Allan_Crossman comments on How Many LHC Failures Is Too Many? - Less Wrong

16 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 20 September 2008 09:38PM

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Comment author: Allan_Crossman 21 September 2008 10:44:56PM 0 points [-]

Benja, I'm not really smart enough to parse the maths, but I can comment on the intuition:

The very small number of Everett branches that have the LHC non-working due to a string of random failures is the same in both cases [of LHC dangerous vs. LHC safe]

I see that, but if the LHC is dangerous then you can only find yourself in the world where lots of failures have occurred, but if the LHC is safe, it's extremely unlikely that you'll find yourself in such a world.

Thus, if all you know is that you are in an Everett branch in which the LHC is non-working due to a string of random failures, you have no information about whether the other Everett branches have the LHC happily chugging ahead, or dead.

The intuition on my side is that, if you consider yourself a random observer, it's amazing that you should find yourself in one of the extremely few worlds where the LHC keeps failing, unless the LHC is dangerous, in which case all observers are in such a world.

(I would like to stress for posterity that I don't believe the LHC is dangerous.)