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The Doomsday Argument, Consciousness and Many Worlds

John F. G. Eastmond
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Abstract

The doomsday argument is a probabilistic argument that claims to predict the total lifetime of the human race. By examining the case of an individual lifetime, I conclude that the argument is fundamentally related to consciousness. I derive a reformulation stating that an infinite conscious lifetime is not possible even in principle. By considering a hypothetical conscious computer, running a non-terminating program, I deduce that consciousness cannot be generated by a single set of deterministic laws. Instead, I hypothesize that consciousness is generated by a superposition of brain states that is simultaneously associated with many quasi-classical histories, each following a different set of deterministic laws. I generalize the doomsday argument and discover that it makes no prediction in this case. Thus I conclude that the very fact of our consciousness provides us with evidence for a many-worlds interpretation of reality in which our future is not predictable using anthropic reasoning.

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John F. G. Eastmond. 2002-10-05. The Doomsday Argument, Consciousness and Many Worlds. https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0208038

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