Quantum immortality

[Don410]

I’m about 99.999% sure that many worlds isn’t true. However, if many worlds seriously is true, isn’t quantum immortality an inevitably? 
 

Wouldn’t you  always have to perceive yourself as being in a world where you survive the most ridiculously unlikely of events? For hundreds or even thousands of years? 

There’s no scientific law that you have to die. It’s  just that, in a single universe paradigm, the odds will catch up to you after no more than 120 years with about 99.99999% certainty. However, if there are infinitely many universes, wouldn’t there have to be some universe out there where the Buddha is still alive? And wouldn’t that have to be the universe the Buddha experiences, since he can’t perceive his own death?

 

Edited July 20, 2020 by Don410

[MigL]

Many Worlds is an interpretation of what the mathematics tell us, into 'understandable' concepts.
All interpretations are equally valid, whether it be Many Worlds, Copenhagen, or others, but only the mathematics are true.

There is a difference.

[Halc]

1 hour ago, Don410 said:

I’m about 99.999% sure that many worlds isn’t true.

Out of curiosity, why?  What possible evidence do you have against it? Or is this just a statement of your lack of warm fuzzies for the view?

Quote

It’s  just that, in a single universe paradigm, the odds will catch up to you after no more than 120 years with about 99.99999% certainty. However, if there are infinitely many universes, wouldn’t there have to be some universe out there where the Buddha is still alive? And wouldn’t that have to be the universe the Buddha experiences, since he can’t perceive his own death?

This statement presumes that there is one 'the Buddha' that experiences one of the worlds and not any of the others. This is not what MWI is all about. That would be a supernatural philosophy, otherwise known as religion.  Wrong forum to discuss that.

Under MWI, all versions of a person are self-experienced (and yes, none experiences death), and there is no epiphenomenal entity that 'follows' one of them.

Edited July 20, 2020 by Halc

[Strange]

21 hours ago, Don410 said:

I’m about 99.999% sure that many worlds isn’t true.

That would make quantum theory wrong. You would need to provide some pretty impressive evidence to support that claim.

[HallsofIvy]

  This isn't really relevant to the main point here, but most people don't die because of "events".  They die because their body wears out.  And that would happen in any universe.

[joigus]

On 7/20/2020 at 3:20 AM, MigL said:

Many Worlds is an interpretation of what the mathematics tell us, into 'understandable' concepts.

This is key, I think. There are several interpretations. They're not theories. The theory is quantum mechanics. You can bet that one is correct. Why it is correct being so mathematically ad hoc is another matter. That's where the different interpretations come up. IMO, the transactional interpretation is much more beautiful and parsimonious, although I must say I don't know it in detail.

The one with empty amplitudes and occupied amplitudes is also more plausible IMO, even though it's somewhat ugly. The consistent histories approach is another one.

As of today, I'm not aware that any of these have been finally confirmed or rejected experimentally or otherwise. There are claims in every which direction last time I looked, but I don't think there is unanimous thinking about that by any means.

As we speak, more physicists are considering arguments about these interpretations, or maybe even other possible interpretations. Which means the problem is not settled.

The elementary-particle-physicists' community favours the many-worlds interpretation, but that's all, as far as I understand. That's because their favourite toys (mainly the Wheeler-DeWitt eq.) are formulated within that framework. So it's a matter of heuristics and model-building, nothing else.

And that's my two cents.

[swansont]

On 7/19/2020 at 8:59 PM, Don410 said:

I’m about 99.999% sure that many worlds isn’t true. However, if many worlds seriously is true, isn’t quantum immortality an inevitably? 
 

Wouldn’t you  always have to perceive yourself as being in a world where you survive the most ridiculously unlikely of events? For hundreds or even thousands of years? 

There’s no scientific law that you have to die. It’s  just that, in a single universe paradigm, the odds will catch up to you after no more than 120 years with about 99.99999% certainty. However, if there are infinitely many universes, wouldn’t there have to be some universe out there where the Buddha is still alive? And wouldn’t that have to be the universe the Buddha experiences, since he can’t perceive his own death?

 

There are sci-fi short stories based on this. Niven wrote one called All the Myriad Ways, but I was thinking of another - the synopsis doesn’t jibe with my recollection of the story I was thinking about.

[Don410]

On 7/21/2020 at 11:23 AM, HallsofIvy said:

  This isn't really relevant to the main point here, but most people don't die because of "events".  They die because their body wears out.  And that would happen in any universe.

