From: John K Clark (johnkc@well.com)
Date: Sun Dec 29 1996 - 13:45:10 MST
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DanHook80@aol.com On Mon, 23 Dec 1996 Wrote:
>Chris Hind <chind@juno.com>
>I dunno about immortal souls but don't we have immortality
>already? If the universe continually bangs, crunches, bangs,
>crunches, to infinity, then our atoms and electrons have a
>finite chance of being at the exact same location at the
>exact same time somewhere in the future. Am I correct?
>This has been on my top two list of ways to achieve
>immortality for a few years now.
The atoms and electrons that make up the body are not "ours", we just rent
then, they're constantly changing, and anyway I don't see how doing the same
thing over and over would be immortality, it would certainly not make me fear
death any less. It would be like saying if I rerun a 2 hour movie 10 times
then the movie lasts 20 hours. If you're going to be immortal you're going to
need to be able to think an infinite number of thoughts, that way regardless
of how the universe ends up, for you at least time will never end.
>The other way is through use of the many-worlds theory. If
>there are near infinite universes than there must be one
>where you continue on unaware that death has occurred in
>another world
That might work, except for one thing.
>near infinite worlds if you wish to be technical but I like
>to simplify.
If, as many think, not only does matter, energy, momentum and electric charge
come in quantum packages, but space and time does too, then there can not be
an infinite number of worlds, a typical irreversible macroscopic event would
only produce about 10^(10^20) branches. There is not enough paper on planet
earth to write such a number in decimal notation, but it's nowhere near to
being infinite. That's the trouble with infinity, there are only 2 choices,
either you're there or you're not even close.
John K Clark johnkc@well.com
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