Yes indeed! You've just rediscovered the "quantum theory of immortality",
and this was one of the central ideas that gave rise to this list. Look up
"Max Tegmark quantum suicide experiment" in the list archives or using a web
search engine.
Actually, a basic version of this idea also occurred to me years ago, but
everyone I mentioned it to at the time thought I was mad, so I shut up about
it. It is only in the last few years that I have learned others have had the
same thought, often also arrived at independently. The earliest reference to
such an idea I could find was from Ludwig Boltzmann, although I have lost
the reference. My theory was simply that, if time and/or space are infinite
and non-repetetive, then everything that can happen, does happen. This means
that purely by chance, a very long time in the future and probably far, far
away, a replica of your mind at the point just before the apparently fatal
crash will come into being, and you will find yourself alive in probably
very different surroundings. Later, I learned that the Universe was either
going to collapse in a "big crunch" or else expand and cool forever, and
that even such apparently stable particles as protons will eventually all
decay - thus robbing us of the time spans needed for my fanciful
resurrection. The Everett "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics
offers one way around this. Frank Tipler's Omega Point theory offers another
way of resurrection out of the big crunch, although his book "The Physics of
Immortality" is marred by its reliance on sometimes dubious physics and on
bizarre religious mythology. Thinking about my old idea again recently, it
occurred to me that even "conventional" (non-MWI, non-pilot wave,
shut-up-and-calculate) quantum theory may offer the required incredibly
improbable resurrection, given enough time. Quantum mechanics allows the
popping into existence, and subsequent rapid annihilation, of
particles/antiparticles out of literally nothing - sometimes called "vacuum
fluctuations". This would seem to violate laws of conservation of
mass/energy and the theory that entropy always increases with time; the
usual explanation given for this anomaly is that these laws still apply *on
average*, over time, as the fluctuations are transient and usually brief. My
understanding of the matter, however, is that in principle, an entire
universe could arise out of this process as a sort of bubble of negative
entropy in a cold and lifeless eternity. It is extremely unlikely to happen,
and perhaps becomes less and less likely as the unverse continuously runs
down (not sure about this, however), but when you have eternity to play
with, it even becomes certain that you will beat the casino!
I'd be interested to hear of any other versions of this
everything/immortality theory that people you about, and also of how you
came up with similar ideas and the responses you had from people you told.
Stathis Papaioannou
Melbourne, Australia.
-----Original Message-----
From: David Kwinter [mailto:david.domain.name.hidden]
Sent: Friday, 31 October 2003 12:58 PM
To: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
Subject: Quantum accident survivor
Another quickie:
Assume I survive a car/plane crash which we assume could have many
different quantum outcomes including me (dead || alive)
Since I was the same person (entire life history) up until the
crash/quantum 'branch' - then can't I assume that since there was at
least one outcome where I survived, that TO ME I will always survive
other such life/death branches?
Furthermore if I witness a crash where someone dies can I assume that
the victim will survive in their own "world" so far as at least one
quantum branch of survivability seems possible?
David Kwinter
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Received on Fri Oct 31 2003 - 07:50:01 PST