Robin_Z comments on Many Worlds, One Best Guess - Less Wrong

12 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 11 May 2008 08:32AM

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Comment author: Robin_Z 11 May 2008 09:31:12PM 1 point [-]

Oh, that's subtle.

Check me if I'm wrong: according to the MWI, the evolving waveform itself can include instantiations of human beings, just as an evolving Conway's Life grid can include gliders. Thus, if we're proposing that humans exist (a reasonable hypothesis), they exist in the waveform, and if the Bohmian particles do not influence the evolution of the waveform, they exist in the waveform the same way whether or not Bohm's particles are there. And, in fact, if they do not influence the amplitude distribution, they're epiphenomenal in the same sense that people like Chalmers claim consciousness is.

If the particles do influence the evolution of the amplitude distribution, everything changes (of course). But that remains to be shown.