It’s often entertained on LessWrong that if we live in some sort of a big world, then conscious observers will necessarily be immortal in a subjective sense. The most familiar form of this idea is quantum immortality in the context of MWI, but arguably a similar sort of what I would call ‘big world immortality’ is also implied if, for example, we live in another sort of multiverse or in a simulation.
It seems to me that big world scenarios are well accepted here, but that a lot of people don’t take big world immortality very seriously. This confuses me, and I wonder if I’m missing something. I suppose that there are good counterarguments that I haven’t come across or that haven’t actually been presented yet because people haven’t spent that much time thinking about stuff like this. The ones I have read are from Max Tegmark, who’s stated that he doesn’t believe quantum immortality to be true because death is a gradual, not a binary process, and (in Our Mathematical Universe) because he doesn’t expect the necessary infinities to actually occur in nature. I’m not sure how credible I find these.
So, should we take big world immortality seriously? I’d appreciate any input, as this has been bothering me quite a bit as of late and had a rather detrimental effect on my life. Note that I’m not exactly very thrilled about this; to me, this kind of involuntary immortality, that nevertheless doesn’t guarantee that anyone else will survive from an observers point of view, sounds pretty horrible. David Lewis presented a very pessimistic scenario in ‘How Many Lives Has Schrödinger’s Cat’ as well.
So, should we take big world immortality seriously?
Whether or not we take it seriously doesn’t seem to have any effect on how we should behave as far as I can tell, so what would taking it seriously imply?
I mostly wanted to hear opinions on whether to believe it or not. But anyways, I’m not so sure that you’re correct. I think we should find out whether big world immortality should affect our decisions or not. If it is true then I believe that we should, for instance, worry quite a bit about the measure of comfortable survival scenarios versus uncomfortable scenarios. This might have implications regarding, for example, whether or not to sign up for cryonics (I’m not interested in general, but if it significantly increases the likelihood that big world immortality leads to something comfortable, I might) or worrying about existential risk (from a purely selfish point of view, existential risk is much more threatening if I’m guaranteed to survive no matter what, but from my point of view no one else is, than in the case where it’s just as likely to wipe me out as anyone else).
If you’re going to worry about things like that if big world immortality is true, you can just worry about them anyway, because the only thing that you will ever observe (even if big world immortality is false) is that you always continue to survive, even when other people die, even from things like nuclear war.
Your observations will always be compatible with your personal immortality, no matter what the truth is.
Well, sort of, but I still think there is an important difference in that without big world immortality all the survival scenarios may be so unlikely that they aren’t worthy of serious consideration, whereas with it one is guaranteed to experience survival, and the likelihood of experiencing certain types of survival becomes important.
Let’s suppose you’re in a situation where you can sacrifice yourself to save someone you care about, and there’s a very, very big chance that if you do so, you die, but a very, very small chance that you end up alive but crippled, but the crippled scenarios form the vast majority of the scenarios in which you survive. Wouldn’t your choice depend at least to some degree on whether you expect to experience survival no matter what, or not?
Some tangential food for thought: My grandfather died recently after a slow and gradual eight-year decline in health. He suffered from a kind of neurodegenerative disorder with symptoms including various clots and plaques in his brain that gradually increased in size and number while the functioning proportion of his brain tissue decreased.
During the first year he had simple forgetfulness. In the second year it progressed to wandering and excessive eating. It then slowly progressed to incontinence, lack of ability to speak, and soon, lack of ability to move. During his final three years he was entirely bedridden and rarely made any voluntary motor movements even when he was fully awake. His muscle mass had decreased to virtually nothing. During his last month he could not even perform the necessary motor movements to eat food and had to go on life support. When he finally did die, many in the family said it didn’t make any difference because he was already dead. I was amazed that he held out as long as he did; surely his heart should have given out a long time ago.
Was I a witness to his gradual dissolution in a sequence of ever-increasingly-unlikely universes? Maybe in some other thread he had a quick and painless death. Maybe in an even less likely thread, he continued declining in health to an even less likely state of bodily function.
Well, that’s just sad. But I suppose you should believe that you witnessed a relatively normal course of decline. In more unlikely threads there possibly were quick and painless deaths, continuing declining, and also miraculous recoveries.
I guess the interesting question your example raises, in this context, is this: is there a way to draw a line from your grandfather in a mentally declined state to a state of having miraculously recovered, or is there a fuzzy border somewhere that can only be crossed once?
It seems to me that a disease that inflicts gross damage to substantial volumes of brain pretty much destroys the relevant information, in which case there probably isn’t much more line from “mentally declined grandfather” to “miraculously restored grandfather” than from “mentally declined grandfather” to “grandfather miraculously restored to someone else’s state of normal mental functioning” (complete with wrong memories, different personality, etc.).
I consciously will myself to believe in big world immortality, as a response to existential crises, although I don’t seem to have actual reasons not to believe such besides intuitions about consciousness/the self that I’ve seen debated enough to distrust.
