Wild speculations on quantum physics aside, I would like to use the regular pedestrian definition of immortality that is distinguishable from this and any other version of afterlife being discussed:
Immortality is eternal life or the ability to live forever
By this definition, a friend of mine who has recently and unexpectedly died from lung cancer is quite dead and in no way immortal. I can visit her grave, or see the grief of her friends and relatives, religious or otherwise. Reading about Boltzmann brains, Infinite multiverses or the Second Coming of the Messiah is not in any way comforting, because I still cannot undo her death.
From that point of view, and the only one that matters to me, Algon’s recipe of doing “nothing” is admitting defeat.
I’m sorry about your friend. But before I say anything, could you say why exactly my speculations are wild? I’m just running with an idea that many more knowledgeable people than I (many physicists) think is a descent possibility.
And even if they were, it does not alleviate your mother’s grief in our little corner of the universe when you are run over by a drunk driver, because her identity is not connected to all those other potential copies of you and her.
In general, conflating reductionism with a certain set of pop-sci ideas is probably not very smart.
1) A universe that does not undergo a Big Crunch would necessarily last for an infinite amount of time. THough there is one caveat, which is the paper that the very same blogger you linked to wrote (Its in the page)
2) I think a Copenhagen interpretation is more likely. But I will have to mull that article over for a while.
3) I am not actually saying that all will re-appear is your brain, but the entirety of you and the rest of the world and so on, with exactly the same happenings going on. So yes, you would be conscious, and it would be you.
4) Here is a lecture by Leonard Suskind, which may help clear things up a bit. Either way, its fairly enjoyable https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhnKBKZvb_U
5) The problem with your example of a mother grieving is this: the same situation would inevitably occur again, but this time, you would survive, or would be miraculously revived or etc. And since a person is just a structure, if that structure re occurs, it will be the same person. It will be the mother, and she will see her son alive. Now, since there are two seperate paths going on here, the mother in situation A 10 years later will not be the same as mother in situation B 10 years later. But, there are various paths that could where the mother in situation A sees her son again, and so everything will be fine. And there will be some world where mother A suddenly wakes up on a grassy field and sees here supposedly dead son next to her, and all will be well. And such a world is possible i.e. the configuration of the atoms is possible, and so it will happen in a universe that has no ‘end’.
Now, I think that your first link holds the strongest objection, but I am in no real position to argue with the author. So, in several years time when I’ve finished undergrad, gotten a PhD in Physics and am ready to answer you, I’ll come calling. Then we can have a nice discussion as two rationalists where I can try and convince you that the would is infinite, and quite possibly horrific,.
A universe that does not undergo a Big Crunch would necessarily last for an infinite amount of time.
False. I’ll let you do your own research on other options.
2) I think a Copenhagen interpretation is more likely.
Objective collapse is a very unlikely case, it is contradicted by gravitational measurements.
3) I am not actually saying that all will re-appear is your brain, but the entirety of you and the rest of the world and so on, with exactly the same happenings going on. So yes, you would be conscious, and it would be you.
The question of consciousness and identity is way too deep to be dismissed with one argument.
5) [… ]
sounds like meaningless rambling to me
I am in no real position to argue with the author. So, in several years time when I’ve finished undergrad, gotten a PhD in Physics and am ready to answer you, I’ll come calling.
Very smart of you. I hope that it works out for you the way you intend to. And that I will still remember enough Physics from my own PhD years to hold a useful discussion.
Wild speculations on quantum physics aside, I would like to use the regular pedestrian definition of immortality that is distinguishable from this and any other version of afterlife being discussed:
By this definition, a friend of mine who has recently and unexpectedly died from lung cancer is quite dead and in no way immortal. I can visit her grave, or see the grief of her friends and relatives, religious or otherwise. Reading about Boltzmann brains, Infinite multiverses or the Second Coming of the Messiah is not in any way comforting, because I still cannot undo her death.
From that point of view, and the only one that matters to me, Algon’s recipe of doing “nothing” is admitting defeat.
I’m sorry about your friend. But before I say anything, could you say why exactly my speculations are wild? I’m just running with an idea that many more knowledgeable people than I (many physicists) think is a descent possibility.
we do not know how large the universe is (there are no infinities in physics, only in math)
Boltzmann brains most likely do not exist
And even if they did, they would not be conscious
And even if they were, it does not alleviate your mother’s grief in our little corner of the universe when you are run over by a drunk driver, because her identity is not connected to all those other potential copies of you and her.
In general, conflating reductionism with a certain set of pop-sci ideas is probably not very smart.
1) A universe that does not undergo a Big Crunch would necessarily last for an infinite amount of time. THough there is one caveat, which is the paper that the very same blogger you linked to wrote (Its in the page) 2) I think a Copenhagen interpretation is more likely. But I will have to mull that article over for a while. 3) I am not actually saying that all will re-appear is your brain, but the entirety of you and the rest of the world and so on, with exactly the same happenings going on. So yes, you would be conscious, and it would be you. 4) Here is a lecture by Leonard Suskind, which may help clear things up a bit. Either way, its fairly enjoyable https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhnKBKZvb_U 5) The problem with your example of a mother grieving is this: the same situation would inevitably occur again, but this time, you would survive, or would be miraculously revived or etc. And since a person is just a structure, if that structure re occurs, it will be the same person. It will be the mother, and she will see her son alive. Now, since there are two seperate paths going on here, the mother in situation A 10 years later will not be the same as mother in situation B 10 years later. But, there are various paths that could where the mother in situation A sees her son again, and so everything will be fine. And there will be some world where mother A suddenly wakes up on a grassy field and sees here supposedly dead son next to her, and all will be well. And such a world is possible i.e. the configuration of the atoms is possible, and so it will happen in a universe that has no ‘end’.
Now, I think that your first link holds the strongest objection, but I am in no real position to argue with the author. So, in several years time when I’ve finished undergrad, gotten a PhD in Physics and am ready to answer you, I’ll come calling. Then we can have a nice discussion as two rationalists where I can try and convince you that the would is infinite, and quite possibly horrific,.
False. I’ll let you do your own research on other options.
Objective collapse is a very unlikely case, it is contradicted by gravitational measurements.
The question of consciousness and identity is way too deep to be dismissed with one argument.
sounds like meaningless rambling to me
Very smart of you. I hope that it works out for you the way you intend to. And that I will still remember enough Physics from my own PhD years to hold a useful discussion.