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Does 'many-worlds'... imply immortality?


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#1 Bruce Klein

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Posted 09 July 2003 - 12:25 PM


The following has been reposted with the gracious concent of the authors mother (Jenny Higgo) as James was killed in his light aeroplane July 22, 2001 http://www.higgo.com/remembrance


Does the 'many-worlds' interpretation of quantum mechanics imply immortality?

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by James Higgo

Original html version 10th November, 1998

Abstract
The Everett 'Many Worlds Interpretation' of quantum physics postulates that that all systems evolve according to the Schrödinger equation, whereas the more conventional Copenhagen Interpretation says that this is true until the moment of observation, at which point the equation 'collapses'. The proposed paper examines some philosophical questions arising from the MWI interpretation. From the Tegmark (1997) 'quantum suicide' experiment and the Stapp (1998) analysis of the quantum effects on calcium ions in neural synapses, MWI may imply a 'Quantum Theory of Immortality' (QTI).

The 'Many-Worlds' Interpretation of Quantum Physics
First, a disclaimer for those new to the subject: Niels Bohr, the founder of modern quantum theory said, "Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it". And he didn't know about the Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI). The quantum mechanics (QM) presented here is quite mainstream, even though it still seems crazy to physicists, who have no choice but to accept it. The major assumption I have made is to adopt Everett's (1957) MWI, which is just one of half a dozen competing interpretations of QM. According to various polls, MWI and the original 1927 'Copenhagen Interpretation' now have a similar share of the votes among physicists, but many of the 'big names' (Hawking, Feynman, Deutsch, Weinberg) are said to (Price, 1995) have subscribed to the MWI.

The weirdness of quantum physics can be seen in the famous parallel-slit experiment. This shows that individual photons seem to split into two particles which can nevertheless interfere with each other as if they were waves. The 'Copenhagen Interpretation' of the phenomena and the equations which describe them, agreed at the 1927 Solvay conference, essentially says that the 'wave packet' somehow associated with a particle 'collapses' when it is observed - this necessitates a relationship between the observer's consciousness and the particle. The MWI, on the other hand, holds that the equations used to predict quantum mechanical events continue to hold after observation - it is just that all things happen simultaneously, but due to 'decoherence' we do not actually see, for example, a radioactive source both decay and not decay. For an explanation of how this implies parallel universes, see Vaidman (1996).

There is one way of proving that the MWI is true and the Copenhagen and other interpretations are wrong. Unfortunately, the experimenter can only prove it to himself, and never persuade anyone else of its validity.

The Tegmark 'Quantum Suicide' experiment

Tegmark (1997) describes the 'Quantum Suicide Experiment' as follows (I have simplified the text and removed the mathematical proofs):

The apparatus is a "quantum gun" which each time its trigger is pulled measures the z-spin of a particle [particles can be spin up or spin down, seemingly at random]. It is connected to a machine gun that fires a single bullet if the result is "down" and merely makes an audible click if the result is "up".... The experimenter first places a sand bag in front of the gun and tells her assistant to pull the trigger ten times. All [QM interpretations] predict that she will hear a seemingly random sequence of shots and duds such as "bang-click-bang-bang-bang-click-click-bang-click-click". She now instructs her assistant to pull the trigger ten more times and places her head in front of the barrel. This time the "shut-up-and calculate" [non-MWI interpretations of QM] have no meaning for an observer in the dead state... and the [interpretations] will differ in their predictions. In interpretations where there is an explicit non-unitary collapse, she will be either dead or alive after the first trigger event, so she should expect to perceive perhaps a click or two (if she is moderately lucky), then "game over", nothing at all. In the MWI, on the other hand, the ... prediction is that [the experimenter] will hear "click" with 100% certainty. When her assistant has completed this unenviable assignment, she will have heard ten clicks, and concluded that the collapse interpretations of quantum mechanics [all but the MWI] are ruled out to a confidence level of 1-0.5n ˜ 99.9%. If she wants to rule them out "ten sigma", she need merely increase n by continuing the experiment a while longer. Occasionally, to verify that the apparatus is working, she can move her head away from the gun and suddenly hear it going off intermittently. Note, however, that [almost all instances] will have her assistant perceiving that he has killed his boss.

What this means is that, in most universes, there is one less experimenter, but the experimenter herself does not experience death.

The QTI is formed by reformulating the 'Quantum Suicide' experiment so that the movement of a calcium ion in a brain is used as a proxy for the spin-watching 'quantum gun', following the work of Stapp.