Yes—I mean existential crisis in the sense of dread and terror from letting my mind dwell on my eventual death, convincing myself I’m immortal is a decisive solution to that insofar as I can actually convince myself. I don’t mind existence being meaningless, it is that either way, I care much more about whether it ends.
I think it should be taken seriously, in the sense that there is a significant chance that it is true. I agree that Less Wrong in general tends to be excessively skeptical of the possibility, probably due to an excessive skepticism-of-weird-things in general, and possibly due to an implicit association with religion.
However:
1) It may just be false because the big world scenarios may fail to be true.
2) It may be false because the big world scenarios fail to be true in the way required; for example, I don’t think anyone really knows which possibilities are actually implied by the MWI interpretation of quantum mechanics.
3) It may be false because “consciousness just doesn’t work that way.” While you can argue that this isn’t possible or meaningful, it is an argument, not an empirical observation, and you may be wrong.
4) If it’s true, it is probably true in an uncontrollable way, so that basically you are going to have no say in what happens to you after other observers see you die, and in whether it is good or bad (and an argument can be made that it would probably be bad). This makes the question of whether it is true or not much less relevant to our current lives, since our actions cannot affect it.
5) There might be a principle of caution (being used by Less Wrong people). One is inclined to exaggerate the probability of very bad things, in order to be sure to avoid them. So if final death is very bad, people will be inclined to exaggerate the probability that ordinary death is final.
I agree that Less Wrong in general tends to be excessively skeptical of the possibility, probably due to an excessive skepticism-of-weird-things in general
Of all the things LW has been accused of, this is the first time I see a skepticism-of-weird-things in general being attributed to the site.
Regarding one, two and three: shouldn’t we, in any case, be able to make an educated guess? Am I wrong in assuming that based on our current scientific knowledge, it is more likely true than not? (My current feeling is that based on my own understanding, this is what I should believe, but that the idea is so outrageous that there ought to be a flaw somewhere.)
Two is an interesting point, though; I find it a bit baffling that there seems to be no consensus about how infinities actually work in the context of multiverses (“infinite”, “practically infinite” and “very big” are routinely used interchangeably, at least in text that is not rigorously scientific).
Regarding four, I’m not so sure. Take cryonics for example. I suppose it does either increase or decrease the likelihood that a person ends up in an uncomfortable world. Which way is it, and how big is the effect? Of course, it’s possible that in the really long run (say, trillions of times the lifespan of the universe) it doesn’t matter.
Regarding five, I guess so. Then again, one might argue that big world immortality would itself be a ‘very bad thing’.
It’s often entertained on LessWrong that if we live in some sort of a big world, then conscious observers will necessarily be immortal in a subjective sense. The most familiar form of this idea is quantum immortality in the context of MWI, but arguably a similar sort of what I would call ‘big world immortality’ is also implied if, for example, we live in another sort of multiverse or in a simulation.
It seems to me that big world scenarios are well accepted here, but that a lot of people don’t take big world immortality very seriously. This confuses me, and I wonder if I’m missing something. I suppose that there are good counterarguments that I haven’t come across or that haven’t actually been presented yet because people haven’t spent that much time thinking about stuff like this. The ones I have read are from Max Tegmark, who’s stated that he doesn’t believe quantum immortality to be true because death is a gradual, not a binary process, and (in Our Mathematical Universe) because he doesn’t expect the necessary infinities to actually occur in nature. I’m not sure how credible I find these.
So, should we take big world immortality seriously? I’d appreciate any input, as this has been bothering me quite a bit as of late and had a rather detrimental effect on my life. Note that I’m not exactly very thrilled about this; to me, this kind of involuntary immortality, that nevertheless doesn’t guarantee that anyone else will survive from an observers point of view, sounds pretty horrible. David Lewis presented a very pessimistic scenario in ‘How Many Lives Has Schrödinger’s Cat’ as well.
Whether or not we take it seriously doesn’t seem to have any effect on how we should behave as far as I can tell, so what would taking it seriously imply?
I mostly wanted to hear opinions on whether to believe it or not. But anyways, I’m not so sure that you’re correct. I think we should find out whether big world immortality should affect our decisions or not. If it is true then I believe that we should, for instance, worry quite a bit about the measure of comfortable survival scenarios versus uncomfortable scenarios. This might have implications regarding, for example, whether or not to sign up for cryonics (I’m not interested in general, but if it significantly increases the likelihood that big world immortality leads to something comfortable, I might) or worrying about existential risk (from a purely selfish point of view, existential risk is much more threatening if I’m guaranteed to survive no matter what, but from my point of view no one else is, than in the case where it’s just as likely to wipe me out as anyone else).
If you’re going to worry about things like that if big world immortality is true, you can just worry about them anyway, because the only thing that you will ever observe (even if big world immortality is false) is that you always continue to survive, even when other people die, even from things like nuclear war.
Your observations will always be compatible with your personal immortality, no matter what the truth is.
Well, sort of, but I still think there is an important difference in that without big world immortality all the survival scenarios may be so unlikely that they aren’t worthy of serious consideration, whereas with it one is guaranteed to experience survival, and the likelihood of experiencing certain types of survival becomes important.
