Statistical Immortality
Presume that there is no God.
Presume that there are either(see update2);
- an infinite number of universes,
- an infinite number of dimensions,
- or an infinite number of non-identical universe “cycles”.
Presume that the human mind can be uploaded to a computer either through;
- an atom-by-atom simulation,
- or a mathematical deconstruction of the graph of nodes/neurons that make up the human mind.
Presume that there are sufficient bits and ops in the universe to simulate a human mind.*
From the point of view of a simulated consciousness, pausing the hosting computer for a time then resuming it will go completely unnoticed besides the change of state of what is external to the consciousness. For example, if a clock was placed in front of a webcam of a computer that held a simulated human consciousness and the computer was paused for one hour and then resumed the human consciousness would report only that the hour had incremented on the clock nearly instantly, not that he saw black for an hour. This concept will be called non-conscious-time-irrelevance.
From the point of view of a simulated consciousness, pausing the hosting computer then perfectly copying its state to a new hosting computer, destroying the original hosting computer and resuming the process on the new hosting computer will go complete unnoticed to the simulated entity. This concept will be called simulator-irrelevance.
A Turing Machine in a finite universe can only contain a finite set of logical expressions. Since a human mind can be simulated by a computer it follows that there is a finite set of logical expressions that comprise a human mind-state.
Since there are an infinite number of universes, an infinite number of dimensions, or an infinite number of non-identical universe “cycles”, there are an infinite number of particles and particle arrangements.
Since there is no God, an infinite number of particle arrangements will not be artificially hindered from creating every possible organization and combination of these particles.
Since the simulated human mind-state is finite and every necessary particle combination that can happen will happen, the mind will continue to exist at some point in the past or future, and since non-conscious-time-irrelevance and simulator-irrelevance, it follows that from the point of view of the consciousness death is unattainable, even from a non-computer-simulated human consciousness.
* The argument that since human consciousness exists in this universe, it follows that there are enough bits for an appropriately constructed Turing Machine can be made.
Updates:
An early reader has responded that:
I think I see what you’re saying, but I think for me there’s still an unresolved conflict between what your proof would imply and what we experience. Basically, if what you say is true, switching Turing Machines wouldn’t happen just at death, but at all moments along your consciousness. Also, I don’t see a particular reason why you’d switch into a reality that’s exactly the same as the one you switched from, just from probability you should switch into a reality that’s different. Shouldn’t you notice a lot more external changes during switches?
Which is an excellent point, but in no way refutes the proof, which does not require that current observers need to have the expected path. I responded weakly with the following:
I guess it would come down to a very hard statistical problem. What is more likely, a reality based body or random bits in some extra-planar computer happening to come into alignment that would form “you?. On the one hand, when you die even if you have to wait 10^51 years eventually you will come into existence again, even if only for a second.
But explaining our experience is not necessary because our experience does not refute the proof.
I personally reject the proof because I don’t believe all the premises, but if the premises are revealed to be true, then I would accept that death is unattainable. Which is interesting because the lack of a omniscient, omnipresence God is a fundamental requirement of the proof, unless that God truthfully promised mental immortality or continually random universes.
If the premises are true I would suspect the reason one doesn’t seem to pop in and out of multiple realities would probably have to do with the computer simulation argument. Which would drastically increase the ratio of bits and ops that are organized towards intelligence in the universe as well as providing a higher ratio of predictable continued realities.
Update2: based on feedback I realized I needed to clarify what is meant by “infinite universes”. What I mean is universes or dimensions that are much like ours (same physical constants particle sizes, etc), but where the initial conditions were slightly different resulting in different distribution of stars, planets, etc.
Update3: It turns out I’m not the first to have this sort of theory. People have brought up lazy immortality as someone that makes the same argument from a different angle. Also, Permutation City was brought up as a book that encapsulated some of the ideas I presented.
Lots of great feedback from readers on this one. Feel free to reach out to me on twitter or gmail if you have anything else that you think would be interesting to add.
