I don’t think this would invalidate the experiment—the chain of consciousness that died will only exist in one universe, and a different, related one will exist in all the others, since it redacts back to before the moment of death, not the exact moment.
I think it’s pretty clear that the redaction machine could have redacted to the exact moment T of death, but that would have been more bother and would likely require major medical intervention to return Bob to health from that state. The fact that it went back further just means that some of Bob’s experience was unwound to time T-X.
If you take a drug that prevents long-term memory formation for 5 minutes, does it kill the “you” that existed in that time? What about a device that reverts your brain and body state back 5 minutes? What if a year later you have just naturally forgotten everything about some 5 minute period? Did the person that existed in that 5 minutes die? If so, when?
I do agree that resurrection doesn’t invalidate the experiment, but for a completely different reason: it was invalid even without the resurrection.
That is an interesting point. Perhaps I muddied the waters by making the reset take Bob to a time before the experiment was carried out. I did not consider the time of reset to be significant, perhaps foolishly. In your chain of consciousness model are their two branching evens? One at some time before the experiment is carried out where in a bunch of branches Bob finds himself suddenly pulled forwards in time, then a later event at the time of the quantum measurement? We could go down a rabbit hole on this with arguments from Bob like “well, I haven’t found myself suddenly pulled into the future, so I must be in the branch where I survive”.
My position (like JBlack) is that the experiment was invalid even without the resurrection. The primary aim of the story is to try and be funny, but the secondary aim is to try and sidestep all the arguments about whether the quantum suicide thought experiment actually makes logical sense (which can be quite subtle) by trying to work out if it proves too much. If the argument proves obvious nonsense then we know the logic is somehow flawed, even before we agree on exactly how. At least in my opinion the existence of resurrection technology (so that every Bob has further experiences, even the ones that die) raises serious problems for the thought experiment—as it seems to restore a symmetry between all the branches, so that singling out the one where Bob survives as more significant seems suspect. The (current) non-existence of resurrection technology doesn’t seem relevant to me, as the many-worlds interpretation surely does not rule out the possibility of resurrection technology (or life after death). It would seem bizarre to me if our level of certainty on (1) life after death, or technological resurrection should be related to our certainty of (2) the many-worlds interpretation. And thus (2) should be independent of (1). Thus assuming a particular value for (1) (that resurrection is possible) should not move our opinions on (2).
I don’t think this would invalidate the experiment—the chain of consciousness that died will only exist in one universe, and a different, related one will exist in all the others, since it redacts back to before the moment of death, not the exact moment.
I think it’s pretty clear that the redaction machine could have redacted to the exact moment T of death, but that would have been more bother and would likely require major medical intervention to return Bob to health from that state. The fact that it went back further just means that some of Bob’s experience was unwound to time T-X.
If you take a drug that prevents long-term memory formation for 5 minutes, does it kill the “you” that existed in that time? What about a device that reverts your brain and body state back 5 minutes? What if a year later you have just naturally forgotten everything about some 5 minute period? Did the person that existed in that 5 minutes die? If so, when?
I do agree that resurrection doesn’t invalidate the experiment, but for a completely different reason: it was invalid even without the resurrection.
That is an interesting point. Perhaps I muddied the waters by making the reset take Bob to a time before the experiment was carried out. I did not consider the time of reset to be significant, perhaps foolishly. In your chain of consciousness model are their two branching evens? One at some time before the experiment is carried out where in a bunch of branches Bob finds himself suddenly pulled forwards in time, then a later event at the time of the quantum measurement? We could go down a rabbit hole on this with arguments from Bob like “well, I haven’t found myself suddenly pulled into the future, so I must be in the branch where I survive”.
My position (like JBlack) is that the experiment was invalid even without the resurrection. The primary aim of the story is to try and be funny, but the secondary aim is to try and sidestep all the arguments about whether the quantum suicide thought experiment actually makes logical sense (which can be quite subtle) by trying to work out if it proves too much. If the argument proves obvious nonsense then we know the logic is somehow flawed, even before we agree on exactly how. At least in my opinion the existence of resurrection technology (so that every Bob has further experiences, even the ones that die) raises serious problems for the thought experiment—as it seems to restore a symmetry between all the branches, so that singling out the one where Bob survives as more significant seems suspect. The (current) non-existence of resurrection technology doesn’t seem relevant to me, as the many-worlds interpretation surely does not rule out the possibility of resurrection technology (or life after death). It would seem bizarre to me if our level of certainty on (1) life after death, or technological resurrection should be related to our certainty of (2) the many-worlds interpretation. And thus (2) should be independent of (1). Thus assuming a particular value for (1) (that resurrection is possible) should not move our opinions on (2).