View Single Post
  #14  
Old 01-02-2019, 05:58 PM
tsofian tsofian is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 342
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by cosmicfish View Post
Every coin flip and die roll is independent and individual events are unpredictable, and yet for a large number of either the aggregate is thoroughly predictable in their diversity. If there are an infinite number of universes then there are an infinite number of yous and I see no reason not to expect a correspondingly infinite number of actions you would take at any given time. And just as rolling a 1 or a 6 on a die may be thoroughly independent, for a large number of rolls I can find a 1 for just about every 6.

Human actions are not random. Your analogy falls apart. If human actions are random and will


If you care about the net change of goodness in your own universe, why would you not care about other universes if you knew about them? Especially when the people experiencing that change of goodness are more like you than anyone in your own universe ever could be? And if things balance out... then that proves my point.

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.






Yes, it is a thought experiment. Presented as a thought experiment for the reason all thought experiments are presented -



to help illustrate a concept that has a bearing on the situation. In this case, the morality of action and inaction with the existence of infinite multiple universes. If you don't like thought experiments, we cannot even have this discussion until someone proves that infinite multiple universes exist.

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".



Some versions of you may do just that. I suspect most people would take a path of personal comfort, rather than either moral excellence or total apathy, but if you think you would personally lean towards apathy... okay.
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.
Reply With Quote