Stapp's work on 'Quantum Theories of the Mind'
Stapp does not accept the MWI, but prefers the Copenhagen Interpretation for reasons - essentially matter of philosophical preference - given in Stapp (April, 1996) and (July 21, 1998). This does not affect the useful analysis he puts forward concerning the quantum effects inside synapses.

Stapp shows that quantum effects are indeed important in the way the brain operates. In fact, they must have a dramatic effect on the function if the brain - perhaps allowing it to function as a 'quantum computer' and take advantage of search algorithms, perhaps similar to that proposed by Grover (1997)

Stapp's (April, 1996) evidence that quantum effects must be present in the brain is as follows:

a) A calcium ion entering a bouton through a microchannel of diameter x must, by Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle, have a momentum spread of hbar/x, and hence a velocity spread of (hbar/x)/m, and hence a spatial spread in time t, if the particle were freely moving, of t(hbar/x)/m. Taking t to be 200 microseconds, the typical time for the ion to diffuse from the microchannel opening to a triggering site for the release of a vesicle of neurotransmitter, and taking x to be one nanometer, and including a factor of 10-5 for diffusion slowing, one finds the diameter of the wave function to be about 40 times 10-8 centimeters, which is comparable to the size of the calcium ion itself.

In other words, it is quite feasible that in some universes a neurotransmitter will activate its target, whereas in others it will not, simply due to the 'Heisenberg uncertainty principle'.

This is important when trying to understand how the brain can act as a 'quantum computer', and very interesting when we take these ideas in conjunction with Tegmark's experiment.

Tegmark and Stapp
Consider a calcium ion which has a 50% probability, according to Schrödinger's equations, of activating its target receptor. Imagine that that receptor will make the difference between two possible states of mind: one corresponding with a motorcyclist's decision to overtake a car on a dangerous road, and the other corresponding with the opposite decision. Assume that the overtaking manoeuvre would be fatal.

The motorcyclist is the experimenter in Tegmark's quantum suicide. According to the MWI prediction, the cyclist will perceive that he has made the decision corresponding to the staying-alive outcome with 100% certainty. Of course, onlookers in 50% of universes will see a messy accident.

The Quantum Theory of Immortality developed here avers that all life-or-death decisions correspond with the same quantum mechanical equations. In all life-or-death decisions, the 'experimenter' finds that he has chosen life.


Further implications
Deutsch (1997) argues that it follows from MWI that anything possible exists - somewhere in the 'multiverse'. If this is true, we can say that there are many universes (but a very tiny proportion of the multiverse) where you, dear reader, are a billion years old.

Could it follow that you, the experimenter's consciousness, will inevitably 'end up' in one of those universes? If so, we are immortal - from our own point of view.


Problems with Quantum Theory of Immortality
The QTI rests on some contentious premises: Deutsch's development of the post-Everett 'many-worlds' hypothesis; the Tegmark 'quantum suicide' experiment, Stapp's work on quantum effects on the brain and, most tentatively, the idea that the specific case of the 'quantum gun' can be generalised into any life-or-death scenario.



Bibliography
Deutsch, David, The Fabric of Reality, (Penguin Books, 1997)
DeWitt, B. S. and N. Graham, eds., The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1973).
Grover, L. K, 'Quantum mechanics helps in searching for a needle in a haystack', Phys. Rev. Lett 79, 325-328 (1997)
Price, Michael Clive, Many-Worlds FAQ (Website, 1995)
Stapp, Henry P., Quantum Ontology and Mind-Matter Synthesis (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, July 21 1998)
Stapp, Henry P., Science of Consciousness and the Hard Problem (Proceedings of the Conference Toward a Science of Consciousness, University of Arizona, April 8-13,1996)
Steane, Andrew, Quantum Computing (Preprint, July 1997)
Tegmark, Max, 'The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics: Many Worlds or Many Worlds', (Preprint, September 15, 1997)

#2 Mechanus

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Posted 09 July 2003 - 10:46 PM

I think quantum immortality doesn't work -- it depends on wrong views of probability, identity, and so on. There have been discussions of this on the "everything-list" (www.escribe.com/science/theory); some of Jacques Mallah's posts in the archives there (as well as on Higgo's site) help explain the problems of QI.

