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Old 01-03-2019, 09:54 PM
cosmicfish cosmicfish is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tsofian View Post
Human actions are not random. Your analogy falls apart. If human actions are random and will
The analogy is not dependent on random events, they are dependent on the existence of a nonuniform distribution of results. The idea of a random element was used to illustrate a range of results including the opposites to the "good" results.

Quote:
Originally Posted by tsofian View Post
Your original point was that if there are infinite universes than no one would care what happens in their own and what a person does in their own universe doesn't matter. Maybe it does maybe it doesn't. The bottom line is that unless you are a being capable of seeing the big picture who cares? You do your best as a person and move as you choose.
Not that people would not care about what happened in their own, but yes, that one's actions in their own universe do not matter. Because it doesn't. There are infinite more worlds with every possible permutation of results. That child you may or may not saved will be saved in an infinite number of worlds and die horribly in an infinite number of worlds. Your contribution has no uniqueness, there is nothing you are creating or preserving that does not exist simultaneously elsewhere.

As to who cares? Well, in a world with a real Project, where time travel is an inherent part of how you get a bunch of dedicate scientists and soldiers to sacrifice everything... well, I think a lot of people would care. And would be able to see the big picture, since the nature of time travel and the number of universes is key to the whole question of whether or not things can be saved and how. This is some of the most fundamentally important information in the universe of the game, so unless your scientists are the unquestioning kind with no concept of philosophy, it's going to be an issue.

Quote:
Originally Posted by tsofian View Post
This thought experiment was not developed to have anything to do with multiple universes and it doesn't. I don't mind thought experiments if they are used within their limits. Your example has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

"A thought experiment is a device with which one performs an intentional, structured process of intellectual deliberation in order to speculate, within a specifiable problem domain, about potential consequents (or antecedents) for a designated antecedent (or consequent)" (Yeates, 2004, p. 150).

I do not agree that your particular thought experiment has anything to do with the "problem domain".
Considering that I posed said thought experiment with this specifically in mind, I hope you understand if I disagree.

For every universe where you try your best and succeed, there is another where you try your best and still fail, and another where you watch apathetically from the sidelines, and yet another where you are the villain rather than the hero. Besides which, the sheer number of "you"s in infinite universes means your contribution is mathematically infinitely close to zero. Just like evil villain you.

Quote:
Originally Posted by tsofian View Post
Sign, you know that is not my point. You want to make fun of me and that is fine. Don't use a ploy like reductio ad absurdum if you don't want to be called out on it.
I have not been making fun of you anywhere here. And reductio ad absurdum is implicit in the situation of infinite universes - the argument is already starting at a literal extreme, pointing out the results of your starting point is not in any way logically invalid. For that matter, reductio ad absurdum isn't logically invalid in general, although specific applications may be.
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