Perhaps I should have been more specific, I’m talking about a scenario where there is an actual machine (like a time machine but instead of travelling in time you travel between universes) in which you step and press a button, and then you appear in a parallel universe. In standard probability we have a potential future state of “I’m dead” and “I’m alive” but you can physically travel between those two future states, either one happens or the other happens. In the inter-universe travel scenario you can use the machine to travel to other universes and revive the copies (or repopulate the universes in which humanity went extinct).
EDIT:
So I think we agree on this part:
Let’s say we have 10 universes which are all identical, they all have you in them, you are tied to the tracks and a trolley is approaching. You have two buttons to press. Button A in all universes has the same effect but you are not sure which the effect is, there is a 90% of it not doing anything and 10% of it stopping the trolley. Button B uses a QMRNG and stops the trolley in 1 universe while letting it run you over in 9 universes. To a utilitarian the total expected utility from pressing any button is the same. In case A, the expected utility for each universe is 0.1 lives saved, so for total we get 10 * 0.1 = 1 life saved. In case B, the total expected utility is 1 life saved.
Then comes the problematic part:
The expected utility is the same, except… if inter-universe travel is possible and you are an expert surgeon which can save your copy’s life after it has been run over. In that case you survive in one universe and travel to other universes one by one and save the other copies. Taking the sum of utility of all universes for all times, the situation when a QMRNG is used looks a lot different than when not used. When not used, at one point in the future, the utility becomes zero and stays zero. When used, you can recover.
So the one surgeon survives, steps into the machine, presses a button to go to another universe, revives the copy, then he goes to the next universe (assuming the universes are nearly-identical except for the fact one of them got run over by a trolley, so all 10 of the parallel universes have such machines in them) and revives the next copy, and so on. So the expected utility of using QMRNG is 10 lives saved.
When applying this to xrisk it doesn’t matter if other universes have such machines in them since the travelers can use their knowledge and engineering skills to construct them. That’s what I meant by ” we can assume that inter-universe travel consumes some resources and takes some time”.
Before dealing with the implications of the surgeon, I have to understand the general implications of standard many-worlds. It’s not clear to me what are the implications of uniformly doubling, or halving, your quantum measure. Until I know that, I don’t know if quantum measure can be treated as probability.
Perhaps I should have been more specific, I’m talking about a scenario where there is an actual machine (like a time machine but instead of travelling in time you travel between universes) in which you step and press a button, and then you appear in a parallel universe. In standard probability we have a potential future state of “I’m dead” and “I’m alive” but you can physically travel between those two future states, either one happens or the other happens. In the inter-universe travel scenario you can use the machine to travel to other universes and revive the copies (or repopulate the universes in which humanity went extinct).
EDIT:
So I think we agree on this part:
Let’s say we have 10 universes which are all identical, they all have you in them, you are tied to the tracks and a trolley is approaching. You have two buttons to press. Button A in all universes has the same effect but you are not sure which the effect is, there is a 90% of it not doing anything and 10% of it stopping the trolley. Button B uses a QMRNG and stops the trolley in 1 universe while letting it run you over in 9 universes. To a utilitarian the total expected utility from pressing any button is the same. In case A, the expected utility for each universe is 0.1 lives saved, so for total we get 10 * 0.1 = 1 life saved. In case B, the total expected utility is 1 life saved.
Then comes the problematic part:
The expected utility is the same, except… if inter-universe travel is possible and you are an expert surgeon which can save your copy’s life after it has been run over. In that case you survive in one universe and travel to other universes one by one and save the other copies. Taking the sum of utility of all universes for all times, the situation when a QMRNG is used looks a lot different than when not used. When not used, at one point in the future, the utility becomes zero and stays zero. When used, you can recover.
So the one surgeon survives, steps into the machine, presses a button to go to another universe, revives the copy, then he goes to the next universe (assuming the universes are nearly-identical except for the fact one of them got run over by a trolley, so all 10 of the parallel universes have such machines in them) and revives the next copy, and so on. So the expected utility of using QMRNG is 10 lives saved.
When applying this to xrisk it doesn’t matter if other universes have such machines in them since the travelers can use their knowledge and engineering skills to construct them. That’s what I meant by ” we can assume that inter-universe travel consumes some resources and takes some time”.
Before dealing with the implications of the surgeon, I have to understand the general implications of standard many-worlds. It’s not clear to me what are the implications of uniformly doubling, or halving, your quantum measure. Until I know that, I don’t know if quantum measure can be treated as probability.