X-Message-Number: 11566
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: about Tipler, Bekenstein, and immortality
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 21:50:27 +1000 (EST)

Hi again:

About Bekenstein Bounds, our necessary finitude, etc etc: Bob Ettinger 
points out that the interpretation of quantum mechanics remains in
dispute, and therefore anyone who relies on a particular interpretation to
develop ideas about our characteristics as living beings is hanging their
ideas on a very thin thread.

Actually, a cool reading of physics literature suggests that the situation
is even worse than that: quantum mechanics and general relativity now
contradict one another and therefore one or both must be wrong. That we
presently do not know of a theory which will replace them does not matter
here; the characteristics of such a theory may well make such notions as
the Bekenstein bound quite forgotten, and if remembered, quaint. (Yes,
they remain the best available, but at extreme points they cannot agree).

Furthermore, the claim that we can use a Cantor-like argument to show that
no possible finite computer can produce all possible worlds does not show
the nonexistence of SOME finite computer capable of producing any
arbitrary possible world. Just take the denumerable list of possible
worlds you have produced, knock out one, and replace it with the
particular possible world in which you are interested. For that matter,
because of how denumerability works, you don't even have to knock out
any other world: just put the arbitrary world you're interested in at 
the front of the numbering, and move all the others back one step. (This
argument also works with any denumerable number of possible worlds, with
only a little more work; details provided if requested).

Not only that, but whoever said that we must remain of any fixed size? 
On into infinity? I have no idea what I will become after 10 billion more
years, but I doubt very much that my brain will have the same capacity
as it does now... given that I survive so long, in any sense of survive.

			Best wishes to all, and to all a long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson

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