Bob Hearn wrote (from smitra.domain.name.hidden question):
>I asked Tegmark what he thought about the idea that one could view
>life as a quantum suicide experiment, in the sense that if it is at
>all possible that I will be alive in, say, 100 years, then I will
>experience this - by definition, I won't experience the branches in
>which I'm not! This could mean everyone is immortal in their own
>world. Tegmark did not agree.
But I do agree. I have even shown that a minimal platonistic assumption
together with mechanism (the doctrine that I'm finitely descriptible)
entails a similar form of immortality. I have also developped the
quantum suicide idea in my 1988 and 1991 paper. (ref. in my thesis
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal).
I also derive in the thesis a Quantum Logic from the (godelian-like)
arithmetisation of the idea that "by definition, I won't experience
the branches in which I'm not".
More about Mechanist or Quantum immortality, related to the idea that
Everything Exist (but then what is a thing?) can be find in
the everything list discussion at
http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/.
Not all everythinger agrees with such form of immortality (to be sure).
I'm not quite sure I *like* the idea but I don't believe it is easy
to logically escape it when you accept either QM-without-collapse,
or just Digital Mechanism.
See also James Higgo web page on that question:
http://www.higgo.com/quantum/qtidebate.htm
About smitra.domain.name.hidden's original question:
>Can an observer really decide if the Copenhagen interpretation is
>false by performing a quantum suicide experiment as proposed by
>Tegmark (See http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/9709032 )?
I think that if a CopenhagenQM repeats quantum suicides, and
survives, then he will either become an Everett fan or he will
become a quite a-la-von-Neumann solipsist (believing he is the
only one able to reduce the wave packet!).
Bruno
Received on Thu Dec 14 2000 - 04:09:19 PST