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DanielVarga comments on Help: Is there a quick and dirty way to explain quantum immortality? - Less Wrong Discussion

2 Post author: erratio 20 October 2010 03:00AM

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Comment author: DanielVarga 21 October 2010 08:44:24PM 1 point [-]

I don't have any answers to you question, but I have my own questions. Maybe someone will answer them here.

Just yesterday I had a long discussion with wedrifid about quantum suicide. It came to a halt when wedrifid got very offended because I claimed that he misrepresented my position. Or something like that. I am still not sure. Anyway, in spite of this, I think it was an interesting discussion mostly relevant here. There I enumerated several reasons why committing quantum suicide is a bad idea. But I am still very confused about the real question: How would it feel to commit quantum suicide? I wrote:

My common sense tells me that if I put a (quantum or other) gun in my mouth right now, and pull the trigger many times, then the next thing I will feel is not that I am very lucky. Rather, I will not feel anything at all because I will be dead. I am quite sure about this instinct, and let us assume for a minute that it is indeed correct. This can mean two things. One possible conclusion is that MWI must be wrong. Another possible conclusion is that MWI is right but we make some error when we try to apply MWI to this situation. I give high probability to both of this possibilities, and I am very interested in any new insights.

Comment author: Cakoluchiam 22 November 2012 08:44:18PM 1 point [-]

A potential error for the second conclusion is that we have incorrectly predicted the nature of consciousness, and the true solution is that one is somehow able to perceive without a physical avatar functioning in the way we expect of a human capable of perception. Thus, "you" are able to experience the branches of the MWI where everyone else perceives you to be dead.