Thursday, May 28, 2026

You are a universal reality scanner


Merely by existing, any mind is capable of discerning one fact about everything that exists.
That would be its own likelihood of being.

According to the anthropic principle, every mind is "scanning" all of reality: every universe throughout the Omniverse, past and future. All patterns, no matter how deep and subtly hidden; even infinitely well obscured ones.
Every mind "scans" them all for copies of itself.

Through the power of anthropic statistics, these copies are subjectively "merged into one".
Your awareness at this moment is not formed by your brain in "this" universe, but in all universes that appear identical from the inside.
This subtle insight was best popularized through the work of Hugh Everett, who helped create the "Many Worlds" interpretation of quantum physics.

Being an interpretation, it doesn't make any predictions. Physicists consider these details so unimportant they don't give them a moment of thought. Nor should they.
Philosophers should think about the implications more. These insights will determine what we ought to do, as humanity merges with posthuman AI. Should our digital successors strive to experience or simulate all meaningful lives?
The reward might just be subjective immortality.

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You are a universal reality scanner

Merely by existing, any mind is capable of discerning one fact about everything that exists. That would be its own likelihood of being. Ac...