I'm not following your objection to quantum immortality, I will note that it also almost guarantees a version of yourself living forever but developing and maintaining a strong belief in "The Dark Lord Santa". There is little difference between annihilation and any other state, the idea that there is a universe where x did or did not happen.
If you're resting your argument on that then you can't draw a line around one state and claim it's special.
My objection is to the subjective experience of immortality. The multiple worlds gives rise to the illusion of probability. where it seems to us that quantum outputs are chosen randomly (because the vast majority of us experience arbitrary sequences when performing a series of quantum measurements). It is proposed that we should expect ourselves to find ourselves eventually living far beyond our natural years because of this observer selection effect. I would counter that that expectation comes from a naive view of selfhood that treats it like an all-or-nothing thing rather than something far slipperier.
I don't deny that some timelines have versions of me that may "live forever".
I think that the first step is to unpack "annihilate". How does one "annihilate" a universe? You seem to be equivocating between destroying a universe, and putting it in a state inhospitable to consciousness.
It also seems to me that once we bring the anthropic principle in, that leads to Boltzmann brains.
So yes, annihilation refers specifically to any process that would at light speed render the universe lethal to life as we know it. I think of it sort of like living on a bubble that's always bursting (in timelines we don't observe). There's something left over but it's pretty unrecognizable.
Any account of the origin of the universe is probably going to have some anthropic consideration, so Boltzmann brains are not a unique problem. But I think fragile universe hypothesis may be an asset in solving it. Conventional cosmology calls for a short lived active universe with an infinitely long lived remainant after heat death. Whereas in fragile universe that remainent dwarfed in scale by the outcomes of these shattering events which may well create intelligences that don't suffer the Boltzmann pathology.
- It must kill you (at least make you unconscious) on a timescale shorter than that on which you can become aware of the outcome of the quantum coin-toss
- It must be virtually certain to really kill you, not just injure you.
Both seem to be at odds with Many World Interpretation. In infinite number of those it will just injure you and/or you will become aware before, due to same malfuntion.
I'm not sure what you're trying to draw from here, but I don't think MWI requires an infinite number of possibilities.
What matters is in my interpretation of Tegmark's view is that there are many many more cases (by infinite or finite measure) where it works properly than cases where it doesn't.
Example: 499,999,999,999,000 cases cause death without observer experience 500,000,000,000,000 cases do nothing 1000 cases represent equipment failures
We should expect that the subject can predict for himself the do nothing case will occur with extremely high probability.
I'm pretty sure I've seen this before, with the example of our universe being a false vacuum with a short half-life.
I've seen a number very small mentions like that, but never anything giving it more than passing consideration. In addition, I haven't seen anyone postulate that this could be distorting our view of other physical laws.
If you've come across something more, I would love to see it!
How is this:
What we may think are fundamental laws of our universe, are merely descriptions of the nature of possible futures consistent with our continued existence.
compatible with this:
Everett Many Worlds is either correct or at least on the right track
Is quantum mechanics an exception to the claim that our conception of the fundamental laws is based on an observation selection effect? Why would it be one?
Quantum mechanics is definitely not immune, that's where we should see the manifestation of the bias I'm proposing. When I refer to Everett many words I'm referring specifically to the property of it where an observer "branches" into multiple successor observers (which I extend to include branches where there are no successor observers).
But which laws would be affected and which would not, I'm not at all certain. It could be some, or all (or, of course, none, if I'm wrong). My proposal is to use this sort of reasoning to develop "deeper" fundamental laws.
BTW I'm not one of those foaming at the mouth mofos who will debate endlessly and fruitlessly in an attacking manner toward anyone who dare criticize his crackpot theory.
The response to your theory, though, will depend on whether it's one of those. And the response to "should I tell you my new theory" will depend on the fact that such theories have some probability of being one of those. Ultimately, you have to tell us the theory to know how we'll react.
Well for better or for worse! Here it is!
http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/mms/fragile_universe_hypothesis_and_the_continual/
The happiness of stupidity is not closed to me. By the time I've made 1 rational decision (by whatever metric one wants to use) I'll have made 100 irrational ones. Stupidity and irrationality is built into the very way I operate.
I am primarily composed stupid and irrational beliefs and I am continually creating more.
You don't choose to be irrational, that's the default position.
Rationality is a limited precious resource that you use to diagnose and fix problems within the irrational milieu of systems and subsystems that make up your mind.
Second order rationality would then seem to be more about avoiding wasting precious resources on things I will receive no gain and instead focus on using rationality to fix things that actually need fixing. If I spend 1 hour of rational thinking doing philosophy I'll feel a lot better than if I spend 1 hour questioning the intentions of my SO.
Hey y'all, I come here both as a friend and with an agenda. I'm scary.
See I have a crazy pet theory... (and yes it's a TOE, fancy that!)
...and I'd love to give it a small home on the Internet. Here?
This like to share it with you because this community seems to be be the proper blend of open minded and skeptical. Which is what the damn thing needs.
Anyways I've lurked for quite awhile, and you guys have been great at opening my mind to a lot of things. I figure this might be good enough and crazy enough to give something back.
As a personal note, I'm currently an engineer who is wondering if he should go back to school to become an academic. When I was a college student at a big faceless university, I was too awkward, clueless, and erratic to navigate the system in a way that got me attention so grabbed my degree and ran.
BTW I'm not one of those foaming at the mouth mofos who will debate endlessly and fruitlessly in an attacking manner toward anyone who dare criticize his crackpot theory. I'm more like "man, why does this idea have to be so damn compelling, better get it out on the web". I've also posted it extremely little thus far, I do not design to spray it all over the internet.
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Obviously it would distort our view of how quickly the universe decays into a true vacuum. There's also the mangled worlds idea to explain the Born rule.
Certainly it would do that, but that could have other effects. For instance, let's say that the presence of a magnetic monopole would rapidly nucleate a vacuum decay event which otherwise would not occur. That effect might explain why the standard model does not include magnetic monopoles.
I'll have to dig into mangled worlds, It seems pretty interesting. Will report back with results, hopefully.