Einstein seems to have believed in ''immortal observer moments''.
In a BBC documentary about time it was mentioned that Einstein consoled a
friend whose son had died in a tragic accident by saying that relativity
suggests that the past and the future are as real as the present.
Saibal
From: "Russell Standish" <r.standish.domain.name.hidden>
To: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2006 01:07 AM
Subject: Re: Smullyan Shmullyan, give me a real example
>
> On Wed, May 10, 2006 at 11:13:27PM +0100, Patrick Leahy wrote:
> >
> >
> > On who invented quantum suicide, the following is from the biography of
> > Hugh Everett by Eugene B. Shikhovtsev and Kenneth W. Ford, at
> > http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/everett/
> >
> > "Atheist or not, Everett firmly believed that his many-worlds theory
> > guaranteed him immortality: His consciousness, he argued, is bound at
each
> > branching to follow whatever path does not lead to death --- and so on
ad
> > infinitum. (Sadly, Everett's daughter Liz, in her later suicide note,
said
> > she was going to a parallel universe to be with her father...)"
>
> Sadly, because this is based on a total misunderstanding of QTI, I guess.
>
> >
> > The reference is to Everett's views in 1979-80, but there is no reason
to
> > suppose that Everett had only just thought of it at the time. On a
> > personal note, some time in the '80s I met one of Everett's co-workers
who
> > told me that Everett used to justify his very unhealthy lifestyle on
> > exactly these grounds. In our world, Everett died of a heart attack aged
> > 52.
> >
> > I have always assumed that John Bell was thinking along these lines when
> > he commented on Everett's theory:
> >
> > "But if such a theory was taken seriously it would hardly be possible to
> > take anything else seriously." (1981, reprinted in _Speakable &
> > Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics).
> >
>
> These dates all mesh with Don Page's anecdote about Ed Teller :
> immortality consequences widely known, but rarely talked about by the
> early '80s.
>
> > For that matter, this idea is implicit in Borges' story "The Garden of
> > Forking Paths" (written before 1941), which provides the epigraph to the
> > DeWitt & Graham anthology on The Many Worlds Interpretation.
> >
> > ======================================================
> > Dr J. P. Leahy, University of Manchester,
> > Jodrell Bank Observatory, School of Physics & Astronomy,
> > Macclesfield, Cheshire SK11 9DL, UK
> > Tel - +44 1477 572636, Fax - +44 1477 571618
>
> Very interesting. Its a shame my manuscript is already at the
> printers, I would have loved this for my background info on QTI.
>
> --
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
> A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile)
> Mathematics 0425 253119 (")
> UNSW SYDNEY 2052 R.Standish.domain.name.hidden
> Australia
http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
> International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
>
> >
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Received on Thu May 11 2006 - 20:34:00 PDT