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quantum immortality

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SystemDown
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04 Jun 2009, 2:02 pm

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­­A man sits down before a gun, which is pointed at his head. This is no ordinary gun; i­t's rigged to a machine that measures the spin of a quantum particle. Each time the trigger is pulled, the spin of the quantum particle -- or quark -- is measured. Depending on the measurement, the gun will either fire, or it won't. If the quantum particle is measured as spinning in a clockwise motion, the gun will fire. If the quark is spinning counterclockwise, the gun won't go off. There'll only be a click.

Nervously, the man takes a breath and pulls the trigger. The gun clicks. He pulls the trigger again. Click. And again: click. The man will continue to pull the trigger again and again with the same result: The gun won't fire. Although it's functioning properly and loaded with bullets, no matter how many times he pulls the trigger, the gun will never fire. He'll continue this process for eternity, becoming immortal.

Go back in time to the beginning of the experiment. The man pulls the trigger for the very first time, and the quark is now measured as spinning clockwise. The gun fires. The man is dead.

But, wait. The man already pulled the trigger the first time -- and an infinite amount of times following that -- and we already know the gun didn't fire. How can the man be dead? The man is unaware, but he's both alive and dead. Each time he pulls the trigger, the universe is split in two. It will continue to split, again and again, each time the trigger is pulled [source: Tegmark].


According to this theory, conscious beings are immortal in that they cannot experience a universe in which they don't exist, therefore they must experience the universe in which they are immortal.



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04 Jun 2009, 2:08 pm

SystemDown wrote:
Quote:
­­A man sits down before a gun, which is pointed at his head. This is no ordinary gun; i­t's rigged to a machine that measures the spin of a quantum particle. Each time the trigger is pulled, the spin of the quantum particle -- or quark -- is measured. Depending on the measurement, the gun will either fire, or it won't. If the quantum particle is measured as spinning in a clockwise motion, the gun will fire. If the quark is spinning counterclockwise, the gun won't go off. There'll only be a click.

Nervously, the man takes a breath and pulls the trigger. The gun clicks. He pulls the trigger again. Click. And again: click. The man will continue to pull the trigger again and again with the same result: The gun won't fire. Although it's functioning properly and loaded with bullets, no matter how many times he pulls the trigger, the gun will never fire. He'll continue this process for eternity, becoming immortal.

Go back in time to the beginning of the experiment. The man pulls the trigger for the very first time, and the quark is now measured as spinning clockwise. The gun fires. The man is dead.

But, wait. The man already pulled the trigger the first time -- and an infinite amount of times following that -- and we already know the gun didn't fire. How can the man be dead? The man is unaware, but he's both alive and dead. Each time he pulls the trigger, the universe is split in two. It will continue to split, again and again, each time the trigger is pulled [source: Tegmark].


According to this theory, conscious beings are immortal in that they cannot experience a universe in which they don't exist, therefore they must experience the universe in which they are immortal.

congrats, you figured out schrodinger


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matsuiny2004
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04 Jun 2009, 2:59 pm

never mind I just repeated what the original poster said :lol:


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ruveyn
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04 Jun 2009, 3:06 pm

SystemDown wrote:

According to this theory, conscious beings are immortal in that they cannot experience a universe in which they don't exist, therefore they must experience the universe in which they are immortal.


Nonsense.

ruveyn



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04 Jun 2009, 6:22 pm

That was a waste of time.



vibratetogether
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04 Jun 2009, 6:36 pm

Wat?



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04 Jun 2009, 7:48 pm

I'm retracting this post and another below due to possible ethical problems.


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Last edited by twoshots on 05 Jun 2009, 4:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

protest_the_hero
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04 Jun 2009, 7:51 pm

This sounds like the multiple universe theory, where all realities exist simultaneously, and conciousness is eternal and so it can only flow into any of the infinite paths reality could take that continue. That means you will live through your friend's death, but not your own. They will live through yours in the paths their conciousness takes in the space/time continuum.
I find this theory really interesting and it makes more sense to me than reincarnation or the afterlife, though there are no major religions which teach this theory. I've only heard about it as a "quantum physics" theory.

P.S. I was once quite interested in this kind of thing.



Last edited by protest_the_hero on 04 Jun 2009, 7:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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04 Jun 2009, 7:52 pm

protest_the_hero wrote:
This sounds like the multiple universe theory

Quantum suicide/immortality rely upon the MWI yes.


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techstepgenr8tion
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04 Jun 2009, 10:17 pm

Oh, well this would be easy - the immortal life would be the one where you convert to Rastafarianism.



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04 Jun 2009, 11:18 pm

Retracted.


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Last edited by twoshots on 05 Jun 2009, 4:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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05 Jun 2009, 1:42 am

I thought we were supposed to shoot the cat!...;)

The fallacy (I think) is that there would be a given universe in which you would have to live forever; due to biology, that ain't in the cards. Sooner or later, in every universe in which you made a choice, you'd shuffle off the 'ol coil one way or another.



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05 Jun 2009, 5:59 am

I first heard about the Schroedinger's cat thing in maths class, aged 17. I thought it was a load of crud then, and I still do.

But I'm just a layman. My layman's intuition is to go along with Hugh Everett and David Deutsch's multiverse theories, where 'time' as we understand it is an illusion, and other 'times' are just examples of other universes. According to this idea, we are all immortal, in a sense.



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05 Jun 2009, 4:03 pm

I have found an article purporting to be a definitive refutation of quantum suicide and hence quantum immortality. You can find it >>>here<<<. I intend to look over it more thoroughly later, but as the author is a philosopher of physics (apparently), it does contain somewhat interesting ideas about basic ethics (generally utility based), identity, and consciousness in a branching universe. It may require a casual familiarity with some of the concepts of very basic quantum mechanics (it seems to require no more than what I know, but that may be more than is common), but anyone who is interested in the thought experiment should probably read it, *especially* before getting too attached to the idea. It should be noted that quantum suicide is not a theory, and should not be taken too seriously.

I may address the paper in more detail in a future post, but I thought it would be good to get the article out there.


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05 Jun 2009, 5:28 pm

twoshots wrote:
I have found an article purporting to be a definitive refutation of quantum suicide and hence quantum immortality. You can find it >>>here<<<. I intend to look over it more thoroughly later, but as the author is a philosopher of physics (apparently), it does contain somewhat interesting ideas about basic ethics (generally utility based), identity, and consciousness in a branching universe. It may require a casual familiarity with some of the concepts of very basic quantum mechanics (it seems to require no more than what I know, but that may be more than is common), but anyone who is interested in the thought experiment should probably read it, *especially* before getting too attached to the idea. It should be noted that quantum suicide is not a theory, and should not be taken too seriously.

I may address the paper in more detail in a future post, but I thought it would be good to get the article out there.
This thread is making my brain cramp at the moment, but I will give the link a look this weekend when I have had a chance to sleep, and comment later...sounds very interesting. Now I am all bummed I missed what you posted up there.



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05 Jun 2009, 7:09 pm

@ twoshots: I am only half way through the article, but already have questions. I understand the branching effect but I hit a snag with the concept of of the multiple experimenter, which is not really presented in the op. I think trying to mentally grasp multiple experimenters with multiple observers creating their own branches is not allowing me to understand how probability is related to the number of observers. Can you explain this in simpler terms? How does the number of viewers make a difference? This makes sense with Schrondinger's cat because the observer will effect the outcome simply by observing, but how is this related to this experiment? I have to say I found the idea of each branch only having a fraction of consciousness of the previous branch of experimenter to be intriguing. Is this the ethical issue you mentioned, or just the basic idea of QS?