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Lumifer comments on The map of quantum (big world) immortality - Less Wrong Discussion

2 Post author: turchin 25 January 2016 10:21AM

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Comment author: Lumifer 28 January 2016 05:52:52PM *  0 points [-]

it remains the case that given QI, there will be a "you" (or multiple "you"s) in that scenario who will feel like they are the same consciousness as the "you" at the point of branching.

Well, not quite, in that scenario I will feel that I am one of a multitude of different "I"s spawned from a branching point. Kinda like the relationship between you and your (first-, second-, third-, etc.) cousins.

An important property of self-identity is uniqueness.

Comment author: qmotus 28 January 2016 05:58:09PM 0 points [-]

Will the person before the branching then simply be another cousin to you? If so, do you feel like the person you woke up as tomorrow morning was not in fact you, but yet another cousin of yours?

Comment author: Lumifer 28 January 2016 06:00:51PM *  0 points [-]

It depends on whether I know/believe that I'm the only one who woke up this morning with memories of my yesterday's self, or a whole bunch of people/consciousnesses woke up this morning with memories of my yesterday's self.

The self before the branching would be my ancestor who begat a lot of offspring of which I'm one.

One -> one is a rather different situation from one -> many.

Comment author: qmotus 28 January 2016 06:04:25PM 0 points [-]

Fair enough, I just find it extremely difficult to think like that in practice (it's a bit easier if I look back at myself from ten years ago or thirty years to the future).

Comment author: Lumifer 28 January 2016 06:08:31PM *  0 points [-]

Well, under MWI there are people who "are" you in sense of having been born to the same mother on the same day, but their branch diverged early on so that they are very unlike you now. And still they are also "you".

Comment author: qmotus 28 January 2016 06:15:55PM 1 point [-]

True, and as I said, I feel like those people are indeed closer to cousins. But when we're talking about life and death situations such as those that QI applies to, the "I's after branching" are experientially so close to me that I do think that it's more about immortality for me than about me just having a bunch of cousins.

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