The Many Worlds interpretation is just as valid as the Copenhagen interpretation, and there's not yet been any experiments to favor one over the other (and recently the DeBroglie-Bohm pilot-wave theory was proven to be as plausible as either of the other two (minus the quantum field theory extensions for general relativity, which is why it's considered a separate theory currently rather than a QM interpretation, but they're working on that), albeit possibly less parsimonious, but I digress). The quantum immortality hypothesis is an interesting one, but it's not falsifiable as far as the world at large is concerned, but if it's true, you'll probably realize it in another universe a hundred years or so when you perceive yourself as way older than everyone else on the planet and you and you appear to be a medical miracle. I think it might suck a lot if it were true, or it could be the best thing ever. Depends on how the universe your consciousness jumps to is selected, I'd imagine. I think I'd prefer out, or an afterlife in which I'm not tethered to a broken body. Better, immortality by cryonics or San Junipero.
Despite being officially agnostic, and looking upon all organized religion as delusional and dangerous, I do believe that we have something similar to a soul, and that after death it goes somewhere. Reincarnation is too cool a concept to not hope it happens. And I like the concept that people you know are the souls of people you've always known, gravitating together over the course of different lives. When I was 3 years old, Dad took me to the local airport for my first ride in his Piper Cub. He told me later that when we were approaching the plane, 3-year-old me said "I used to fly these, but they were all wood and strings and had two wings." It really spooked him that I described a biplane so surely. So his theory is that I was a WWI fighter pilot in a past life. Hey, could be. Or it could be bullshit. My preferred "system" is that there's an afterlife of some kind. Maybe a waiting room sort of thing. You either get to be reincarnated or you hang around there for an epoch or two until an opportunity comes along. If there are any loved one who haven't been reincarnated yet, you get to hang with them. It's a nice fantasy. With my luck I'm probably wrong, and it IS just a fleeting shadow.
They're both highly speculative in my opinion, ways to impose something more intuitive on the wildly non-intuitive theory and the data it produces. As for quantum immortality, it presumably would mean that I can jump out of a 747 without a parachute and survive...
indeed. but it's engaging to think about this kind of stuff. this is certainly not something that gives any kind of hope like religions do but it's an interesting mental exercise. for me at least because i'm weird
For the vast majority of us, the only immortality comes from the people we impacted continuing on. For me, I see that in my kids. If I give them the tools to lead fruitful, meaningful lives, then I'm pretty pleased with what I will have done during the chemical reaction.
I would love to have the Catholic comfort of meeting long gone loved ones in an eternal afterlife. That's what I would like. The sciences however, says no. I had an EGD last year, and when they administered the anesthesia it was like a switch had been flicked. I was gone. Death will be like that. No gradual fading, one second you're on, the next, oblivion.
Subjectively, correct. But in just about everyone else's consciousness' universes, you'd appear to die.
Dead. Gone. The wonderfully complex system that is your brain will break down, cease to function and take you along with it. Life is short, and painful. It ends in terror, confusion, and suffocation, surrounded by loneliness until the last ember is extinguished.
No. It means that this event creates an alternative universe where you didn't jump. And another one where you jump and survive. And another one where an alien mothership appears in mid air to catch you. And so on and so forth. Of course broken down to the quantum level to stay within my own interpretation. If MWI has something to it (doesn't look good), it's really not dependent on us as insignificant self aware primates in a really really big universe. In this, our, reality, you'd be dead with a very high factor of probablility. It all comes down to Schrödinger's Cat. Close the box. Two 'visible' universes exist. Cat alive, cat dead. Poor kittie. To really see how weird this stuff is - and what we simply haven't even begun to understand - watch this video. It's not some esoteric mumbo jumbo but quantum phycicist Anton Zeilinger and Morgan Freeman explaining what goes on during a double slit experiment and how merely watching it changes the outcome.
You're only gone from a conscious level. All the subconscious stuff is very much active during anesthesia. If there wasn't any activity you'd wake up with no memories or personality. Also, we know that we'll come back from it. Which is why we don't fear it. Yet everyone fears oblivion, even hardcore believers in a religious afterlife. Why do Catholics looks right and left before crossing the street when it's allegedly so much better afterwards?
Yes I'm aware of that. I was just using my perceptions of the event for the purposes of discussion. Nothing in the New Testament that I'm aware of says for you to come to Jesus as quickly as possible. The Church would classify that behavior as suicide and a mortal sin. Now the heretics, (Protestants) might have a different opinion of that in their cult.
Interesting, isn't it Prohibiting suicide because it makes god angry is quite clever. You just don't want your sheeple to slit their wrists in masses... they are so much more useful alive and chasing the carrot dangling before their noses. There is not one religion that allows suicide because the afterlife is cool as promised. It's a built in brake.
Islam allows suicide missions if they advance the cause and kill infidels and whatnot. And legend has it that when the Romans fed Christians to the lions some would wave their arms to get the lion's attention so they would be sure to get killed and eaten! Dayton could clear that up, I read it somewhere but who knows if it's true? I'm no Christianity expert.
Quantum immortality is the best reason to hope that the infinite-worlds hypothesis is completely incorrect. It doesn't say anything about quality of life, just that if every possibility happens then in some of them your consciousness survives indefinitely. After jumping out of that plane there would seem to be more ways you could survive in agony than survive without injury. If the quantum immortality idea is correct then it's interesting to speculate on some of the worlds that could be out there. There would be countless worlds where Jesus is still alive on the cross, surviving in pain two thousand years later. There are also many more where he has just recently passed on, sparking mass panic that the apocalypse is here. Under the idea of quantum immortality, every human is destined for an unrelenting hell.
You'd be letting yourself down if you think about. You are every person that has ever existed or will exist if you take this quantum immortality to its ultimate conclusion. We are all the same person simply living what we think are separate lives.
That is more or less correct. We don't have names for the numbers of universes that exist if MWI has something to it. And each one is a liiiiittle different from the next. Chances are none of us exist in the majority of those universes. But in some, any one of us are probably Emperor of the Galaxy. Or a self aware microbe. Or mutated into a star by some weird chaining of events.
Oh sure, that would happen in plenty of universes. However the same "anything that has the slightest chance of happening will happen" idea that is necessary for quantum immortality in the first place means that there are plenty of time lines where anyone trying to let him down spontaneously combusts.
