Can you prove a negative?
Disprove quantum immortality without risking your life (2019)
21–30 of 67 posts
Re: Disprove quantum immortality without risking your life (2019)
#22This is a really nice argument and I hope that Kevin and others continue to pursue it. However, I think there is a subtle flaw in the presented argument that is parallel to issues illuminated by Goedel's incompleteness theorem. The problem, I believe, is with the assertion: > 1. The many-worlds interpretation is true. > 2. Consciousness experiences the reality in which it lives the longest. > If all the previous assu…
If quantum immortality is true, and I, knowing that, step in front of a car, how is it going to prevent my bones from breaking? I remember a haunting fantasy short story about a boy in a small town who accidentally meets and becomes friends with the man who digs all of the graves. Eventually he notices that somehow, the gravedigger knows when a grave is needed before a person dies, but won't say how or who. Often it…
The other view is that QI is literally true, and it literally proves the existence of an immortal soul which transcends whatever happens to the body.
So consciousness can never be killed. But it can be temporarily inconvenienced.
The problem with this argument is that the universe continues to operate when we're asleep, in a coma, etc.
It's almost as if it has an independent existence that doesn't rely on our personal experience of it.
Re: Disprove quantum immortality without risking your life (2019)
#23I like the idea that we're all immortal from our own perspective. I don't think this article contradicts it. >Consciousness experiences the reality in which it lives the longest: Under this assumption we can change the circumstances from a punishment to a reward. Instead of a gun, imagine a doctor has information about your health. If he tells you about it and you act on the information, you will certainly live a lon…
Yes. To add to this: it seems like to avoid sharp changes in experience, like at the point of death/non-death, QI seems to have an effect on the past.
All else being equal, it should be less likely you’ll press a button giving you a 90% chance of dying then a button giving you a 50% chance of dying.
It’s anyway probabilistic and there are lots of factors at play, so hard to disprove.
Re: Disprove quantum immortality without risking your life (2019)
#24As a counter, the best way to “prove” QI is true without risking your life is to live a really long time.
A-priori that’s unlikely unless QI is true.
Re: Disprove quantum immortality without risking your life (2019)
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
If quantum immortality is true, and I, knowing that, step in front of a car, how is it going to prevent my bones from breaking? I remember a haunting fantasy short story about a boy in a small town who accidentally meets and becomes friends with the man who digs all of the graves. Eventually he notices that somehow, the gravedigger knows when a grave is needed before a person dies, but won't say how or who. Often it…
The other view is that QI is literally true, and it literally proves the existence of an immortal soul which transcends whatever happens to the body. So consciousness can never be killed. But it can be temporarily inconvenienced. The problem with this argument is that the universe continues to operate when we're asleep, in a coma, etc. It's almost as if it has an independent existence that doesn't rely on our persona…
QI is usually explained in terms of many worlds, where there is an objective reality independent of our experience.
Those concepts aren’t incompatible, if that’s what you were suggesting by your last sentence.
Re: Disprove quantum immortality without risking your life (2019)
#26This is a really nice argument and I hope that Kevin and others continue to pursue it. However, I think there is a subtle flaw in the presented argument that is parallel to issues illuminated by Goedel's incompleteness theorem. The problem, I believe, is with the assertion: > 1. The many-worlds interpretation is true. > 2. Consciousness experiences the reality in which it lives the longest. > If all the previous assu…
If quantum immortality is true, and I, knowing that, step in front of a car, how is it going to prevent my bones from breaking? I remember a haunting fantasy short story about a boy in a small town who accidentally meets and becomes friends with the man who digs all of the graves. Eventually he notices that somehow, the gravedigger knows when a grave is needed before a person dies, but won't say how or who. Often it…
Under many worlds, the you who did not step in front of the car avoids broken bones.
If there is anything to quantum immortality, it is only in those circumstances where the probability of immediate death is strictly between 0 and 1. I suspect, however, that quantum immortality is merely the tautology that survivors, and only survivors, survive, and has nothing to do with interpretations of the QM formalism.
Re: Disprove quantum immortality without risking your life (2019)
#27First, obligatory short story (free open access on the site below) for this entire concept. It takes things to their extreme conclusion and I liked it very much with the way it experiments with QI: https://www.tor.com/2010/08/05/divided-by-infinity/ This brings me to my second point: in relation to the death of a close family member a couple years ago from cancer. The end lasted a month and largely consisted in its l…
I agree. Under QI it's possible we end up as some disembodied conscious matter in a state of eternal agony; QI only says consciousness will persist, it says nothing about quality of life.
Re: Disprove quantum immortality without risking your life (2019)
#28It all hinges on #2, "Consciousness experiences the reality in which it lives the longest" which is a straight-up mistaken understanding of quantum immortality. I feel embarrassed for the author. With QI, you have to actually die, there's no other way around it.
Re: Disprove quantum immortality without risking your life (2019)
#29This is a really nice argument and I hope that Kevin and others continue to pursue it. However, I think there is a subtle flaw in the presented argument that is parallel to issues illuminated by Goedel's incompleteness theorem. The problem, I believe, is with the assertion: > 1. The many-worlds interpretation is true. > 2. Consciousness experiences the reality in which it lives the longest. > If all the previous assu…
> you could (and likely would) walk around taking obviously foolish risks without ever experiencing any consequences
Only things that are random on a quantum level cause world splitting.
Walking in front of a car for example is not random on a quantum level and would not cause multi-world effects.
In the popular consciousness multiple worlds means every single possibility exists. This is not true!
In fact there are very few macro effects that are caused by quantum randomness. Even if multiple worlds is true they are all identical except microscopically.
Re: Disprove quantum immortality without risking your life (2019)
#30One thing to keep in mind is our understanding of physics is only approximate so it's dangerous to draw too extreme conclusions.
Approximate immortality is after all very different from actual immortality.
We may well discover that the number of worlds is enormous but ultimately finite, and that the number of worlds you're in decreases exponentially with every risk you take.