Invoking the absurdity heuristic is a really bad idea. The power of absurdity to distinguish truth from falsity is far, far weaker than the power of—to give an amusing example—statistics.
Edit: The Wired article of the second link is “Nov. 4, 1952: Univac Gets Election Right, But CBS Balks” by Randy Alfred 11.04.08 - Wayback Machine link.
If you believe in MWI, but refuse to believe that you will observe a world of everybody much younger than you, since that is your branch you ended in—you believe in a contradiction.
You may avert it by abandon the quantum suicide thing, but not the MWI. I don’t know if it’s possible. So far nobody claimed such an option.
But some people believe in quantum immortality. There is no contradiction. There isn’t even empirical evidence against it. The options, unless I’m missing one, are to find evidence against MWI, evidence against Quantum Immortality for a modus tollens, or change your mind. Quantum immortality sounding crazy isn’t evidence against it.
Fine. So you believe that in the case if no Singularity happens, and no major medical advance, you’ll be 200 and pretty much alone at this age?
Probably not but it isn’t a negligible probability at this point. I assign MWI around .25 probability with the remainder going to pilot wave and “shit no one has thought of”. But these probabilities are mostly based on instincts from the history of science and things physicists have said, I’m not a physicist and don’t consider myself an authority. This is an easily altered set of predictions.
It is a logical consequence of WMI. Don’t you agree it is?
Maybe. We still need to interpret the interpretation. There are definitely some readings of MWI that deal with the Bohm probability rule by concluding that certain low probability worlds get mangled and never actualize- this could mean we eventually die after all because the probability of our survival becomes too small.
Invoking the absurdity heuristic is a really bad idea. The power of absurdity to distinguish truth from falsity is far, far weaker than the power of—to give an amusing example—statistics.
Edit: The Wired article of the second link is “Nov. 4, 1952: Univac Gets Election Right, But CBS Balks” by Randy Alfred 11.04.08 - Wayback Machine link.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/reductio/
A legitimate way of reasoning.
You have to derive an actual contradiction, not just something that seems absurd to you.
If you believe in MWI, but refuse to believe that you will observe a world of everybody much younger than you, since that is your branch you ended in—you believe in a contradiction.
You may avert it by abandon the quantum suicide thing, but not the MWI. I don’t know if it’s possible. So far nobody claimed such an option.
But some people believe in quantum immortality. There is no contradiction. There isn’t even empirical evidence against it. The options, unless I’m missing one, are to find evidence against MWI, evidence against Quantum Immortality for a modus tollens, or change your mind. Quantum immortality sounding crazy isn’t evidence against it.
Fine. So you believe that in the case if no Singularity happens, and no major medical advance, you’ll be 200 and pretty much alone at this age?
It is a logical consequence of WMI. Don’t you agree it is?
Probably not but it isn’t a negligible probability at this point. I assign MWI around .25 probability with the remainder going to pilot wave and “shit no one has thought of”. But these probabilities are mostly based on instincts from the history of science and things physicists have said, I’m not a physicist and don’t consider myself an authority. This is an easily altered set of predictions.
Maybe. We still need to interpret the interpretation. There are definitely some readings of MWI that deal with the Bohm probability rule by concluding that certain low probability worlds get mangled and never actualize- this could mean we eventually die after all because the probability of our survival becomes too small.