[ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument)

[Lee Corbin]

Stathis writes

>> Why would my near-copies occupy a much smaller slice over time?
>> I'd still be me, even in those branches where Al Gore won, or where
>> I won the lottery (I don't play).
> 
> That would be the case if you look at the next few years, but not over
> a longer period. When you're born all the versions of yourself in the
> multiverse are much the same, but by the time you reach adulthood they
> have greatly diverged.

I agree. Sometimes in dull moments I amuse myself by wondering if
the 18 year old me has reached the point of being half dead. Needless
to say, I am not big on life-changing experiences or other developments
that would slowly turn me into someone else.

> There is a period of greater stability once you're an adult

Thank goodness.

> but the changes due to posthumanist scenarios might be
> at least as great as those of childhood. This means that, ignoring
> duplications and deaths, the total number of copies of you in the
> multiverse will remain the same, but they will become segregated into
> increasingly smaller measure sets of near-copies.

Here we confuse "copies" as in lots of physical copies that I
would like to generate (some to go off to Alpha Centauri, for
example), and copies among different branches of the multiverse.

But on re-reading the above as meaning different-branch copies,
I agree totally.  It's just to be hoped for that I can maximize how
"near" are the near copies.  Besides, according to this algebra,
if the person I was twenty years ago is 95% me, then I'd far
rather have two of them around than me now.

Lee