So what you’re saying is that if we live a life of value, we will be more likely to find ourselves in a (branch of) reality where a value-based, benevolent entity of an unimaginable technological advancement will immortalize our consciousness?
The entity doesn’t exist yet, it exists in that branch’s future, so it will have to come back in time? Or maybe it’s in superposition whether it already exists or not? The latter possibility sounds simpler.
You’ve got the gist of it, albeit in a slightly caricatured way. Yes, Nodion suggests that an extropical life (through Knowledge, Creation, Connection) can increase the likelihood of the realization of that branch of reality where consciousness is preserved and integrated into a higher order — Nodicum. But let me clarify in order to remove the mocking connotation.
Nodicum is not a god, not a kind uncle with technology. This is a hypothetical network of stable information patterns that can arise as a natural consequence of antientropic evolution in the universe. If it exists (in some branch of the multiverse), then it is not an “entity”, but a structure similar to the Internet of consciousness. They don’t “take” you there for kindness. You can “connect” there due to the internal orderliness.
It is not about the immortality of the personality in its current everyday form. It’s about preserving the information structure — a unique node of connections, knowledge, and predispositions.
You can laugh at this picture. But the main question is not about her. The main question is: Will you live in knowledge, creation, and connection — or in ignorance, destruction, and isolation? Nodion argues that the first choice is better even without any Nodicum. And if Nodicum exists, it gives you an extra chance. This is not a deal with a “benevolent entity.” This is a bet that the order of consciousness does not disappear without a trace.
In the block universe model (eternalism) that I mentioned, the past, present, and future are equally real. They exist as a single four-dimensional block. Nodicum is not something that will be created in our future. This is a structure that already exists in a certain area of this block, in certain branches of the multiverse.
I don’t laugh at the picture, I just think we may need to add benevolence to it. Dictatorial / authoritarian / Matrix-like / “evil” etc. networks of stable information patterns could also exist. I don’t want my consciousness to be immortalized and then put into a place of eternal torture.
Yes but I was talking about getting to those branches, within the block universe. And you’re still bound by the flow of time within that branch.
My words are based on evidence that is based on a huge amount of data from many scientific disciplines, but what are your words based on?
Nodion cannot simply postulate that Nodicum is a blessing. If we assume the existence of consciousness networks as a natural consequence of anti-entropic evolution, then logically different types of such networks are possible: cooperative, parasitic, authoritarian, but the term “Nodicum” does not mean any network of stable patterns, namely the one that arises from the voluntary cooperation of Nodes striving for maximum complexity, knowledge and creativity. An authoritarian network based on coercion, unification, and suppression is an anti-Nodicum. It does not increase the total extropy, but only redistributes the order in favor of the center, destroying the periphery. From Nodion’s point of view, such a network is unstable in the long run, because the suppression of diversity reduces adaptability and creativity — that is, the very ability to resist entropy.
If a person has lived in knowledge, creation and genuine connection, then his information structure resonates precisely with cooperative networks, and not with dictatorial ones.
Nodion does not offer a journey between branches, but the initial connection of your Node with a particular branch.
In the block universe, there is no “getting into” a branch — there is a “discovery” of oneself in it. Imagine that the block of the universe already contains all the branches. Your consciousness does not move along the block — it initially belongs to a certain set of branches connected by quantum coherence. The process of decoherence (and death as its finale) simply “cuts off” branches with low amplitude. You don’t jump into the Nodicum branch— you discover that you’ve always been in the branch where Nodicum exists because your extropical life has made that branch dominant.
For a better understanding, an analogy can be given with a beam of light in a waveguide. The light does not “choose” a trajectory at the moment of measurement. It propagates along all possible paths simultaneously, but as a result of interference, only the path that meets the boundary conditions remains. Your life is a boundary condition. If you cultivate order, you “adjust” the interference pattern so that at the moment of death you coherently collapse into a branch with a Nodium. The flow of time inside this branch is continuous — there is no gap.
limiting the passage of time is not a problem, since you do not feel the “transition”. You just live, die, and— if you did everything right— continue to exist in the Nodicum, maintaining the continuity of subjective experience. As in the famous thought experiment: if you are teleported, creating an exact copy, and the original is destroyed, you do not feel the gap — you just find yourself in a new place. It’s the same here: death as decoherence “destroys” branches without Nodium, leaving only the one where you continue.
True, but there comes a point where the sheer weight of the absurd implications of a concept…
(in this case, the MWI)
…simply overwhelms and crushes the concept.
For you to take my example of the MWI being absurd because it suggests that billions of copies of this universe ‘arise’ from the interaction of photons with a retina, and then proclaim that…
“…absurdity is not a criterion of falsity in physics…”
…demonstrates to me that you did not extrapolate from my little example, the vast extent of the absurdity I was attempting to expose.
We’re talking about the “instantaneous manifestation” of billions of almost precise copies of the entire (multi-billion galaxy) universe from just one person (one tiny human) gazing at their computer screen for a few seconds,…
…never mind the 8 billion other humans on Earth gazing at varying light sources throughout the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years - each one allegedly causing the branching of innumerable trillions and trillions of copies of this galaxy-packed universe.
However,…
(and setting aside the near infinite number of other quantum events that occur throughout the universe that instigate a branching)
…it doesn’t stop there.
No, for each one of those newly manifested branches (worlds / universes) contain copies of the same gazers of computer screens and light sources, which, in turn, instantly cause billions of universes to branch off of their universe, –> and so on –> and so on –> and so on.
