The Horrifying Implications of the Many-Worlds Interpretation

[kered rettop]

In a different thread, hungrybear asks, Are the implications of MWI really this horrifying? The argument being that every conceivable world must happen to some extent, so that includes worlds so horrific that the mere possibility of their existing makes life intolerable here. Of course there were some attempted rebuttals suggesting that horrible things happen in this world too but the good outweighs the bad.

Unfortunately the thread is now closed but there are a couple of aspect of the argument that seems to have been overlooked.

The first is that in this world (i.e. a single-world paradigm) the most hideous things imaginable have essentially zero probability so they don't, in fact, happen in the finite history of the finite human race. With MWI we don't have that loop-hole. If it's possible then it happens.

The second is that the horror reaction seems to imply a non-linear value system: the grimmest experiences outweigh the most sublime regardless of how often the two occur. This is a common enough assumption - if the opportunity arose, would the prospect of Utopia for everyone else justify hurting an innocent child? Perhaps our value judgements are warped by our biological instincts.

That's it.

 

[Quantumental]

Even in a single universe there exist very real 'worst of the worst' kinds of experiences etched into the eternal space-time block universe. So while it is legitimate to feel bad that there might be nightmare branches, we don't really have a good reason to worry more about it than we worry about a cave man slowly being eaten alive by a lion or swallowed whole by some snake, or the poor victims of Auschwitz or *insert billion examples of the worst experiences the human brain can consciously experience*

Another point I feel is often omitted from these kinds of discussions is whether most of these proposed nightmare worlds actually exist, I.E. is the state of a person being burnt, resuscitated, burnt again, resuscitated ad infinitum actually in the wavefunction?

 

[PeterDonis]

Whatever this topic is, it isn't a discussion of QM interpretations, or of QM. "Horrifying" and similar ideas, not to mention value judgments, are not a matter of physics and are off topic here.

Thread closed.