= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
hairyfigment comments on The ethics of randomized computation in the multiverse - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (36)
The measure of the branches where the computer contain any such program, as opposed to total nonsense, is so small as to be ignorable. There's no point in worrying about it, because it practically doesn't happen.
Maybe I'm confused here. For background, I thought that even in MWI some 'worlds' might not have conscious observers. Normally we can comfort ourselves with the thought that extremely low-amplitude configurations (like those in which ravenous pink teddy-bears spontaneously destroy all that we hold dear) might not cause anyone pain because they might lack the ability to support consciousness. (Obviously I'm ignoring Tegmark IV here.)
But surely every configuration of ones and zeros in the computer has equal amplitude. That would mean that if we 'observe' each bit, the world we then live in has the same amplitude as each of the horribly-suffering-simulations. On what grounds can we say that the latter don't happen?
In this construction every configuration of ones and zeros have equal amplitude, yes. However, most of them are nonsensical; the sum of the measures of meaningful worlds are very very close to zero.
Meanwhile, the sum of measures in this scenario where you exist is, well, 1.
That you see each of the nonsensical numbers with equally low probability doesn't matter. If you roll a d1000 and get 687, the chance of that was the same as 1; you still wouldn't expect to get 1. In the same way, you wouldn't expect to get any particular configuration, but you're effectively summing over all the nonsensical ones, and that sum is pretty close to 1.
The part I don't get is why we should care if we observe the person suffering or not.
This conversation is confusing me; possibly this comment will help us understand each other.
Does it help if I say I completely agree with Manfred?
Not all people have the same "degree of existence" (warning: don't understand what this really is!).
You may gain an improved intuition for what's going on if you read about Mangled Worlds. It may not be true, but it's the best one yet.