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Clippy comments on Help: Is there a quick and dirty way to explain quantum immortality? - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (46)
Here's my explanation of quantum immortality:
Say you want to do something humans regard as important, like factoring large numbers. Lock yourself in a chamber that draws on a source of true quantum randomness to guess factors. Set it to kill you whenever it guesses incorrectly.
A short moment later, you will be alive, and have the correct factorization. This is because the only being you will identify with will be the being that decohered into the wavefunction branch that guessed correctly.
Seriously, this is the best way for humans to factor integers and solve other computationally-difficult problems. Give it a try.
Downvoted for urging people to commit suicide. Just because you define "you" to be "me who lives" does not mean that the colloquial you will not have death happen.
Look, maybe this would help: are you guys familiar with p-zombies? Let's say that I define myself to become a p-zombie if I measure a quantum spin to be up. This is exactly identical to quantum immortality, since "the only being I will identify with will be the being that decohered into the wavefunction that guessed correctly." Using this argument, you (notice the confusion caused by my use of the pronoun) should be able to measure a quantum spin to be down just by thinking that you'll become a p-zombie if you don't.
Okay, now replace "measure a quantum spin to be down" with "get superpowers." Aaaand GO! Congratulations, I have now turned you into a p-zombie.
I get what you mean (that this approach to problem solving relies on an odd definition of who "you" are), but I think using the term "p-zombie" here is unnecessarily confusing. A p-zombie is supposed to be a being who is identical to a human being in every physical way yet lacks qualia/consciousness. So when I read your post my immediate reaction was "Wait, what? How do you define yourself to become a p-zombie?"
Also, Clippy is a user roleplaying as a paperclip-maximizing AI. Don't take his suggestions of suicide too seriously.
Also, every User here is roleplaying a self-reflective apeyness-maximizing NI. Don't take their suggestions of catpersons too seriously.
I want to respond to that, but I am too amused by the idea of LW actually being composed of a bunch of AIs roleplaying as humans. That would certainly explain some things...
It could be worse, we could be AIs pretending to be humans pretending to be non-human animals pretending to be humans.
Oh, okay. Odd way to maximize (literal, I assume) paperclips, considering humans are currently the major producers of paperclips.
And yeah, perhaps I should have just said "you identify yourself as someone who consistently measures spin down," but it's always fun to make references and I wanted a slightly more intuitive analogue to death.
I'm curious, is your goal to maximizes the number of paper clips in a single part of the wavefunction or maximize the number across the entire wavefunction? If the first, you should use this strategy also.
My goals imply that I should maximize the second, of course.
Why is that an "of course"?
Because it's obvious. Why is it obvious? Because I want to maximize the number of paperclips really existing in the universe, not the ones I directly observe existing -- so I can't just care about the paperclips in the branch that I will eventually experience decohering to.
Isn't it obivious?