One problem is that if you're immortal, you should expect to be very old already (more or less as in the doomsday argument); in the vast majority of your "observer-moments", you would be older than, say, 10^10^123 years.

Another problem is that by the same reasoning, you could never go to sleep. Assuming you're not conscious during sleep, then in the middle of the night you will certainly experience being awake, because the other copies of you will not be experiencing anything, and (so the argument goes) it makes no sense to say that you will experience an absence of experience. So not only should you expect to be enormously old, you should also expect never to sleep.

Quantum immortality requires some absolute notion of identity over time. I should expect that "I" will live forever and everyone else won't (well, not by quantum means). But who is this "I", in a posthuman brain soup?

The problem may come from visualizing quantum splitting as if it were classical duplication -- I agree that if a mad scientist copies me and then kills my copy (or the original!), I'm still alive. The crucial difference with quantum splitting is that quantum-mechanically, the worlds are not only increasing in number, they're also getting "thinner", in that their total "probability measure" stays the same. It's better to think of a world-block being sliced than a branching tree, in this context.

If you commit quantum suicide, most copies of you simply die; this is true if they have a brief moment to think "argh, I'm going to die", and it isn't any less true if they don't have that brief moment. So, not recommended.

Quantum immortality merely means extending the quantum suicide idea to any cause of death. Unless we actually take technological countermeasures, almost all copies of us will still keep dying, and I hope the quantum immortality idea will not stop anyone from implementing these countermeasures.

#3 Lazarus Long

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Posted 10 July 2003 - 01:36 AM

The "sleep as a little death" argument is not very strong. First of all now we are an amalgam of consciousness. Just as we have distinctly different cerebral functions from the different lobes of the brain and each of these represents the old phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny argument from the level of cognitive organizational ability. The human brain doesn't forget to beat its heart in during sleep, or just stop breathing.

The concept of conscious/non-consciousness isn't a cessation of self, it is recharge mode. The consciousness could sustain continuous alertness if the psychology of stress wasn't also relieved by sleep. It isn't just about physical recharging our organic CPU needs to cool off. ;))

But calling it a little death is just blatantly misleading.

Yes, it is a more vulnerable state and this too is why someone that wanted to be immortal might not want to sleep if they were afraid of assault or some such threat but they also might want to indulge in a refreshing rest, especially with someone they trusted and whose company was appreciated. Sleep is like eating, a physiological (and I suggest psychological too) quality of life, not a type of "death" at all.

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#4 Lazarus Long

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Posted 10 July 2003 - 01:57 AM

To be able to live in a world of your own creation does beg the question of immortality as a possible characteristic, or requirement.

I suggest that if we reach the point of having the ability to create a Universe and inhabit it (two distinctly different states) then another step in the quest of true immortality is achieved. This returns to the old issue of "dimension". If you are altering the dimension in which you live then many rules may change.

Also are they true Multiverses and not some Nth dimensional subspace surreality of Superstring origin?

And as such are they complete alternate realities, with their own celestial clock?

Or is it like dominoes and if one is contained at all within another it asserts an influence upon the one without? Thus if one collapses do the others go with it? If this were true it can also mean that the forces affecting collapse of any one instance of a Multiverse are relativistic across a multitude of Universes.

Lots of fine questions here this is fun; is anybody thinking of opening quantum portals?

#5 A941

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Posted 10 July 2003 - 05:19 AM

The MWI Scenario is a so called HARD Scenario, the Future is fix there is no possibility to chose.
Yes there may be a world in which Humans are immortal but be sure, if it the MWI is true, it wouldnt be this world, the chance is too small, and there is no use for a so called stellvertreter-immortality if you are dead you are dead you wont continue to live in another world cause we are also unable to feel that we are continuing the lifes of our dead "copies" from other worlds.

Such ideas are not helpfull, they are like the religious belive in an afterlife: its not here and we are not able to say anything about this mystic realm.

Iam not very happy with the MWI its appaling, for example: in one World iam the servant of a weird Cult, a member of Osamas Al Kaida or a Creationist [8)] ... horrible

interesting Article from Martin Gardner (except the thing about god):
http://www.csicop.or...ge-watcher.html

Edited by A941, 10 July 2003 - 05:32 AM.


#6 Clifford Greenblatt

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Posted 11 July 2003 - 09:00 AM

The MWI involves the splitting of a universe into all quantum possibilities. A subject who survives thousands of clicks would not necessarily gain proof of the MWI because a simple alternative to the MWI would produce the same result. This simple alternative is the totally independent and never intersecting existence of infinitely many universes. These universes could either exist in a single, unbounded quantum-mechanical vacuum or they could exist in totally separate compartments of reality.

