[extropy-chat] Role of MWI and Time Travel (was: Are ancestor simulations immoral?)

[Lee Corbin]

Russell writes

> On 5/24/06, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at tsoft.com> wrote:
> > I do think not that it is exactly correct to say that by making
> > a certain choice I am *creating* an Everett branch. It's much more
> > like I'm joining a certain pre-existing Everett branch.

> Both statements are correct, they are merely different ways to look at the same thing.

Exactly right.

> > Remember that QM under MWI is a completely deterministic theory, and that
> > "free will" is an awkward concept in deterministic systems. 

> Physics _has nothing whatsoever to do with free will_. Saying
> it has is a category error, like saying deterministic versus
> random physics determines whether water is genuinely wet.

You're right. It was misleading of me to imply that determinism had 
something to do with it. "Free will" is an awkward concept period.
Although when you write

> Free will is defined as the state of affairs where the causal
> matrix that determines the outcome includes your mind as a
> significant part.

I totally agree, and that's a good way of putting it. When all
is said and done, our best choice is to accept the term, claim
that it has the meaning you say, reject other common usages,
and to then argue that we do indeed have free will.

I'm glad that everyone appears to be up to speed on all this---
it didn't use to be that way, not long ago at all!

Lee

> If I fall out of an aircraft, as Infocom famously remarked,
> I have no free will on whether I go up or down, because the
> causal matrix that determines the result doesn't significantly
> include the pattern called "Russell's mind"; it's mostly about
> the pattern called "gravity".