Hope And Qm

[fahrquad]

In the natural cycle of life, immortality is an undesirable property.  Achieving immortality would be an end to evolution, and life on this planet would be static for all eternity.  I am sure some would welcome an existence where nothing ever changes, but I think it would be a dreadfully boring existence.  The fear of death is a driving factor in the pursuit of immortality, but death is nothing to be feared, and I should know.  I was dead for about 5 minutes a few years back. I won't bore you with the details.  My point is that life has to have a beginning and an end no matter how short or how long to have any meaning.  What counts most in life is what you experience in the time you have.

[petrushkagoogol]

If you look at a quantum universe and compare this to a universe defined by continuous functions; 19th century, since a quantum universe only has limited states, a quantum universe is more deterministic, than a continuous function universe. For example, there are five electron energy levels for the hydrogen atom. If we lived in a continuous function universe, there would be an infinite number of energy levels for hydrogen. Quantum narrows the possibilities; loads the dice. 

 

The irony is when physics discovered our quantum universe, they also decided to use a random model of the universe. Whereas the old continuous models assume determinism based logic and data. Both have it backwards. A quantum universe loads the dice and made the universe less random, not more random. 

 

Hope and faith are interesting, relative to a quantum universe. If you hoped for hydrogen to give off energy, based on any of its five energy levels, your hope has excellent odds, since the dice are loaded to these options. But if you hope for a photon between  any of these states, it is hopeless. This is why we have reason and common sense. Not all options that we may hope for will appear, when you have loaded dice. But if you know how the dice are loaded, through reason and observation, dreams do come true. 

 

Merry Christmas. 

 

1. I like the concept of loaded dice.
2. Einstein is supposed to have stated that "God does not play dice".
3. In view of the above I can assert that "God does play dice and, he sure as HELL does know the outcomes." :-)
4. Possibilities for an event path are random but finite, and hence, more or less deterministic, since at least one event must transpire.
5. That takes us back to (2)
6. But (3) is true, although it is counter to (2).
7. My processor crashed due to stack overflow error  .......too many recursive calls.....
8. Sorry !!! 

[CraigD]

Are you, as I guessed, trying to start a discussion of the quantum immortality thought experiment :QuestionM

As a matter of fact, Yes......

In the natural cycle of life, immortality is an undesirable property. Achieving immortality would be an end to evolution, and life on this planet would be static for all eternity. I am sure some would welcome an existence where nothing ever changes, but I think it would be a dreadfully boring existence. The fear of death is a driving factor in the pursuit of immortality, but death is nothing to be feared, and I should know. I was dead for about 5 minutes a few years back. I won't bore you with the details. My point is that life has to have a beginning and an end no matter how short or how long to have any meaning. What counts most in life is what you experience in the time you have.

I agree that finite lifespans for biological organisms is important for biological evolution, though being an extropian, I also think the goal of somehow allowing individual humans to live as long as they want is a good one.

 

However, the quantum immortality thought experiment isn’t about biological questions like this. It’s about an implication of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. A common conclusion drawn from the TE is that, if the MWI is true, then there exist, for any person we pick, a history in which they never die.

 

This is easy to imaging for scenarios such as healthy people not having fatal accidents. For example, in one history, the physical processes that occur in my body lead me to distractedly step into the path of a bus to my death, while in another, difference ones lead to me not doing so, so one “me” continues to feel ordinarily alive, while the other feels nothing, being dead.

 

It gets weird when you try imagining never dying. What kinds of physical processes can a feeble 99 year old simply not dying in an unending series of events? I find it easy to imagine such processes leading to the person living a few minutes more or less, but the event necessary for them (me) to live forever strains my imagination, and stretches it into some unpleasant domains.

 

The best known proponent of the MWI, Hugh Everett, is reported to have believed “consciousness is bound at each branching to follow whatever path does not lead to death —and so on ad infinitum”. From this and many other biographical bits, I conclude that Everett had a powerful imagination, and was a deeply weird person.

[exchemist]

I agree that finite lifespans for biological organisms is important for biological evolution, though being an extropian, I also think the goal of somehow allowing individual humans to live as long as they want is a good one.

 

However, the quantum immortality thought experiment isn’t about biological questions like this. It’s about an implication of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. A common conclusion drawn from the TE is that, if the MWI is true, then there exist, for any person we pick, a history in which they never die.

 

This is easy to imaging for scenarios such as healthy people not having fatal accidents. For example, in one history, the physical processes that occur in my body lead me to distractedly step into the path of a bus to my death, while in another, difference ones lead to me not doing so, so one “me” continues to feel ordinarily alive, while the other feels nothing, being dead.

 

It gets weird when you try imagining never dying. What kinds of physical processes can a feeble 99 year old simply not dying in an unending series of events? I find it easy to imagine such processes leading to the person living a few minutes more or less, but the event necessary for them (me) to live forever strains my imagination, and stretches it into some unpleasant domains.

 

The best known proponent of the MWI, Hugh Everett, is reported to have believed “consciousness is bound at each branching to follow whatever path does not lead to death —and so on ad infinitum”. From this and many other biographical bits, I conclude that Everett had a powerful imagination, and was a deeply weird person.

I have to say I do not follow this at all. Surely no interpretation of QM says there is a world in which the laws of biochemistry cease to apply, does it? And the laws of biochemistry tell you you will die, eventually, of something.

 

The many worlds interpretation, as I understand it, would allow a vast number of worlds, but all of these would be the result of physically and chemically possible outcomes. 

 

I smell more quantum woo here. 

Edited December 26, 2016 by exchemist