I think the response is: that MWI isn’t “Infinite plot-threads of fate”—or narrativium as it’s put in the Discworld novels—quantum decay doesn’t give a whit of care whether it’s effects are noteworthy for us or not.
On the two ‘far ends’ of the spectrum, I’d expect to see significant plot-decay—particle causes Hitler to get cancer, he dies halfway through WWII—but I have trouble imagining a situation where a quantum event which will make the difference between my motorcycle sticking to the curve, and the tire skidding out, leaving my fragile body to skid across the pavement at 120 km/h, leaving a greasy trail that skids-out the semi riding behind me.
Quantum-grenades are one of the few exceptions, where small-world events affect us here in the middle-world. But I wouldn’t count on MWI to produce a perfect bank robbery.
Very true, and well put. A combination of quantum events could probably produce anything you wanted, at whatever vanishingly tiny probability. Bear in mind that it’s the configuration that evolves every which way, not ‘this particle can go here, or here, or here....’ But we’re into Greg Egan territory here.
Suffice it to say that anyone who says they subscribe to quantum suicide but isn’t either dead or richer than god is talking out of their bottom.
Suffice it to say that anyone who says they subscribe to quantum suicide but isn’t either dead or richer than god is talking out of their bottom.
Or, to be fair, just lacking in motivation or creativity. It may not have occured to them to isolate a source of accessible quantum randomness then shoot themselves on every day in which they do not win a lottery.
I (mostly, probably?) find Quantum Suicide to be a perfectly reasonable option when it works as intended—however there are two cases of possible-future-branches which concern me.
1) Non-complete destruction
While MWI death doesn’t bother me—and in fact, even total death bothers me less than most people—certain situations terrify me. Crippling injury, personality distorting pain (torture), and brain damage are deal breakers. Even if I bumped my assessment of MWI to 1.00, then I still wouldn’t take a deal which involved one Everett branch being tortured for 50 years (at least, not without some sort of incredible payout).
2) While I don’t worry about my own Everett copies so much, I do value the Ethics of alternate lines—which is to say that I wouldn’t want my family left behind in 50% of the universes without me around due to some sort of MWI experiment (if I die by accident that’s, ethically speaking, not the same).
So for the classic case of Quantum Russian Roulette—where I and the other party have no loved ones to leave behind—I’m fully game. And in other situations where all of my loved ones are utterly destroyed alongside me, I’m also game. But finding the mechanics to create said situations in our day-to-day, semi-technologicaly evolved world are pretty much impossible.
The only exception is (maybe—I’ll freely admit to not having sufficient background here) the LHC. That argument would go that, the reason we’ve had so many difficulties, is because the Universes where it worked destroyed all humanity. But my question there is how long can we keep trying it, without completely destroying ourselves? My guess is that we’d have a finite number of goes at it before no quantum event can stop us—and all Everett branches are dead.
But like I said, I don’t really have the background. I just hope the experts fully acknowledge the dangers (but they probably don’t).
Quantum-grenades are one of the few exceptions, where small-world events affect us here in the middle-world. But I wouldn’t count on MWI to produce a perfect bank robbery.
Agree, because most of the quantum events that determine the success of the robbery are ones that happened quite a while back. We’re probably already in a branch where the success or failure is very nearly determined at this point in time.
I think the response is: that MWI isn’t “Infinite plot-threads of fate”—or narrativium as it’s put in the Discworld novels—quantum decay doesn’t give a whit of care whether it’s effects are noteworthy for us or not.
On the two ‘far ends’ of the spectrum, I’d expect to see significant plot-decay—particle causes Hitler to get cancer, he dies halfway through WWII—but I have trouble imagining a situation where a quantum event which will make the difference between my motorcycle sticking to the curve, and the tire skidding out, leaving my fragile body to skid across the pavement at 120 km/h, leaving a greasy trail that skids-out the semi riding behind me.
Quantum-grenades are one of the few exceptions, where small-world events affect us here in the middle-world. But I wouldn’t count on MWI to produce a perfect bank robbery.
Very true, and well put. A combination of quantum events could probably produce anything you wanted, at whatever vanishingly tiny probability. Bear in mind that it’s the configuration that evolves every which way, not ‘this particle can go here, or here, or here....’ But we’re into Greg Egan territory here.
Suffice it to say that anyone who says they subscribe to quantum suicide but isn’t either dead or richer than god is talking out of their bottom.
Or, to be fair, just lacking in motivation or creativity. It may not have occured to them to isolate a source of accessible quantum randomness then shoot themselves on every day in which they do not win a lottery.
Some caveats are in order:
I (mostly, probably?) find Quantum Suicide to be a perfectly reasonable option when it works as intended—however there are two cases of possible-future-branches which concern me.
1) Non-complete destruction
While MWI death doesn’t bother me—and in fact, even total death bothers me less than most people—certain situations terrify me. Crippling injury, personality distorting pain (torture), and brain damage are deal breakers. Even if I bumped my assessment of MWI to 1.00, then I still wouldn’t take a deal which involved one Everett branch being tortured for 50 years (at least, not without some sort of incredible payout).
2) While I don’t worry about my own Everett copies so much, I do value the Ethics of alternate lines—which is to say that I wouldn’t want my family left behind in 50% of the universes without me around due to some sort of MWI experiment (if I die by accident that’s, ethically speaking, not the same).
So for the classic case of Quantum Russian Roulette—where I and the other party have no loved ones to leave behind—I’m fully game. And in other situations where all of my loved ones are utterly destroyed alongside me, I’m also game. But finding the mechanics to create said situations in our day-to-day, semi-technologicaly evolved world are pretty much impossible.
The only exception is (maybe—I’ll freely admit to not having sufficient background here) the LHC. That argument would go that, the reason we’ve had so many difficulties, is because the Universes where it worked destroyed all humanity. But my question there is how long can we keep trying it, without completely destroying ourselves? My guess is that we’d have a finite number of goes at it before no quantum event can stop us—and all Everett branches are dead.
But like I said, I don’t really have the background. I just hope the experts fully acknowledge the dangers (but they probably don’t).
Agree, because most of the quantum events that determine the success of the robbery are ones that happened quite a while back. We’re probably already in a branch where the success or failure is very nearly determined at this point in time.