Thanks for the repost. As far as the suicide paradox goes, I'd argue that it's not a paradox. Regardless of how he measures it, if there is a possible alternative, then that alternative exits in a parallel world. The outcome is inconsequential. I see no difference between that and the Schroedinger's Cat example.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Saibal Mitra"
To: "aet.radal ssg"
Subject: Re: Many Pasts? Not according to QM...
Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 19:02:19 +0200
>
> The original posting about this dates back from the beginning of
> this list. I just
> invoked this in this thread to argue why one should consider observer moments
> (identical ones considered as the same) as fundamental concepts.
>
> The suicide paradox I was referring to is just Tegmark's thought
> experiment where the
> experimenter measures the spin of a particle. If it is down he is
> instantly killed, he
> survives if it is up. Then he argues that according to the MWI the
> experimenter should
> always measure that the spin is up, because that's the only branch in which he
> survives.
>
> Saibal
>
> Quoting "aet.radal ssg" :
>
> > For some reason I didn't get the original post about the suicide paradox,
> > so if someone could resend it, sans any "everything" computer lingo, I
> > would appreciate it.
> > The subject of the thread - "Many Pasts? - Not according to QM" taken on
> > its face seems false, at least from the standard MWI model. If you have
> > parallel worlds you have parallel pasts. In fact, that's why MWI is
> > supposed to be the solution to time travel paradoxes. Take an arbitrary
> > moment, when a measurement, or any other trigger, causes a decoherence,
> > move forward in time from that moment and look back - you have parallel
> > pasts that begin from the point of decoherence. ----- Original
> > Message ----- From: "Saibal Mitra" To: everything-list@eskimo.com
> > Subject: Re: Many Pasts? Not according to QM... Date: Wed, 25 May
> > 2005 01:24:23 +0200 > > > > > ----- Oorspronkelijk bericht -----
> > > Van: "Patrick Leahy" > Aan: > Verzonden: Wednesday, May 18,
> > 2005 05:57 PM > Onderwerp: Many Pasts? Not according to QM... > >
> > > > Of course, many of you (maybe all) may be defining pasts from
> > an > > information-theoretic point of view, i.e. by identifying
> > all > > observer-moments in the multiverse which are equivalent
> > as perceived by
> >
> > > > the observer; in which case the above point is quite irrelevant. (But
> > you > > still have to distinguish the different branches to find the total
> > measure > > for each OM). > > This is indeed my position. I
> > prefer to define an observer moment as the > information needed
> > to generate an observer. According to the
> > ''everything'' > hypothesis (I've just seen that you don't
> > subscibe this) an observer
> > moment > defines its own universe. But this universe is very
> > complex and therefore
> >
> > > must have a very low measure. It is thus far more likely that the
> > observer > finds himself embedded in a low complexity universe. >
> > > > One of the arguments in favor of the observer moment picture
> > is that it > solves Tegmark's quantum suicide paradox. If you
> > start with a set of all > possible observer moments on which a
> > measure is defined (which can be > calculated in principle using
> > the laws of physics), then the paradox
> > never > arises. At any moment you can think of yourself as being
> > randomly drawn
> > from > the set of all possible observer moments. The observer
> > moment who has > survived the suicide experiment time after time
> > after time has a very
> > very > very low measure. > > > Even if one assumes only a single
> > universe described by the MWI, one has
> > to > consider simulations of other universes. Virtual observers
> > living in such
> > a > simulated universe will perceive their world as real. The measure of such
> >
> > > embedded universes will probably decay exponentialy with
> > complexity.... > > > Saibal --
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Received on Thu May 26 2005 - 19:11:17 PDT