| There seems to be a gap in the argument between step 2 and steps onwards from 4. The experiment assumes that, given the opportunity, the universe will give a person the knowledge of how to extend their life. But of course that knowledge could have been given at any point in their life up to then, and at any point afterwards. Why hasn't a computer glitch emailed you the contents of an immortality potion before now? The answer I would suggest is that this is not the optimum moment for life extension, and there's no reason the universe has to do anything if a better local minimum can occur. My corollary for this experiment would be: 4. There exists a message in the encoding that can extend one's life... but that message will only be given if a) Having the message actually results in the timeline that does what is needed, and b) There is not in fact a more optimum time that the universe might use later on. The problem is that absent points a and b, the experiment proves nothing. It could well be that you wouldn't have correctly responded to any message given here, but instead the universe will choose a moment when you're 65 to announce a life extension drug has just been released into the upper atmosphere. |