Quantum Replay: When and How Should we Change Our Past?

In his great novel,The Return of Merlin https://archive.org/details/returnofmerlin0000chop Deepak Chopra depicts a situation where the whole world seems to dissolve around his character, then giving way to a totally different situation. As of today, the most well-grounded theories of basic physics tell us that is actually possible. (See https://drpauljohn.blogspot.com/2019/04/are-there-really-multiple-copies-of-you.html, with some of the further details in https://drpauljohn.blogspot.com/2022/10/multiverse-versus-multithread-new-view.html and https://drpauljohn.blogspot.com/2024/02/concrete-proven-but-little-known.html) Many of us believe that this is actually possible, if we learn how to use our "PSI" inner powers, but now we have actual technologies under development which offer a path to do the same, step by step. BUT SHOULD WE, AND HOW? The present world situation raises that question much more seriously than it did when I ran the interagency program in R&D to address the risks of nuclear proliferation and terrorism. At that time, I already knew about "retrocausal" physics, and had had discussions with my teacher Julian Schwinger and with Ed Teller about advanced physics. When NATO and the Millennium Project asked for my viewpoint, I wrote the chapter werbos.com/NATO_terrorism.pdf. (Yair -- please forgive, I still need to write in your name as well in the chapter citation.) Included in that chapter, and in some of our discussions, was the question: "What if you saw a nuclear explosion already going up in front of you, and you had a 'backwards time telegraph' letting you warn the past... by causing precautions which cause the present version of you to just evaporate away, like that character in Merlin's novel? Should you? Would you?" Based on my understanding of ethics (as in papers linked to at werbos.com/religions.htm), I said "YES I WOULD". (By the way, Yanhua Shih, a pioneer in quantum information technology, coined the term "backwards time telegraph" in the title of a proposal funded by NSF.) But NOW, in the present world situation, it is a lot less hypothetical. We may have both opportunity and motive. Regarding motive ... all four of the existential threats on my list (attached) really do seem beyond human ability to make enough progress to offer real hope. I have tracked all of them very closely, and seen lots and lots of good intentions, but strong limits in the follow-through in all cases. Progress IS being made, and there IS some hope... but we do not even have the right venues to discuss them as deeply as we need to in any one of them, let alone all four. ONE of the streams of inputs which push me to think more about this was a movie I saw last night. Long ago, I read "The Three Body Problem" trilogy by Cixin Liu, the "Isaac Asimov of China." When my wife recommended that book to me, she showed me the high recommendations both from Obama and from Zuckenberg. Ironically, I had actually used the three body prediction problem as an exercise for my youngest son in elementary school!! (An amazing history in itself.) When we discussed new AGI in China, more advanced than what DOD had allowed in the US, https://photos.app.goo.gl/Ph3NSbTHfJMJ57Fj7, every top scientist had discussed that book, important to science policy. A few days ago, my wife noticed the movie version of that book on the web, in Chinese, with subtitles. Even in the first three episodes... scientists were committing suicide because "the laws of phyiscs do not make sense." But everything which bothered them DOES make sense, fitting the three links I started this post with (and further details in my published material on thermal quantum annealing) ! If only they knew! But now... what do WE do? If we start to have the power to really change OUR historical past... (I do not ask you to believe THAT much yet... but truth demands I tell you that we do)... what SHOULD we do, if we are sane and careful? First, as a warmup... Some of you know that I was one of the first (See Neural Networks for Control by Miller, Sutton and Werbos) to begin exploring how could use tangible games playable by a computer, to develop more advanced AI and AGI. But what if the computer were allowed to do what I do, when I play free-cell solitaire on a little tablet? To REPLAY back N moves. Could an AGI LEARN how to USE that extra degree of freedom? I have started to learn how to use it, but it is seriously tricky WHEN and HOW to use that replay degree of freedom. More seriously... a lot of the REASONS WHY humanity is screwing up its hopes is a simple LACK OF UNDERSTANDING. If so... the uttermost imperative for us, "the shadows in the cave," the simulated personalities who will be erased one way or another... is to PASS ON THE UNDERSTANDINGS WHICH give the next one(s) of us a better chance. To DEVELOP those understandings (in the best rich detail possible), and pass them on to the next folks, to be as useful as possible. This applies not just to us as individuals but to our entire noosphere, which is itself endangered. But of course, an equal imperative is to try to prevent the need for that. Realistically, If we can. Best of luck, Paul