Quantum Suicide

Ran across this on thoughtexperiments.net via Reddit, but I am struggling with their reading of the Copenhagen Interpretation. I know why they are wrong, which all the comments seem to address, but how does one come to the reading to begin with? Is it just a fundamental failure to understand "observer"?

For the record, I am probably a fan of the hidden variable theory. I just thought that someone might understand why this person is going with their reading of CI and MWI. I think the MW theory presentation is correct (the self might be muddy, unclear). Also not sure about their scaling of the QM P up to macro levels.

Lastly, I am interested if anyone else has a solution or questions about this experiment.

Yea, I had to stop, too, when I read the article's rendering of the Copenhage and Many-Worlds interpretations. While I did not really understand the thought experiment described (I'm one of those shut-up-and-do-the-math kind of physicists who thinks that the mathematical description is if not identical with the nature of the thing, the closest we can get to a description of the nature of the thing), I do think that quantum immortality as described in the article would follow.
Even if the Many-Worlds interpretation is a fair one, all of the people I am as a matter of fact talking to have for that moment converged, collapsed, if you will, to the one current world. Observations I have made in the past are the ones I made and not the ones my otherworldly counterparts made in their respective alternative worlds. And so while there may be a version of "me" who lives on forever in one hypothetical timeline, it is not the same timeline and not the same "me" who is going to die in the one my consciousness as I experience it will be gone in. Just as I have not the experience of any of my current counterparts, I don't think I'll suddenly hop over to live their experience once my consciousness in this timeline fades.
The implication also overlooks that by the same token that allows a single given consciousness to continue indefinitely, for every world where a second person dies there exists another where it doesn't, and out of that there is another branching for the third person and so on. By the exact same logic there must exist a world populated exclusively by ancient immortal beings that is, through yet another set of branchings, itself neverending.
I for one wonder what this experiment adds to our understanding. We are stuck with the world we are being dealt moment by moment, and even if in a hypothetical other world the same experimenters may come to conclusions that would be either unwarranted or outright false in our own, none of our being stuck with the observations we are stuck with is changed. Not even a testable prediction is made. Does this mean the Many-Worlds interpretation is unscientific? Well, the presentation this article gives is...

I just finished working and I'm reeeeally tired so I'll go straight to the point even if I would like to discuss this topic more deeply.

First of all: I agree with Gisteron's argument (if I have understood it correctly quickly reading trough the post). I don't think I will hear ten "click" but is correct to say that ten clicks will be heard. That's true. The point is that every click is heard by a different me with a different consciousness in a different world, so ten click will be heard but *I* will hear just one click (every time). This is my "solution" to the paradox if we admit that exists one.

More importantly I do not think there *is* a paradox. The same experiment has two different results that, in my opinion, are not in contrast one with the other for the simple reason that MW and Copenaghen (at least apparently) can't be true at the same time, so no paradox out there. If the MW is true than what I described above happens, else Copenaghen is right, the experimenter live or die and that's it.

Yea it would be nice to think our 'soul' just floats along some pathway of quantum immortality, tracking from reality to reality to stay only within those that it stays alive in... but thank you science for trying to outline the difference between fantasy and reality!! Makes birth a strange concept, perhaps some restructure of that reality to keep the soul functioning and 'alive', to the point that when enough people get smart enough to continue functioning (in terms of this soul's existence) then society stabilizes at some advanced state where immortality is not confronted with dying! Article like that one need a warning label.

I think the proposal would lead to infinite realities as quick as it could, unless their was some restrictions on the depth to indeterminacy - such that given the starting conditions, each iteration has one live bullet versus all possible scenario's existing. So I lean to the CI version, the structure of the original reality determines its offshoots, and so the placement of the head and bullet at the critical point forces a determination IMO. Else infinity?

But it might explain why the Universe appears to be expanding.... anything which constructs constraints on outcomes could be generating alternate universes - and they have to go somewhere, must be that dark matter stuff
:ohmy: :silly:

Two quick things I want to throw out since I have been looking at this for over a day now.

1-There aren't parallel selves necessarily running, but selves that branch off only at the moment of death. In one world you live in the other, you don't. Everything up unto that point is the same, and that is the only change. Since you only experience that one that's your world, which the rules are such that humans die. So actual immortals isn't a requirement of every world, only one technically.

2-You can have an infinite set of worlds where you simply have every version of a kind. If you had every odd number, you have an infinite set, but it wouldn't include any even numbers. That means lack of certain worlds isn't a negation of the theory.

Well, if all the observations we look at are the ones during the thought experiment, then yes, branchings only happen at death. But what if we start to take in all quantum measurements anybody makes anywhere? Even the world of immortals could keep splitting further as more measurements are made, into branches where death happens and others where it doesn't. This is the philosophical problem with naive MW interpretations. Once we say that anything that is conceivable, is real in a possible world, why would we ever stop and not allow for a world where what we consider inconceivable is conceivable? Why not render the thought experiment anew, from the perspective of a world like that this time? At this point we'll have long left quantum physics and delved into the depths of modal logic and possible worlds metaphysics instead. Now, I don't mind that as a fun little philosophical exercize, but we don't get to refer back to quantum physics after we've ventured that far off.

This is one of my reasons for adopting the hidden variable theory.