#7 bitster

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Posted 12 July 2003 - 11:30 PM

the quantum suicide experiment sounds a whole lot like a repurposing of the anthropic principle. Simply imagine that the bullets are asteroids of sufficient size as to cause the ultimate natural catastrophe of destroying all life on Earth, and you'll get the idea.

The biggest problem I'd cite with this analysis is that all the examples involve a quantum prevention of accidents. While humans are commonly known to die from accidents, no one has been known to live longer that 150 years. If you want to get technical, you can say that getting older continuously increases how prone a body is to the "accidents" that end lives. At the very least, the likelihood of falling prey to fatal accidents of health increases at odds greater than can be oversome by the large number of instances of humans who have died in all of human history - or, in this case, histories. As a result, I'd say the design of the body necessarily includes death. In short, barring longevity tech, living past even 300 years is impossible, not because avoiding accidents becomes more unlikely, but because quantum means to avoid them just don't end up in play in ANY history.

In my surmise of uploading, I have already come to a conclusion in regard to duplication of consciousness, and MWI, like any technique that operates by a copying procedure, proves insufficient for guaranteeing future experience (or lack thereof), which turns out to be more important than even the accuracy of the procedure at making the duplication itself. No matter whether the procedure involves an mwi-style "world split" implied by quantum suicide, or some more mundane (err...) process involving scanning & duplicating the strucutre and operation of the subject's nervous system, the fact of the matter is that, prior to going under the knife (so to speak), no one can tell you in which state you will "wake up" in, presuming it works. If your goal is to be uploaded into the machine state, a copying process will always result in an unsatisfied customer.

The solution is to develop a transformative, rather than duplicative process.

#8 Clifford Greenblatt

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Posted 14 July 2003 - 09:47 AM

The outcome of the transformative process may always be a satisfied customer. However, does the transformation preserve the identity of the person? Is the person who entered the transformative process the same person as the person who emerges from the process? Furthermore, would the result of the transformative process be a person at all?

#9 Gewis

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Posted 26 July 2003 - 07:44 AM

Liking it or disliking it is irrelevant, people. I for one intend to try to commit suicide and see if it works. Ha, right. Although I WOULD survive by my own observation. (However, if the religionists are right, the most likely outcome for me is that my awareness continues while my body dies.) In any event, the MWI dictates that if, rather, when you survive forever in your present 'identity,' (whatever THAT is) it will be because you took the technological or what-have-you decisions to get there. Whatever's possible is inevitable for at least one of the infinite yous.

Here's the big picture, though: because MWI does nothing but state that you will make a decision that results in your immortality, we can reasonably infer that the most likely means by which you will reach that immortality is the one that is most probable to grant immortality to everybody. Thus we need to research the means of getting there, and MWI is rather irrelevant, but as an interesting mental exercise and a comforting thought that, whoever you are, your awareness will always exist, at least to you. As for everybody who is dead as to our collective observation, they must be taking different (and infinite) paths to immortality.

Good on 'em.

As for never sleeping, I can assure you regarding my awareness while I sleep. Even if it's in a different state, quantum mechanics has continued to roll the dice in my favor (it had to, actually) when I've woken up. As for the probability that you'd already be extremely old, this is exactly correct (well, equally infinite with the probability that you'd already be dead). However, your present state of observation happens to be in a sequence of quantum decisions in which you aren't already extremely old, which says nothing for the future.

Another interesting question raised, then, is, why isn't there anybody who happens to be 100,000 years old alive today? Well, there ARE, just not in this universe. Isn't it a comforting thought to think that there is another iteration of yourself who has, by this point in history, cured AIDS, cancer, and world hunger and shortly thereafter massacred everybody else in existence in his or her universe? Hmm... now, of course, things are going to get really sticky if it's possible to have communication with these other universes, or even funner, travel, because, again, if it's possible, it's inevitable. So, if it's quantumly possible to interact with other universes, I can't wait to meet a Richard Feynman. Well, at least one who's a good physicist.

All right, enough on the quantum mechanics. All it does is tell us that we're going to be presented with choices, and while, when confronted with them, we will make all choices (but only one for any given sequence) we're still making choices, doing research, and working to achieve immortality.

