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I think their mere existence is profoundly alienating. For example anytime you make a choice to be kind, there's another universe where you make the choice to b

I think their mere existence is profoundly alienating. For example anytime you make a choice to be kind, there's another universe where you make the choice to be cruel in the same circumstance. Likewise the opposite. The result is that nothing you do really matters in the multiverse, everything happens anyway regardless of your choices. You're just choosing to experience one of countless paths. Arguably it could even be said to be selfish, you're consigning another version of yourself to the cruel path. I think it's not dissimilar to absolute determinism. Many people, even irrelegious, have a deep aversion to the idea that their choices may be deterministic. You might say why does it matter if they cannot be predicted, and of course the path is one that your brain decides to take, not something that is being forced on it. Still lots of people like to imagine some sort of weird quantum consciousness woo that lets brains make free thoughtful choices independent of physical laws.

thaw13579 4y ago
One caveat here is that even if every outcome is taken in some branch of the world, they don’t have equal likelihood. So while there might exist a world where a person makes that cruel decision, it may only be a small fraction. I imagine we could ask, how do we feel about our expected behavior averaged across all worlds?
causality0 4y ago
The result is that nothing you do really matters in the multiverse, everything happens anyway regardless of your choices. That's ridiculous. It's like saying there's no point in playing a videogame because other people are playing the same game differently. If it doesn't affect you why do you allow it to make you care or not care? Personally I think it comes from this sort of arrogant thinking where people are aware they are an insignificant cosmic bug but also are somehow above caring about things at the level of a cosmic bug. It's an ass-backward way of thinking, this "I don't matter so I don't care". A better way of thinking is "I don't matter, so I can care about things that also don't matter, because they're no more insignificant than I am." If a dog turned to us and said "I can never write a symphony, therefore gnawing on bones is pointless" we would call him a foolish dog for refusing to engage with reality at his own level, for thinking that things so far beyond him should make any difference to him and how he lives his life. To quote James Watson, "I don't think we're here for anything, we're just products of evolution. You can say 'Gee, your life must be pretty bleak if you don't think there's a purpose' but I'm anticipating a good lunch."

thaw13579 4y ago

One caveat here is that even if every outcome is taken in some branch of the world, they don’t have equal likelihood. So while there might exist a world where a person makes that cruel decision, it may only be a small fraction. I imagine we could ask, how do we feel about our expected behavior averaged across all worlds?

causality0 4y ago

The result is that nothing you do really matters in the multiverse, everything happens anyway regardless of your choices. That's ridiculous. It's like saying there's no point in playing a videogame because other people are playing the same game differently. If it doesn't affect you why do you allow it to make you care or not care? Personally I think it comes from this sort of arrogant thinking where people are aware they are an insignificant cosmic bug but also are somehow above caring about things at the level of a cosmic bug. It's an ass-backward way of thinking, this "I don't matter so I don't care". A better way of thinking is "I don't matter, so I can care about things that also don't matter, because they're no more insignificant than I am." If a dog turned to us and said "I can never write a symphony, therefore gnawing on bones is pointless" we would call him a foolish dog for refusing to engage with reality at his own level, for thinking that things so far beyond him should make any difference to him and how he lives his life. To quote James Watson, "I don't think we're here for anything, we're just products of evolution. You can say 'Gee, your life must be pretty bleak if you don't think there's a purpose' but I'm anticipating a good lunch."