In the  more optimistic  versions of quantum immortality, there are some universes where your body never wears out, and you remain reasonably  healthy into old age.

 

In the less optimistic (and honestly probably far more realistic) version of quantum immortality, your body wears out but never actually dies. Basically your life turns into an eternal hell on earth where you keep coming infinitely close to dying without ever actually dying. 
 

Is there any scientific law saying that you have to die when your body wears out? I don’t think so. If there’s no scientific law saying you have to die because your body wears out, then there has to be a universe where you survive under MWI. Under MWI, anything with a probability above 0 has to happen.
 

 

Edited August 10, 2020 by Don410

[HallsofIvy]

19 hours ago, Don410 said:

In the  more optimistic  versions of quantum immortality, there are some universes where your body never wears out, and you remain reasonably  healthy into old age.

So how do I move there?

[AbstractDreamer]

Why is this particular instance of a universe reliable to such a degree that we have not witnessed someone who lived forever; we have not witnessed a variable speed of light; we have not witnessed a single star or planet propelled by a means other than gravity; we have not witnessed an exception to time dilation; we have not seen a single star spontaneously appear anywhere in the our universe, as they inevitably must do in some universes.

Why is this particular instance of a universe so predictable that sentient beings have evolved and developed mathematics called General Relativity to model how things behave so accurately?

If Many Worlds interpretation describes infinite branches of worlds of possibilities, why is this world so predictable?  Or is it?  Why don't random macroscopic events happen in our universe?  Or is variance of possibilites limited in all universes to the quantum scale only?  Is it beyond even the power of infinite universes for one universe to exist where a star is spontaneously created in the sky within the next 24 hours?

 

[dimreepr]

59 minutes ago, AbstractDreamer said:

If Many Worlds interpretation describes infinite branches of worlds of possibilities, why is this world so predictable?

Because this model works in this one... 😉

[swansont]

Having an infinite number of universes does not equate to all things being possible.

[AbstractDreamer]

Not a single unexpected macro event that violates GR in this universe, other than singularties.  Is that not rather odd, considering all the random branches of possibilities that MIGHT occur with every quantum observation  everywhere since the beginning.

If the fundamental essence of the universe is random, chaotic, unpredictable, then surely there cannot be any fundamental laws or principles or constants.

Conversely if the essence of the universe is determinate, ordered, and predictable, then surely there must be a fundamental laws/principles/constants.

[joigus]

On 9/5/2020 at 2:46 PM, AbstractDreamer said:

Why is this particular instance of a universe reliable to such a degree that we have not witnessed someone who lived forever; we have not witnessed a variable speed of light; we have not witnessed a single star or planet propelled by a means other than gravity; we have not witnessed an exception to time dilation; we have not seen a single star spontaneously appear anywhere in the our universe, as they inevitably must do in some universes.

Why is this particular instance of a universe so predictable that sentient beings have evolved and developed mathematics called General Relativity to model how things behave so accurately?

If Many Worlds interpretation describes infinite branches of worlds of possibilities, why is this world so predictable?  Or is it?  Why don't random macroscopic events happen in our universe?  Or is variance of possibilites limited in all universes to the quantum scale only?  Is it beyond even the power of infinite universes for one universe to exist where a star is spontaneously created in the sky within the next 24 hours?

 

Many, or even infinitely many, possibilities is not the same as "anything can happen". Physics has room for unpredictability and very stringent constraints at the same time. Nothing that we know can, ie., violate local conservation principles. Quantum laws do satisfy local conservation of probability, for example. Which translates in the fact that nothing macroscopic, nothing with global charge or mass, etc., can just "materialize" at a point, unless a flux of probability has been driven there, by a process which must, in turn, be physical, and satisfy the same constrictions.

Nothing we know violates Lorentz invariance either. Quantum mechanics tells you, rather, that Lorentz invariance has to be taken with a grain of salt, and precisely how little salt that must be (HUP). Same for conservation laws. There are no violations of these principles, there is a very strict room for ambiguity in their application. The famous h bar constant is involved in how much "violation" is acceptable.

Murray Gell-Mann summarized it very well with his phrase "anything that can happen will happen". But for something to happen, it must be possible to happen.

[Bond777]

On 7/21/2020 at 11:23 AM, HallsofIvy said:

  This isn't really relevant to the main point here, but most people don't die because of "events".  They die because their body wears out.  And that would happen in any universe.

Unless in one of the universes some genetic mutation will happen to you which will prevent aging or elixir of youth will be invented or you will become an immortal cyborg.