die, rather than someone alive and well nearby?
I believe that such notions are easily falsifiable and have been already falsified in just about anyone’s subjective history. If I had a subjective history of crazy rare coincidences happening to prevent me from ever bumping my head on anything, or indeed prevent me from any other changes in the brain such as maturation, then yes i’d be a believer in this. Alas, none of that was observed, so no.
This is also known as quantum suicide and/or quantum immortality.
Note that it is dependent on an underlying reality with splitting branches, such as in Many-worlds. If the universe is highly deterministic and only has one time-path, then you may very well die for real. In either case, cryonics is a good hedge bet.
Many worlds don’t make quantum suicide a reasonable position if you care about measure, and you very likely should. See Preference For (Many) Future Worlds.
Should I care about Everett branches in which I do not exist? This seems like a tragedy of the commons scenario—I have a strong interest in having others care about such scenarios, but I see no reason why I myself should.
Note: I don’t think I could ever think like this is day-to-day life, but I’m trying to follow the logic here. Also, is the downvote to my parent in regards to an incorrect statement, or as a social signal against moral relativism?
Right now you should certainly care about branches descended from this one but in which you no longer exist. Allow the assumption “you care at least epsilon about anything except your own physical form”. Whether, at a time where there is an everett branch in which you already no longer exist, you should still care about that branch is more arbitrary. However, what is not arbitrary is that the you now should prefer to self modify to be the kind of person who does care about Everett branches descended from this one in which you no longer exist, since that gives better expected results (from your current perspective).
Makes sense, thanks for articulating it. This is the reason I don’t consider quantum suicide (via cryonics) a reasonable position until a normal end of life situation.
And without using cryonics, quantum suicide has the potential to be a very bad experience. Cryonics is a rather all-or-nothing approach, which is good in that it reduces the very large middle ground where I survive but with 40% brain function. (As noted in Valdimir_Nesov’s link)
I’m not sure where the cryonics/quantum suicide link is coming from. Do you just mean ‘cryonics’ in the sense “use something to make the patient clearly unconscious and then either wake them up or destroy them”? (As opposed to any long-term-storage connotations.)
I’m a fan of that link for some reason.
Yes. Cryonics being preferred over other methods because it’s a viable method for survival in the linear time case as well.
You at least likely should care about how many branches you exist in. Not existing in more branches means that you exist in fewer branches.