3 ms·
I'm not sure if you read the paper. Aaronson writes: "given a formula ϕ, guess a random assignment x, then kill yourself if x does not satisfy ϕ." In other word
by andyjohnson0 11y ago
I'm not sure if you read the paper. Aaronson writes: "given a formula ϕ, guess a
random assignment x, then kill yourself if x does not satisfy ϕ." In other words, the only universes in which you find yourself existing (alive) are ones in which you are in possession of a solution to ϕ, which you obtained easily by guessing.
Its a not-entirely-serious riff on the Anthropic Principle [1] and maybe the "Quantum Suicide" thought experiment. It's clear to me that the meaning in the article is not that killing yourself solves life problems.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_immortality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_immortalit...
- kordless 11y agoI started watching Robert Harper's Type Theory presentations on Youtube. In the first section he mentions that suffering is part of calculation, or something similar. If you kill yourself, you are basically exiting the suffering you bear here. The question then comes whether suffering is present is all places you go. If it is, it just makes more sense to bear the suffering here and learn from it. Maybe you can learn to reduce it slightly, which will help out in your next lifetime (assumption).
- Lawtonfogle 11y agoThe problem (well, one of them) is that there is no guaranteed way of killing yourself. For any sufficiently complex problem you will end up being more likely to near fatally maim yourself in the attempt to kill yourself for an incorrect guess than you will be to make a correct guess.