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Joseph Greenwood's avatar

I'm not a fan of Many-Worlds, but this article seems to overlook the fact that the many worlds get "thinner" as they continue to split off. The total weight of all worlds sums to 1, and that continues to be the case across time.

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Scott Alexander's avatar

Many people have already brought up the measure / "reality fluid" objection, but there's an interesting moral reason to want something like this to be true as well.

Suppose you have one doggy treat, and want to give it to your dog either now or later.

If you give it now, only one dog will enjoy the treat. If instead you resolve to give it in one second, after the world has split a million times, then one million copies of you will give the treat to the dog, and one million dogs will get to enjoy it.

Therefore, it is morally imperative to give the dog to the treat later. And this applies forever, or at least until there's a ~100% chance the dog will die in the next second (or whatever).

I think if you don't want to be bowled over by crazy moral conundra like this, you need to accept the reality fluid interpretation.

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