Why are we so early?

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bEGZ3LK4NGPxu2NBQ/why-are-we-so-early
20220404 1733

(This paradox should be of profound importance to all members of the Sea Org. Finding themselves this close to the start of their billion year contracts should raise troubling questions.)
Countless people have wondered about the most obvious cosmological puzzle. Such a simple question to have no answer:
If the universe will exist forever, why do we exist almost as close to the beginning of time as possible?

Very sophisticated attempts have been made to answer it, including what is known as "Doom Soon" (we exist this early because we don't have a future).
However, our existence is biased by the physical universe in which we are embedded. There are many reasons to think human minds are NOT a random selection from the list of all possible minds (for example, almost all possible minds would be both absurd and infinite).
Our type of universe may have the power to generate and vastly amplify our mind type, to the extent that we outnumber all other mind types everywhere else.
The only thing that makes us special is how common we are. Commonness implies simplicity which implies a brief past.

The existence of an undeniable "Earlyness Bias" in our existence also suggests we are not ancestor simulations. 
Well we are, as our minds are a blend of all possible instances everywhere - but only an infinitesimal fraction of these instances are ancestor simulations.
This is indicated by the fact we have only a brief past. If there will be an infinite future, there will be infinitely more advanced ancestors to simulate than us.
There would be fewer reasons to simulate early ancestors. Simulating us would be like solving 1 + 1.
(This also implies that if you actually are an ancestor simulation, you are most likely being simulated in the earliest future when that technology can exist.)

The explanation for why we live in such a young universe may be that our type of universe is extremely easy to generate. Much easier than you would suspect from studying quantum chromodynamics or string theory.

Reality may be entirely mathematical, the only real thing being logical functions. While our physical universe is vast, it may be a result of an abundantly simple equation.
New universe equations are constantly sprouting off from logical functions within our own universe and everywhere else. If every older universe is constantly spinning off new ones, most observers would find themselves in young universes.
And Sea Orgers would tend to find themselves at the start of their billion year contracts - though that is not the ONLY reason of course.

A mathematical equation that could generate something like a universe is still far beyond us. Conway's Game of Life or Mandelbrot fractals don't even come close. 
For all we know, it might emerge from itself in an evolutionary process, and even give rise to mindlike structures to sustain itself.
The process may actually be too simple to understand, based on the most essential logic. There is some similarity here with L. Ron Hubbard's "axioms" and other religious visions that may be too simple to be wrong.

What I'm about

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gZzLaKGuaMqYwmHeJ/what-i-m-about
20220106 0423

Warning: the following post is most definitely unacceptable to the Sea Org, and all members under its control. They claim the problem of death has already been solved. You should just focus on obeying their orders and nothing else.
I claim the problem of death has barely been confronted.

Death is horrible, or at least the things that happen as it approaches. I've worked in nursing homes and can't understand what normal people will tolerate. Every day is filled with undiscussed horrors. It's unacceptable, too dreadful to face.
Clearly, the mainstream has unimaginably different opinions than me. But still, there should be SOME effort to do something about death, like a scientific religion or social movement.
I'm certainly not afraid of death because my life is so good, but more afraid of losing something I've never had. I have a highly specific vision of a virtual reality heaven. Basically, I would be left alone for all eternity on my personal island designed in such a way nothing could go wrong. After countless eons I would begin to relive days I lived before.

The first step to achieve such a thing would be a device to accurately scan the contents of a human brain. That data would then be used to recreate the brain's software "continuation".
However, this process would require science fiction-like devices even more complicated than human brains. No one has managed to scan the connections between even a few neurons. I suspect Kurzweil was too optimistic about the rate of technological progress, and we will all die before that technology is invented.
Those of us who fear death enough will have to invent a way to preserve our mind contents using today's highly inadequate technology. The best hope is obviously cryonics. Let's freeze our brains until they can be scanned in the future, ideally before they are decayed by old age or other horrible conditions.
Unfortunately, I have no money to afford cryonics. There's just no way, unless the government makes it available for free like emergency healthcare. There is no political will for that - but why doesn't every millionaire have their head frozen after death?

There may be one other alternative.
It started for me in the early 1980s with a vague interest on how to record fleeting memory states in an effort to hold on to the past. This eventually led to research on Rudy Rucker's Lifebox idea (https://www.rudyrucker.com/pdf/rucker_marvell_lifebox_immortality.pdf). Basically, his method involves recording everything you do and learn in as much detail as possible.
I have scanned about 40,000 documents sorted by approximate date, plus under a million digital files. I did it all myself, but could have used a service like 1dollarscan.com or something. There are also megabytes worth of notes and diary entries.
Many different estimates exist on the amount of information in a brain, but none of them think its function could be adequately recreated from a stack of floppy disks. It might as well be scribbles on a cocktail napkin.
However, could only a small percentage of a brain's information be required? Most of our memories are rarely or never recalled. There's a tiny chance the mystery of personal identity is much simpler than expected. Evolution may have economized on it.

Then the next step would be to invent various mind and personality tests to capture as much of this uniqueness as possible. That's the only hope I have for escaping death, some incredibly clever way to capture a tiny portion of a brain's pattern that would be good enough to recreate its essence. I have many vague ideas.
The above may all seem futile, crazy even, but it's literally my only chance. If this doesn't work I'm totally doomed with no hope at all. And so are most of us.

Including, of course, all the Sea Orgers.


COMMENTS:
I saw your post mentioning cryonics. Are you likely to die especially soon? Do you not have the means to get sufficient life insurance to fund a cryonics agreement? I've helped out a person in some dire straits get cryonics in the past so would be interested in hearing more about your situation.
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No, I'm just poor alas.
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....That's the only hope I have for escaping death....
Well... there is, of course, any variation of quantum immortality
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....I have a highly specific vision of a virtual reality heaven. Basically, I would be left alone for all eternity on my personal island....
Funnily enough, you've just described, for me, a virtual reality hell
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Somehow, I am undecided.
I guess the experience of "nothing could go wrong" is so foreign to me that I have no idea how it would make me feel with regards to needing or not needing other people.
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....But still, there should be SOME effort to do something about death, like a scientific religion or social movement....
There's the antiaging movement. There's also cryonics.
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Yes, but it would be nice to have a backup research effort to try to find a way to record the contents of a human brain "from the outside" without having to scan all the neurons, by inventing a series of brilliantly clever mind and memory tests. Like an extension of DARPA's LifeLog project that was cancelled for useless "privacy" reasons in 2004. This would of course be an extreme longshot.
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Without other people, any existence would be

    mind-numbingly dull

    excruciatingly pointless

    full of grief and loss; where are my loved-ones? My children?!

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Not if it's an incomplete or low-fidelity mind reconstruction, and that may be the only type possible with this method.