People around here seem to think that a recent series of near-misses, such as not destroying the world in the Cold War, is evidence in favor of quantum immortality.
This fails to appreciate that the anthropic selection bias has no limit on how far back it can make things retroactively seem to happen. If, as has been suggested, a majority of the Everett branches from our 1950 destroyed the world, then it is equally true that a majority of the Everett branches from our 1750 in which there is someone still alive in 2010 failed to contain probably-world-destroying technology.
The existence of x-risk near-miss events should be taken as evidence against quantum immortality.
I see three problems with this comment (even though on some level I seem to agree with its intended message):
Appeal to dictionary definition (essentially), paying close attention to details in authoritative wording. In this case, the wording misses the point, because the relevant features of the problem are not yet visible at this level of detail.
Dismissing subjective experience as domain of proper hypotheses. Even congitive scientists have tools now to perform scientific investigation of subjective experience, and rational hypotheses about subjective experience that are not scientific abound.
People around here seem to think that a recent series of near-misses, such as not destroying the world in the Cold War, is evidence in favor of quantum immortality.
This fails to appreciate that the anthropic selection bias has no limit on how far back it can make things retroactively seem to happen. If, as has been suggested, a majority of the Everett branches from our 1950 destroyed the world, then it is equally true that a majority of the Everett branches from our 1750 in which there is someone still alive in 2010 failed to contain probably-world-destroying technology.
The existence of x-risk near-miss events should be taken as evidence against quantum immortality.