I Can Quantum Suicide Be Modified to Create Quantum Insomnia?

[john taylor]

Is it possible to modify the original quantum suicide experiment in a way in which rather than dying you are put to sleep for someone to distinguish between many worlds and Copenhagen interpretations?

 

[phinds]

Is it possible to modify the original quantum suicide experiment in a way in which rather than dying you are put to sleep for someone to distinguish between many worlds and Copenhagen interpretations?

No. There are no experiments that can distinguish among interpretations. That's why they are CALLED interpretations --- they all use the same math and have the same experimental results.

 

[StevieTNZ]

No. There are no experiments that can distinguish among interpretations. That's why they are CALLED interpretations --- they all use the same math and have the same experimental results.

Disputed by some, see in particular this post -- https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/quantum-theory-nature-paper-18-sept.955748/page-6#post-6076788

 

[PeterDonis]

Disputed by some

What is disputed is not whether experiments can distinguish among interpretations; they can't. That's the definition of an "interpretation": that it doesn't change any predictions of a theory, it just changes what story you tell in ordinary language.

What is disputed is whether different interpretations of QM can be extended to different theories--models that make different predictions from standard QM for some experiments--and if so, whether the differences between these different theories could be tested experimentally. Notice that in the very post you link to, @stevendaryl carefully makes just this distinction:

People often say that Many-Worlds, Bohmian mechanics and Copenhagen are different interpretations of the same theory, and so by definition, they can't be distinguished by experiment. To me, they are slightly different theories, not different interpretations of the same theory.

 

[akvadrako]

Is it possible to modify the original quantum suicide experiment in a way in which rather than dying you are put to sleep for someone to distinguish between many worlds and Copenhagen interpretations?

What the others said above is right, but more specifically addressing your question: No, nobody has ever published a variation of the suicide experiment that works without actually dying. It's not a very common research topic. Further, all the (living) well-known figures who are partial to many worlds don't think the suicide experiment would work anyway; it might just be an incorrect application of probability.

 

[Demystifier]

Is it possible to modify the original quantum suicide experiment in a way in which rather than dying you are put to sleep for someone to distinguish between many worlds and Copenhagen interpretations?

It wouldn't work, but since nobody here explained why, let me explain it. If you are put to sleep (rather than killed), then sooner or later you will awake. If someone repeats the experiment many times on you, and if each time the probability is 50% that you will be put to sleep, then in about half the cases you will experience awakening. Sure, according to MWI, there will be one copy of you that will never be put to sleep and hence never experience awakening, but most likely you will not be that copy. The probability that you will be that copy is the same as the probability that you will just be lucky without MWI. Hence this cannot prove MWI.

By the way, if someone is interested in more serious probabilistic paradoxes related to sleep, I recommend https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/the-sleeping-beauty-problem-any-halfers-here.916459/

 

[akvadrako]

To put it another way: if the phenomena worked such that you could discount the worlds where you are sleeping it would create Quantum Insomnia. Since there is always some world where you stay awake a little longer, you would never experience falling asleep.

Quantum Immortality, as used in the suicide experiment, only works because you ignore the worlds where you are dead. That's justified since they are rather irrelevant to your future selves.