[ExI] any exact copy of you is you + universe is infinite = you are guaranteed immortality

[John K Clark]

"Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience at pobox.com>

> the Python program checks whether the ticket won.  If not, I'm woken up.
> If the ticket did win, the Python program creates one trillion copies of
> me [.] I expect that a trillion copies of me will be informed that they 
> won the
> lottery, whereas only a hundred million copies will be informed that they
> lost the lottery.

I don't understand this thought experiment. Unless you're talking about Many
Worlds you will almost certainly NOT win the lottery and not winning is what
you should expect. How many copies of you that you briefly make in the
extremely unlikely event that you do win just doesn't enter into it.

If you are talking about Many Worlds then there is a much simpler way to win
the lottery, just make a machine that will pull the trigger on a 44 Magnum
aimed at your head the instant it receives information that you have not
won; subjectively you will find that the trigger is never pulled and you
always win the lottery. I think the Many Worlds interpretation of Quantum
Mechanics could very well be correct, but I wouldn't bet my life on it.

> I am just deeply confused about the whole issue.

Making copies of yourself would certainly lead to odd situations but only
because it's novel, up to now we just haven't run across things like that;
but I can find absolutely nothing paradoxical about it.

  John K Clark