You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

[spoilers] EY's “A Girl Corrupted...?!” new story is an allegorical study of quantum immortality?

5 Algernoq 19 February 2016 11:02AM

If you haven't read "A Girl Corrupted by the Internet is the Summoned Hero?!” yet, you should.

Spoilers ahead:

 

 

Continuing...

The Spell summons the hero with the best chance of defeating the Evil Emperor. This sounds like Quantum Immortality...

Specifically: Imagine the set of all possible versions of myself that are alive 50 years in the future, in the year 2066. My conscious observation at that point tends to summon the self most likely to be alive in 2066.

To elaborate: Computing all possible paths forward from the present moment to 2066 results in a HUGE set of possible future-selves that exist in 2066. But, some are more likely than others. For example, there will be a bunch of paths to a high-probability result, where I worked a generic middle-class job for years but don't clearly remember a lot of the individual days. There will also be a few paths where I do low-probability things. Thus, a random choice from that HUGE set will tend to pick a generic (high-probability) future self.

But, my conscious awareness observes one life path, not one discrete moment in the future. Computing all possible paths forward from the present moment to the end of the Universe results in a HUGE x HUGE set of possible life-paths, again with considerable overlap. My consciousness tends to pick a high-probability path.

In the story, a hero with a 100% probability of victory exists, so that hero is summoned. The hero observing their own probability of victory ensures they converge on a 100% probability of victory.

In real life, life paths with infinite survival time exist, so these life paths tend to be chosen. Observing one's own probability of infinite survival ensures convergence on 100% survival probability.

In the story, other characters set up conditions such that a desired outcome was the most likely one, by resolving to let a summoned hero with certain traits win easily.

In real life, an equivalent is the quantum suicide trick: resolving to kill oneself if certain conditions are not met ensures that the life path observed is one where those conditions are met.

In the story, a demon is summoned, and controlled when the demon refuses to fulfill its duty. Control of the demon was guaranteed by 100% probability of victory.

In real life, AI is like a demon, with the power to grant wishes but with perverse and unpredictable consequences that become worse with more powerful demons summoned. But, a guarantee of indefinite survival ensures that this demon will not end my consciousness. There are many ways this could go wrong. But, I desire to create as many copies of my mind as possible, but only in conditions where these copies could have lives at least as good as my own, so assuming I have some power to increase how quickly copies of my mind are created, and assuming I might be a mind-copy created in this way, this suggests that the most likely Universe for me to find myself in (out of the set of all possible Universes) is one in which the AI and I cooperate to create a huge number of long-lived copies of my mind.  

tl;dr: AI Safety is guaranteed by Quantum Immortality. P.S. God's promise to Abraham that his descendants will be "beyond number" is fulfilled.

Comments (23)

timeless quantum immortality

2 Algernoq 06 December 2015 04:14AM
Summary: The world looks normal despite Quantum Immortality, because the most likely Universe in which you're immortal is one where your immortality doesn't require much luck.

Recap of Quantum Immortality: The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics states that every time some event is observed (e.g. a coin flip), the Universe splits into separate universes, one for each possible outcome (e.g. Heads universe and Tails universe), and the conscious observer will find themselves in one of these universes (e.g. either see the coin come up Heads or see it come up Tails) with a likelihood proportional to the number of ways this event can happen (e.g. you'll probably never see a coin land on edge). Quantum Immortality states that my consciousness will follow the path of branchings in which it survives (e.g. if I set up a highly reliable system that will kill me if the coin ever comes up tails, I can flip and flip the coin and I will only ever see it come up heads).

New idea: Let's take a timeless perspective, and ask "what entire life path am I most likely to observe, from the set of all possible life paths?" Quantum Immortality restricts me to observing life paths in which I do not die. Some life paths are more probable than others. It's not clear what this probability is, but simpler life paths seem more likely than others (e.g. I'm more likely to observe a life path that can be described with any of many sets of physical laws and initial conditions, and less likely to observe a life path that requires a unique, complicated description.) I'm most likely to observe a world that follows physical laws all the time, in which many different sets of simple physical laws could create the world I see. I'm less likely to see a world in which I get improbably lucky.

Thus, I expect to live forever but I don't expect to get lucky.

2nd new idea: Let's generalize this timeless perspective across multiple individuals and lifetimes. Zooming out again and looking at the set of all possible evolutionary paths for a lifeform: it's most likely that I'm one of a lifeform that exponentially grows about as rapidly as possible. Over a long time horizon, the most numerous lifeform is the one that has the highest rate of growth. Thus, because I am conscious and Quantum Immortality appears to be correct, there's a good chance that I will spawn huge numbers of conscious immortal beings during my infinitely-long life.

Comments (52)
Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit