X-Message-Number: 15202 Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 23:33:38 -0700 From: Mike Perry <> Subject: Lee Corbin's Postings on Persons in the Multiverse. Lee Corbin makes some good points, and I was too hasty in my posting about certain actions based on ideas of the multiverse. I should have thought more carefully, and stated things more carefully. I didn't mean to come across as rationalizing things that, on the face of it, we see as evil on grounds that somewhere else the matter turns out differently, so what does it matter. Specifically Lee considers, among other things, the issue of whether someone is morally responsible for *not* bearing offspring. This inaction could be interpreted as something very like murder, maybe worse, because entire lives never exist in the first place--at least in our world--people who, if they did exist, we would agree are wonderful and worthwhile additions to what is already here. (Lee makes it clear that he does not consider it as bad as murder, but I bring this up for the sake of argument.) And of course there would be many other worlds too where they wouldn't exist, though still, unavoidably, others where they do exist (but also where murder victims are luckier than their counterparts here and survive, etc.). Overall, you could argue that things are even predetermined (the many-worlds multiverse is deterministic) but this doesn't absolve one from moral responsibility, in my view (and no doubt Lee feels the same way). As to the bearing of offspring, I think a case-by-case analysis is what is called for. I tend to be quick in looking down on this particular activity because it's "nature's answer to immortality," as someone has said, and I don't like the fact that people are mortal. It is also said that "we are machines to perpetuate our genes," suggesting that somehow the reproductive process is our purpose in life, which doesn't sit well either. I have to say too that I don't like some details about the process itself, labor pains, birth trauma, etc. Still it's certainly not inherently a bad thing, it put us all here after all, and that I see in very positive terms overall. Yet there is also much truth to the idea of *not* overdoing it in the bearing of offspring, wouldn't you say? Especially if, as we hope, we can drop the death rate to near zero in a few more decades or a century or so. 100 billion inhabitants of our planet, even if individually marvelous, would be too, too many, at least expressed as biological humans. And if, after all, the multiverse idea is correct, every sentient entity should get its chance to exist somewhere, somehow, so at least nothing you do or don't do will absolutely forbid their existence. To me this is reassuring, though again it doesn't excuse bad actions here in this one world. In fact, a strange (though resolvable) paradox emerges from the idea of the deterministic multiverse. Overall, everything *is* predetermined. But this doesn't mean "do anything that strikes your fancy, it doesn't matter." Lee talks about maximizing runtime for oneself or some other person. Thus you shouldn't kill, and you *should*, perhaps, do what you can to bring others into the world (but I'm sure he would agree that bringing them into existence under horrible conditions of overcrowding would not be good either). I agree with the idea of doing good but I wouldn't rationalize it (in cases like this) as maximizing runtime, at least in the sense of making as many extra copies of some particular individual as possible that would then exist more or less in parallel. I don't think there is anything you can do, voluntarily, to change anyone's runtime overall, that is, from the perspective of the multiverse as a whole. But again, that's only because of determinism. In this case something like the old Calvinist argument can still apply: if you are good, you simply *will* do good, and it's better overall to be good, more rewarding in the long run.Suppose I say to someone "be good" and they take it to heart and change for the better by what seems to be their own free will, where (apparently) they could have done differently. You could say that they had it in them all along to do this and it wasn't really "free will" in any deep sense. But feeling that one has made a choice is part of the process too. So we continue to look at reality as if we do have free will and if what we decide does make a difference. This kind of psychological bias is built into us and I think it is a good thing too, along with other great features of being alive. We should act according to our sense of what is right and enjoy the feeling we get of having made the correct choice. It is interesting that in my book I advocate the idea of eventually bringing into existence every possible sentient entity whatever, at least in continuer form. I genuinely think that this process, handled correctly, will maximize the overall good, and the individual good as well. But as I see it it will unfold over long stretches of time, intervals perhaps beyond our imagination today. I also think that our present method of making people will soon pass into history, along with other features of being human such as the aging process. We don't want to be human but more than that. That is another reason I have for not particularly wanting to bring more humans into existence, here or near-term. Others may continue to do this and it may be a very good thing, if done responsibly. But people, especially at this stage in history, should not feel guilty if their focus is not on making more people but doing what will benefit those that others have made. Mike Perry Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15202