So assuming the Copenhagen interpretation is wrong and something like MWI or zero-world or something else is right, it’s likely the case that there are multiple, disconnected casual histories. This is true to a lesser extent even in classical physics due to the expansion of the universe and the gradual shrinking of Hubble volumes (light cones), so even a die-hard Cophenhagenist should consider what we might call generally acausal ethics.
My response is generally something like this, keeping in mind my ethical perspective is probably best described as virtue ethics with something like negative preference utilitarianism applied on top:
Causal histories I am not causally linked with still matter for a few reasons:
My compassion can extend beyond causality in the same way it can extend beyond my city, country, ethnicity, species, and planet (moral circle expansion).
I am unsure what I will be causally linked with in the future (veil of ignorance).
Agents in other causal histories can extend compassion for me in kind if I do it for them (acausal trade).
Given that other causal histories matter, I can:
act to make other causal histories better in those cases where I am currently causally connected but later won’t be (e.g. MWI worlds that will split causally later from the one I will find myself in that share a common history prior to the split),
engage in acausal trade to create in the causal history I find myself in more of what is wanted in other causal histories when the tradeoffs are nil or small knowing that my causal history will receive the same in exchange,
otherwise generally act to increase the measure (or if the universe is finite, count) of causal histories that are “good” (“good” could mean something like “want to live in” or “enjoy” or something else that is a bit beyond the scope of this analysis).
I personally think many worlds is an unhelpful philosophy. I strongly conjecture that atoms evolve in a way where they all mutually connect to their independent degrees of freedom.
This happens in such a way that requires some creative thinking about how to sample and interpret the data, akin to how signal processing uses Nyquist frequency. It’s just a little hard to do that, so some ideas have emerged like many worlds to justify why it’s complex.
So assuming the Copenhagen interpretation is wrong and something like MWI or zero-world or something else is right, it’s likely the case that there are multiple, disconnected casual histories. This is true to a lesser extent even in classical physics due to the expansion of the universe and the gradual shrinking of Hubble volumes (light cones), so even a die-hard Cophenhagenist should consider what we might call generally acausal ethics.
My response is generally something like this, keeping in mind my ethical perspective is probably best described as virtue ethics with something like negative preference utilitarianism applied on top:
Causal histories I am not causally linked with still matter for a few reasons:
My compassion can extend beyond causality in the same way it can extend beyond my city, country, ethnicity, species, and planet (moral circle expansion).
I am unsure what I will be causally linked with in the future (veil of ignorance).
Agents in other causal histories can extend compassion for me in kind if I do it for them (acausal trade).
Given that other causal histories matter, I can:
act to make other causal histories better in those cases where I am currently causally connected but later won’t be (e.g. MWI worlds that will split causally later from the one I will find myself in that share a common history prior to the split),
engage in acausal trade to create in the causal history I find myself in more of what is wanted in other causal histories when the tradeoffs are nil or small knowing that my causal history will receive the same in exchange,
otherwise generally act to increase the measure (or if the universe is finite, count) of causal histories that are “good” (“good” could mean something like “want to live in” or “enjoy” or something else that is a bit beyond the scope of this analysis).
I personally think many worlds is an unhelpful philosophy. I strongly conjecture that atoms evolve in a way where they all mutually connect to their independent degrees of freedom.
This happens in such a way that requires some creative thinking about how to sample and interpret the data, akin to how signal processing uses Nyquist frequency. It’s just a little hard to do that, so some ideas have emerged like many worlds to justify why it’s complex.