Thread: Modal realism, quantum immortality, and the simulation argument

Most everything I know about these concepts I learned from Wikipedia, so I'll point you in that direction rather than try and come up with detailed explanations myself. As I understand it, here's the TL;DR version:

• Modal realism: Why is there something rather than nothing? Answer: There isn't. Nothing "actually" exists. What we call "reality" is simply the fiction that we happen to live in.
• Quantum immortality: The experience of quantum randomness is caused by the universe splitting into multiple parallel universes, one for each observed outcome. Since we cannot observe our own deaths, we will only experience those universes in which we survive, so each subjective observer "feels" immortal.
• Simulation argument: Technologically advanced people are likely to create intricate simulations that include fully-conscious beings, who may then create simulations of their own, etc... What's the chance that we exist at the "fundamental" level? Not likely.

Taken together, these ideas seem to point towards the "life is a dream that I wake up from when I die" view (a.k.a. the "Inception delusion"). Basically, if there is more than one "reality" (whether because of modal realism, or because of quantum many-worlds), then there are many different situations that are subjectively indistinguishable from what I'm experiencing right now. Of those, many (most?) will end up with me feeling like I'm dying. In some of those, I cease to exist entirely. In others, some miraculous quantum fluctuation results in me surviving. In others, everything turns out to have been a dream/simulation. The immortality argument says that I can only experience the possibilities in which I survive, and the simulation argument says that this is much more likely to happen because I'm a simulation, than to happen by miraculous quantum luck. Therefore, I should expect to awaken from a simulation when I die (or, at least, be reloaded into a different simulation).

Does this sound convincing? What do you think?

I'm somewhat apprehensive to explore the full ramifications of this idea. It might have catastrophic consequences for common-sense ethics; in particular, it could cause one to have drastically less value for one's own life and the lives of others. The self-preservation instinct in me says: Live in this world, and in this world alone. Anything else is the first step along the long road to madness.

But still, it's fun to speculate, isn't it?