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 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=11566