I’d rather say that people who find quantum suicide desirable have a utility function that does not decompose into a linear combination of individual utility functions for their individual Everett branches—even if they had to deal with a terrorist attack on all of these branches, say. Surely everybody here would find an outcome undesirable where all of their future Everett branches wink out of existence. So if somebody prefers one Everett branch winking out and one continuing to exist to both continuing to exist, you can only describe their utility function by looking at all the branches, not by looking at the different branches individually. (Did that make sense?)
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I like your explanation Benja. There is no particular reason why a utility function need to consider ‘branch winking out of existence’ with the same simplicity with which they evaluate more mundane catastrophes. For example, consider the practice of thousands of gamers out there: “That start sucks! Restart!” I can give no mathematical reason why this preference ought to be dismissed.
I’d rather say that people who find quantum suicide desirable have a utility function that does not decompose into a linear combination of individual utility functions for their individual Everett branches—even if they had to deal with a terrorist attack on all of these branches, say. Surely everybody here would find an outcome undesirable where all of their future Everett branches wink out of existence. So if somebody prefers one Everett branch winking out and one continuing to exist to both continuing to exist, you can only describe their utility function by looking at all the branches, not by looking at the different branches individually. (Did that make sense?)
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I like your explanation Benja. There is no particular reason why a utility function need to consider ‘branch winking out of existence’ with the same simplicity with which they evaluate more mundane catastrophes. For example, consider the practice of thousands of gamers out there: “That start sucks! Restart!” I can give no mathematical reason why this preference ought to be dismissed.