Odds are, when you remember reading this post in 2 million years, you're still alive in two million years because of work done to bring about immortality to humanity. And if it turns out that you, now two million years old, happen to be the only human left, that's fine. It just wasn't very likely for you, and at the same time it was inevitable, even though you had a choice.

Wow. I think talking about cryonics, nanotech, and AI is more productive, don't you?

Edited by Gewis, 26 July 2003 - 08:13 AM.


#10 tbeal

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Posted 16 February 2005 - 07:52 PM

I was thinkning about the 3 main problems with QI that mechanuse describes : the sleep problem the age problem and the identity problem - their really is no problem with the average age neccessary for an immortal beeing a massively high number since QI says nothing about how expiriences you should remember so you may allready be billions of years old ( ie contuinity of expirience exists back billions of years) you just can't remember it now. The sleep problem may seem like the biggest problem but QI actually only says that the chances are that you will expirience the most probable world in which you expirience something since the "actual" world of the many worlds is the 1 in which you are currently expiriencing. worlds in which you never exist can never be the "actual" world since you can't expirience them(Higgo used to allways used to use the fact that any of us exist at all as the key point in this argurment as their is a vast probability that none of us exist at all in most of the many worlds we don't) - it says nothing about when you should expirience something in fact it says that time istelf is an illusion caused by our consciousness (IE not just the position of an object but also the time it exists in is entirely dependant on quantum probability) 3. identity again QI says nothing about identity it doesn't require "you" to exist in any recognisable state it just says that "your" expirience continuity will never end it doesn't matter who you beleive you are or even if you have any concept of self only that you expirience.

#11 Chip

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Posted 23 February 2005 - 04:11 AM

I suggest that much the same speculation can be postulated based on a steady-state theory of universe as I attempted to explain at http://www.imminst.o...f=106&t=4918&s=

One above responded that they find the idea unpallatable because it means they have been in situations of being quite subordinate to others as within groups recognized as "evil" by some. The only argument I can find to address this is this theory implies we have been and will be any self-reflecting being that has existed, exists or will exist. The trick I believe is to find the spirit within and follow the idea of Ram Dass "Be Here Now." The editorials at Amazon Books concerning Dass' book of the same name are explanatory, me thinks: http://www.amazon.co...9065018-6333418

Interesting to see the parallels. Thanks for the well researched and documented exposition.

Oh my. I just noticed that the author has passed on. My condolences. A loss to us all even if personal immortality is real.

Chip

Edited by Chip, 23 February 2005 - 06:27 AM.


#12 John Schloendorn

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Posted 23 February 2005 - 10:07 AM

Well said, Mechanus. From my personal vantage, which I would suspect somewhere near half-way between Parfitian reductionism and Taoistic agnosticism, I would add:
If (only if) we have any reason to care for, or identify with our future selves, then our goal must be to maximize the numbers of worlds in that our future selves exist, i.e. avoid playing with quantum guns.
Whoop, I just felt myself make a leap towards agnosticism ;-)

#13 tbeal

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Posted 24 February 2005 - 11:17 AM

no playing with quantum guns is okay because you only have to care about worlds in which you do exist because from your point of view the others are irrelvant to you just like the may worlds in which I don't exist now and I don't care about the countlesss trillions of worlds that have split off from the begging of time because I don't exist in them. Only "future" worlds in which you exist can be called the future to you just like the quadrillinos of worlds which have allready split off in the past have no relevance to you.

#14 mihils

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Posted 08 July 2005 - 10:21 AM

What if the gun fires and the bullet goes through your brain but doesn't kill you, just leaves you with severe brain damage. If you live forever that doesn't necessarily mean that you will be healthy forever too.

#15 manowater989

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Posted 08 July 2005 - 03:29 PM

It is a very interesting thing to think about though, purporting the concept that at each moment, the particular reality we observe is unique to us, the "observer" or "experimenter", or whatever you want to call it, that in any number of other existences, we may already be dead, others are alive, etc. I've never thought of the many-worlds theory in quite this way before, it's a really, REALLY abstract and high-level concept that almost can't be expressed in words, it doesn't even make sense from reading the articles, exactly, you have to sit and think about it and fill in the gaps. It's especially interesting to consider: I once read a quote something to the intent of "they say, when someone dies, life goes on, but not for the person who's died", it'd be interesting to think that life does go on, for everyone else, AND for the person who died, but they're simply different lives.

