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

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