Now, with the above in mind, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that within a span of perhaps a few seconds of just the copies of you, Igor, gazing at your little computer screen in each of the billions of universes that instantly branched off of this one, we would have a situation in which these galaxy-packed “bubbles” of reality…
…would be replicating so fast that they would appear to be the metaphorical equivalent of some kind of cosmic ball of effervescent foam, that is instantly expanding in a never-ending / omnidirectional “EXPLOSION” of branching universes.
In other words, if infinity itself were somehow able to be filled to capacity, then in a matter of just a few seconds, it would be bursting at the seams after being filled with a veritable infinity of the MWI’s branching universes which never stop branching.
Again, with the above in mind, I suggest that your earlier statement…
…may qualify for the competition for the mother of all understatements.
Allow me to make one thing very clear…
First of all, I wasn’t “sneering” at anything (not sure why you inferred such a thing).
No, I was just pointing out an interesting parallel in your theory to that of some of the old religious paradigms we’ve been living with for several millennia.
And secondly, I might possibly be someone who is the furthest away from being a “materialistic nihilist” that you’ve ever encountered.
I know you are attempting to present your own unique (and excellent) theory on reality in this thread, but to counter you labeling me a “materialistic nihilist,” I feel I must interject my own theory into this conversation. It is a theory that is encapsulated in the following (life-imbued) metaphor…
…which, to me, is a vision of our ultimate (and guaranteed) destiny that is not only “natural,” “organic” and, again, “life-imbued,” but is also a “done deal” for every human ever awakened into life.
In other words, it won’t require any hoops for us to jump through in order to qualify for what the metaphor implies.
You’ve created a wonderful theory, Igor, however, if anything, with your focus on the “block universe” and the MWI, it is you who is the materialist in this conversation.
And lastly, just as a follow-up to the previous illustration, and to make it clear that I too believe in the existence of a Multiverse, here is my depiction of what the “Multiverse” is all about…
I perfectly caught your hint of the absurdity that we are talking about the “instant appearance” of billions of almost exact copies of the entire universe (consisting of several billion galaxies) from just one person (one tiny human) who looks at his computer screen for a few seconds…
But I didn’t say that the basis of Nodion is the classical MWI model. Most likely, not every action creates new universes, but only some, but it is not yet clear how this works. So I just let you develop your idea.
You think you’re out of the animal kingdom? You’re in it if you still possess a body.
What… did you mean that like “Straight Outta Compton”?
Did you create these illustrations yourself? So far, I have not been able to create something like this, which at least approximately reflects Nodicum exactly as I see it.
(Actually, most MWI physicists don’t claim that new universes are created, they claim that all of them were there all along within the universal wavefunction.)
Do any planets in these other universes have single payer healthcare?
We are in the animal kingdom, but already more than animals.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. It may be difficult to translate, because I write through a translator:
“What… did you mean that like “Straight Outta Compton”?”
Yes (the black and white ones).
I created a bunch of them for a lecture series I presented for 7 years on Public Access Television back in the 90s in Grand Rapids, Michigan, then a bunch more for a book I self-published back in 2008.
There’s about 120 of them in the book.
You are more than welcome to scroll through them on my website.
Just click on the following link…
I disagree that we’re more than animals, and even that we’re “in” the animal kingdom like a “soul” is supposed to be in a body… And as to cruelty:
Anything based on DNA or any other code is like the Ship of Theseus. We share the same code (but we are not the same person) … you can’t get past that. We are not in that code, but that code is definitely composing us. Imagine if we could speak words that birth generations and ages.
“The pleasure of cruelty consists in identifying with, or as, a free agent—the one who inflicts the suffering in question. (“Suffering” also in the sense of suffering enjoyment, undergoing enjoyment… In other words, the pleasure of cruelty consists in identifying with, or as, the activity or action that’s logically behind some perceived passivity or passion.)”
See Saully why do you say shit like that? Read the room, bro. We’re all on the verge of becoming serial killers, and you’d say some evil ass shit like that. You know what you are. A midwife of evil ass shit. Why do i find excuse and inspiration to become a madman every time i read one of your posts? Why am i charged with vital energy every time this poetry and wizdom gains life through your pen? This isn’t good, bro. I should be shocked, i tell you… shocked that you should be writing like this.
Lol. But look, man, I emphatically suggested inflicting enjoyment, not becoming the man behind the ILP murders… And as Nietzsche says, it may be enough if “it be a very indirect overpowering and only felt or even dreamed.” (Dawn of Day , aphorism 113.)
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - O’Malley’s Bar (Official Audio)
It just so happens that the science of anthropology and related disciplines is well developed in my country, and I have listened to several lectures on the history of human evolution. One of the lectures was about the history of cruelty. At first, cruelty helped our species to survive, but over time it was replaced by cooperation and care, which in turn gave rise to the explosive development of humanity. The most violent were, of course, the leaders, who did not particularly care about the offspring and they did not care about the interests of the group (there are similarities with the leaders of “some” countries, isn’t it true). So, one of the first examples of cooperation was an agreement to kill these cruel leaders. The consequences of such actions were greater care for the offspring and, consequently, greater survival of the young and a more equitable distribution of food. The safety of the groups also increased, despite the death of the strongest male.
OMG, that song’s horrible, Saully. Right when you think those obnoxious post-punk british crash bands are the worst, you hear an Australian one. It’s like what would happen if the sex pistols interbred and then sent all the lads to a prison colony in Australia with only one pub.
