Eliezer’s real answer to this question is discussed in Timeless Control. Basically, choice is still meaningful in many-worlds or any other physically deterministic universe. There are incredibly few Everett branches starting from here where tomorrow I go burn down an orphanage, and this is genuinely caused by the fact that I robustly do not want to do that sort of thing.
If you have altruistic motivation, then the Everett branches starting from here are in fact better (in expectation) than the branches starting from a similar universe with a version of you that has no altruistic motivation. By working to do good, you are in a meaningful sense causing the multiverse to contain a higher proportion of good worlds than it otherwise would.
It really does all add up to normality, even if it feels counterintuitive.
If you have altruistic motivation, then the Everett branches starting from here are in fact better (in expectation) than the branches starting from a similar universe with a version of you that has no altruistic motivation.
Yes.
By working to do good, you are in a meaningful sense causing the multiverse to contain a higher proportion of good worlds than it otherwise would.
No.
You are conflating two different kinds of counterfactual. In the first sentence, counterfactual multiverses that contain a less well intentioned version of you have worse outcomes.
But that is an extra-physical kind of counterfactual, it’s like imagining differentt laws of physics.
So it is not something you can choose or affect within a multiverse. Within a multiverse, counterfactuals are Everett branches that you are not in, and there is nothing the “you” that is embedded in a multiverse can do to affect them. Everything proceeds deterministically, including how well intentioned you are, including how much work you do, including how you change and evolve. So there is no “than it otherwise would” in a real sense, only in a conceptual sense
Or (3) the sky causes my hair to be wet when it rains.
Where does moral agency come in, if anywhere? Does the universe make things worse if a bunch of people die of a plague? Is the universe a moral agent? Is anything in it?
The question is about ethics. Saying there is still causality in MWI doesn’t answer it, because it doesn’t explain whether ethics deflates to causality or causality inflates to ethics.
Eliezer’s real answer to this question is discussed in Timeless Control. Basically, choice is still meaningful in many-worlds or any other physically deterministic universe. There are incredibly few Everett branches starting from here where tomorrow I go burn down an orphanage, and this is genuinely caused by the fact that I robustly do not want to do that sort of thing.
If you have altruistic motivation, then the Everett branches starting from here are in fact better (in expectation) than the branches starting from a similar universe with a version of you that has no altruistic motivation. By working to do good, you are in a meaningful sense causing the multiverse to contain a higher proportion of good worlds than it otherwise would.
It really does all add up to normality, even if it feels counterintuitive.
Yes.
No.
You are conflating two different kinds of counterfactual. In the first sentence, counterfactual multiverses that contain a less well intentioned version of you have worse outcomes. But that is an extra-physical kind of counterfactual, it’s like imagining differentt laws of physics.
So it is not something you can choose or affect within a multiverse. Within a multiverse, counterfactuals are Everett branches that you are not in, and there is nothing the “you” that is embedded in a multiverse can do to affect them. Everything proceeds deterministically, including how well intentioned you are, including how much work you do, including how you change and evolve. So there is no “than it otherwise would” in a real sense, only in a conceptual sense
You cause the world to be better when you donate to a good charity in the same sense that you cause your hair to be wet when you take a shower.
Or (3) the sky causes my hair to be wet when it rains.
Where does moral agency come in, if anywhere? Does the universe make things worse if a bunch of people die of a plague? Is the universe a moral agent? Is anything in it?
The question is about ethics. Saying there is still causality in MWI doesn’t answer it, because it doesn’t explain whether ethics deflates to causality or causality inflates to ethics.