Quantum Suicide: Will You Accept the Challenge?

[meteor]

Would you accept to be chosen to perform the experiment of the quantum suicide?

 

[tribdog]

Is that where you slice two slits in your wrist?
I wrote a short story about that, the final line was: "but I'm not afraid. No one ever looks at me."
actually got it published and received a check for about 15 pounds.

 

[marcus]

Originally posted by tribdog
Is that where you slice two slits in your wrist?
I wrote a short story about that, the final line was: "but I'm not afraid. No one ever looks at me."
actually got it published and received a check for about 15 pounds.

that's funny (outright witty)
congratulations on having it accepted for publication
if no objection please tell us what magazine, a UK one presumably
if they paid in pounds

earlier this week I was reading Invisible Cities by Calvino,
know the book? a quantum flavor to Calvino, also to Borges

 

[tribdog]

it was published by www.the-phone-book.com
"Physics is my life" by S. Brian Whipple

 

[quantum]

Quantum Suicide, eh? Might I ask just what this is?

 

[meteor]

It's just an experiment to identify which of two interpretations of QM (Copenhaguen and Many Worlds)is correct
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide
Of course that I believe that Many Worlds is complete baloney

 

[Zantra]

This experiment is flawed, and here's why.

If the many worlds philosophy IS true(and I'm assuming the experimenter believes in this if he's willing to risk a life) Then the experiment will ultimately fail. If the person is split into 2 timelines, then it's a 50/50 shot that the timeline which doesn't diverge will be our own. So if he dies, we'll never know, because we'll be a part of the non divergent timeline. The people in the other universe will know, but that doesn't do us much good, and you have one dead physicist on your hands. And that's assuming the many worlds theory is even true.

 

[bdkeenan00]

Let me get this straight. The "Quantum Immortality" concept says that a conscious being cannot cease to be. So does that mean that a conscious observer always sees itself as living?

 

[graffix]

Hello all

I'm not a qualified physicist but I do ponder this topic almost everyday. I can recall several near death experiences and I can almost know first hand that there must of have been a lot of alternate universes spawned from those moments which I did not choose to 'follow up on'. This is all matter of opinion (more of philosophy) but I am quite comfortable with the the possibility that I do choose the path that 'keeps me alive'. My only objection, or my question left is, 'When or how am I going to die?' I am not so comfortable with a theory that gives me (or you) some billion years of existence. Perhaps there's a probability factor so small (simliar to Planck's distance but probability-wise) that anything falling into that small probability is handled exceptionally (speed of light, etc.) Any thoughts?