Let’s suppose you’re in a situation where you can sacrifice yourself to save someone you care about, and there’s a very, very big chance that if you do so, you die, but a very, very small chance that you end up alive but crippled, but the crippled scenarios form the vast majority of the scenarios in which you survive. Wouldn’t your choice depend at least to some degree on whether you expect to experience survival no matter what, or not?
Some tangential food for thought: My grandfather died recently after a slow and gradual eight-year decline in health. He suffered from a kind of neurodegenerative disorder with symptoms including various clots and plaques in his brain that gradually increased in size and number while the functioning proportion of his brain tissue decreased.
During the first year he had simple forgetfulness. In the second year it progressed to wandering and excessive eating. It then slowly progressed to incontinence, lack of ability to speak, and soon, lack of ability to move. During his final three years he was entirely bedridden and rarely made any voluntary motor movements even when he was fully awake. His muscle mass had decreased to virtually nothing. During his last month he could not even perform the necessary motor movements to eat food and had to go on life support. When he finally did die, many in the family said it didn’t make any difference because he was already dead. I was amazed that he held out as long as he did; surely his heart should have given out a long time ago.
Was I a witness to his gradual dissolution in a sequence of ever-increasingly-unlikely universes? Maybe in some other thread he had a quick and painless death. Maybe in an even less likely thread, he continued declining in health to an even less likely state of bodily function.
Well, that’s just sad. But I suppose you should believe that you witnessed a relatively normal course of decline. In more unlikely threads there possibly were quick and painless deaths, continuing declining, and also miraculous recoveries.
I guess the interesting question your example raises, in this context, is this: is there a way to draw a line from your grandfather in a mentally declined state to a state of having miraculously recovered, or is there a fuzzy border somewhere that can only be crossed once?
It seems to me that a disease that inflicts gross damage to substantial volumes of brain pretty much destroys the relevant information, in which case there probably isn’t much more line from “mentally declined grandfather” to “miraculously restored grandfather” than from “mentally declined grandfather” to “grandfather miraculously restored to someone else’s state of normal mental functioning” (complete with wrong memories, different personality, etc.).
I consciously will myself to believe in big world immortality, as a response to existential crises, although I don’t seem to have actual reasons not to believe such besides intuitions about consciousness/the self that I’ve seen debated enough to distrust.
So did I understand correctly, believing in big world immortality doesn’t cause you an existential crisis, but not believing in it does?
Yes—I mean existential crisis in the sense of dread and terror from letting my mind dwell on my eventual death, convincing myself I’m immortal is a decisive solution to that insofar as I can actually convince myself. I don’t mind existence being meaningless, it is that either way, I care much more about whether it ends.
So you’re not worried that it might be unending but very uncomfortable?
I think it should be taken seriously, in the sense that there is a significant chance that it is true. I agree that Less Wrong in general tends to be excessively skeptical of the possibility, probably due to an excessive skepticism-of-weird-things in general, and possibly due to an implicit association with religion.
However:
1) It may just be false because the big world scenarios may fail to be true. 2) It may be false because the big world scenarios fail to be true in the way required; for example, I don’t think anyone really knows which possibilities are actually implied by the MWI interpretation of quantum mechanics. 3) It may be false because “consciousness just doesn’t work that way.” While you can argue that this isn’t possible or meaningful, it is an argument, not an empirical observation, and you may be wrong. 4) If it’s true, it is probably true in an uncontrollable way, so that basically you are going to have no say in what happens to you after other observers see you die, and in whether it is good or bad (and an argument can be made that it would probably be bad). This makes the question of whether it is true or not much less relevant to our current lives, since our actions cannot affect it. 5) There might be a principle of caution (being used by Less Wrong people). One is inclined to exaggerate the probability of very bad things, in order to be sure to avoid them. So if final death is very bad, people will be inclined to exaggerate the probability that ordinary death is final.
Of all the things LW has been accused of, this is the first time I see a skepticism-of-weird-things in general being attributed to the site.
While a valid point, LW does have a shut-up-and-just-believe-the-experts wing.
Regarding one, two and three: shouldn’t we, in any case, be able to make an educated guess? Am I wrong in assuming that based on our current scientific knowledge, it is more likely true than not? (My current feeling is that based on my own understanding, this is what I should believe, but that the idea is so outrageous that there ought to be a flaw somewhere.)
Two is an interesting point, though; I find it a bit baffling that there seems to be no consensus about how infinities actually work in the context of multiverses (“infinite”, “practically infinite” and “very big” are routinely used interchangeably, at least in text that is not rigorously scientific).
Regarding four, I’m not so sure. Take cryonics for example. I suppose it does either increase or decrease the likelihood that a person ends up in an uncomfortable world. Which way is it, and how big is the effect? Of course, it’s possible that in the really long run (say, trillions of times the lifespan of the universe) it doesn’t matter.
Regarding five, I guess so. Then again, one might argue that big world immortality would itself be a ‘very bad thing’.