#16 boundlesslife

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Posted 20 November 2005 - 09:03 AM

no playing with quantum guns is okay because you only have to care about worlds in which you do exist because from your point of view the others are irrelvant to you just like the may worlds in which I don't exist now and I don't care about the countlesss trillions of worlds that have split off from the begging of time because I don't exist in them. Only "future" worlds in which you exist can be called the future to you just like the quadrillinos of worlds which have allready split off in the past have no relevance to you.

MWI conjectures seem to require an estimation of duration of existence since a marker in time (such as the Big Bang) and integration of that with the number of particles (based on the mass of the universe) that might have been subject to an "uncertainty deviation", so as to compute the number of transitions where such deviations could have occurred, every branching leading to a unique state from which further branchings of "universes" could occur.

Numbers like trillions or even googlepli do not begin to suffice. MWI conjectures seem to have more to do with losing one's sense of mortality in an imponderable "house of mathematical mirrors" than with advancing attempts to deal in any practical way with our short lifespans, that usually are less than 36,525 days, or with communicating the paucity of that number to the general mass of humanity, far too many of whom still immerse themselves in other imponderables like the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin.

Mightn't Einstein's chemically preserved brain help further nucleate a true artificial intelligence and "bring him back"? (link) If nanotechnological warfare resulted in a "grey goo" event, mightn't sentient life yet arise from the aftermath? (link) And if you had to be "reanimated" with an almost entirely "synthetic" memory, might your life not yet still be worth living? (link). This last story, in particular, illustrates the sort of "depth of view" that may be required to inspire most of humanity to refocus its vision of immortality from the contemplation of abstract imponderables to practical utilization of the only alternative we now have to oblivion should we be "pronounced" (cryonics).

Edited by boundlesslife, 20 November 2005 - 01:09 PM.


#17 bgwowk

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Posted 20 November 2005 - 07:19 PM

MWI (more properly called the Oxford Interpretation) does not require a presumed age for the universe, nor can it be discounted simply because large numbers are involved. Completely accepted forms of quantum mechanics, such as Feynman's formulation, involve integrating particle paths over all possible trajectories (an infinite number) to calculate observed quantities. The Oxford interpretation simply says that all these paths are taken in actuality, not merely in mathematical abstraction.

Even if the Oxford Interpretation is correct (which 70% of quantum cosmologists and quantum computation experts now agree), immortality is not assured. Quantum mechanical "measure" may play a role in survival, in which case exceedingly unlikely survival scenarios, while in some sense "real", might not constitute true survival.

Also, David Deutsch claims that different quantum mechanical branches of reality have the same philosophical relation to us as different times in history. If so, when faced with death, we should derive no more solace from continued life in alternative quantum realities than we would find solace in the knowledge that our past experience is an eternal part of reality. Then again, maybe we should find solace in that?

---BrianW

Edited by bgwowk, 20 November 2005 - 10:03 PM.


#18 tbeal

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Posted 30 March 2006 - 06:10 AM

"Also, David Deutsch claims that different quantum mechanical branches of reality have the same philosophical relation to us as different times in history. If so, when faced with death, we should derive no more solace from continued life in alternative quantum realities than we would find solace in the knowledge that our past experience is an eternal part of reality. Then again, maybe we should find solace in that?" yeah this works when you think about different branches from the 1 your currently expiriencing that have allready branched off they have no relevance to you, however further divisions from the 1 you currently expiriencing are all your future with no particalular one beeing defined as the "right" one, (if their was then it would not be MWI as their would infomation about the real future beeing transferred at light speeds) therefore you(the current you) actually expiriences all of your future expiriences but in different worlds so any individual future you has no knowledge of the others. Since all the futures happen you can only expirience the ones where you exist and therefore you will expirience a future in which you exist. An analogy in 1 world be that of banging you head on a rock both the rocks future path after the collision and you heads would be valid future paths however you would not expect the fact that the rock is not conscious to have an effect on the expiriences the brain in the future head path will have.

#19 bgwowk

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Posted 30 March 2006 - 07:11 AM

Yes. In "deriving solace from alternative branches" I was refering to situations where you face impending death and all escape branches of "significant" measure are already in your past. I suppose if you always, always, always have an escape branch no matter how few microseconds remain before your spacecraft bores into a planet, then there is never any need to take solace. Or is there? The more certain death becomes, the weirder escape branches must become. You might not like them at all.

---BrianW




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