Re: Multiverse Morality

--- In [email protected], Ismail Atalay <i_c_atalay@...> wrote:
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> >On Thursday, 23 May 2013 hibssa wrote
> >I see this as really key to understanding the wider worldview expressed by Popperians.  The big mistake I notice from non-popperians regarding MWI are the moral implications. For them, typically, the implication is that there is no morality because everything that can happen will happen somewhere, with nothing special attached to what happens 'here'. 
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> >The reality is clearly different, and, I think....possibly this is the source of the attachment of Popperians to the counter-intuitive. 
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> >The true moral implications are actually really stunning and profound. Definitely putting morality to the centre of everything...above even physical reality itself in a way. 
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> >Only by living purposefully...being consistent...being philosophically correct....not compromising on principle, not living arbitrarily, not living altruistically...only by doing these things >can you in this one universe exert influence into the multiverse itself, and ultimately shape who you are.
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> I know it is a rather late reply but I noticed that no one answered to your candid post.
> Let me explain my position as an "anti-popperian"
> I read your post. I think I understood it. Unfortunately your effort to come up with some type of morality from MWI belief does not seem convincing to me. 
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> The whole premise of morality (at least in the classical sense) is based on moral agents making choices in the way they act (out of multiple options) and their choices making a meaningful existential and circumstantial difference in themselves and in the world they live. In MWI world, the moral agent's choice looses its significance. Actually the moral agent him/herself looses its significance and meaning.
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> In MWI, there are infinite number of moral agents and they do choose every possible option anyway in infinite number of universes. Why would the choice of one particular self in one of the infinite number of universes make a meaningful difference from the perspective of multiverse existence? We know all possible universes do exist right? And they do not have any superiority or uniqueness with respect to others according to MWI. There is nothing special in any of the universes. We can not say one universe would be "better" than the other.
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> Or should we say it? There would be universes which are "better" than others from consistency, purposefulness and correctness perspective.  Shall we try to be in the best possible universe? Why I would have such motivation if I already know that all other lower morality universes would exist in parallel whatever I choose and in the end I am not making any difference from the overall existential perspective?

Hi Ismail, I was coming to this from a different direction. Firstly, that I actually reject MWI as good philosophy, good thinking, let along good science. I have given reasons for this in this list, in fact two categories of good reason. Neither have been answered. 

The second clarification would be that I was trying to explain the morality commonly exhibited by prominent Popperians I've observed on these lists over 2 or 3 years. The morality post was an effort at some kind of free-visualization how that might look. 

I was hoping to hook someone into making some positive comments what sort of morality the multiverse implied, or what implications for morality the multiverse held. In the event, none came. Alan commented, but basically seemed to deny there was any such thing, nor any such issue of relevance (seemed to me, anyway). 

Yet Deutsch, Temple and others have frequently referenced morality in terms of MWI. To date, this has been of such form, tantalizing teases. Certainly though, they've said enough, often enough, that clearly they do see large moral ramifications. And clearly also, they regard those ramifications as strikingly counter-intuitive. 

Then, there is the morality that they have exhibited and/or moral tendency. I think it's reasonable to think that whatever morality they think they see coming out of - in some sense - the multiverse, has either confirmed the morality they already thought was correct, or the morality they regard as correct has previously been shaped at some degree by multiverse morality. 

So coming to your reasoning Ismail. I hope you can see I hadn't actually come to this via a process of reasoning as to whether such a morality is plausible in a multiverse. However, intuitively, I think your analysis is missing something important. 

I think I think this, because the possible events in a multiverse, given they all happen at each juncture, can probably in some sense be treated as random noise. If someone had the best philosophy and had also put the time and effort into making that philosophy largely second nature, and if that materialized as extraordinary uncompromising self-consistency, then a large number of possible divergent histories would exhibit correction in this direction, while the main lines that actually manifest the extraordinary consistency, if those lose also manifested the best philosophy and a lot of other traits, would see growth, in some sense non-random and luscious, in some common sense, at the same time finding everything else 'noise' by comparison. 

Maybe not. But intuitively it seems to have something maybe. But as I say, I actually reject the multiverse as bad science, bad thinking, etc, so for me the interest was more psychological. 

Thanks for your thoughts.