No, because getting shot has a lot of outcomes that do not kill you but do cripple you. Vacuum decay should tend to have extremely few of those. It’s also instant, alleviating any lingering concerns about identity one might have in a setup where death is slow and gradual. It’s also synchronised to split off everyone hit by it into the same branch, whereas, say, a very high-yield bomb wired to a random number generator that uses atmospheric noise would split you off into a branch away from your friends.[1]
I’m not unconcerned about vacuum decay, mind you. It’s not like quantum immortality is all confirmed and the implications worked out well in math.[2]
Sometimes I think about the potential engineering applications of quantum immortality in a mature civilisation for fun. Controlled, synchronised civilisation-wide suicide seems like a neat way to transform many engineering problems into measurement problems.
Sometimes I think about the potential engineering applications of quantum immortality in a mature civilisation for fun. Controlled, synchronised civilisation-wide suicide seems like a neat way to transform many engineering problems into measurement problems.
Such thought experiments also serve as a solution of sorts to the fermi paradox, and as a rationalization of the sci-fi trope of sufficiently advanced civilizations “ascending”.
I don’t think so. You only need one alien civilisation in our light cone to have preferences about the shape of the universal wave function rather than their own subjective experience for our light cone to get eaten. E.g. a paperclip maximiser might want to do this.
Vacuum decay is fast but not instant, and there will almost certainly be branches where it maims you and then reverses. Likewise, you can make suicide machines very reliable and fast. It’s unreasonable to think any of these mechanical details matter.
It expands at light speed. That’s fast enough that no computational processing can possibly occur before we’re dead. Sure there’s branches where it maims us and then stops, but these are incredibly subdominant compared to branches where the tunneling doesn’t happen.
Yes, you can make suicide machines very reliable and fast. I claim that whether your proposed suicide machine actually is reliable does in factmatter for determining whether you are likely to find yourself maimed. Making suicide machines that are synchronised earth-wide seems very difficult with current technology.
I could be wrong, but from what I’ve read the domain wall should have mass, so it must travel below light speed. However, the energy difference between the two vacuums would put a large force on the wall, rapidly accelerating it to very close to light speed. Collisions with stars and gravitational effects might cause further weirdness, but ignoring that, I think after a while we basically expect constant acceleration, meaning that light cones starting inside the bubble that are at least a certain distance from the wall would never catch up with the wall. So yeah, definitely above 0.95c.
No, because getting shot has a lot of outcomes that do not kill you but do cripple you. Vacuum decay should tend to have extremely few of those. It’s also instant, alleviating any lingering concerns about identity one might have in a setup where death is slow and gradual. It’s also synchronised to split off everyone hit by it into the same branch, whereas, say, a very high-yield bomb wired to a random number generator that uses atmospheric noise would split you off into a branch away from your friends.[1]
I’m not unconcerned about vacuum decay, mind you. It’s not like quantum immortality is all confirmed and the implications worked out well in math.[2]
They’re still there for you of course, but you aren’t there for most of them. Because in the majority of their anticipated experience, you explode.
Sometimes I think about the potential engineering applications of quantum immortality in a mature civilisation for fun. Controlled, synchronised civilisation-wide suicide seems like a neat way to transform many engineering problems into measurement problems.
Such thought experiments also serve as a solution of sorts to the fermi paradox, and as a rationalization of the sci-fi trope of sufficiently advanced civilizations “ascending”.
I don’t think so. You only need one alien civilisation in our light cone to have preferences about the shape of the universal wave function rather than their own subjective experience for our light cone to get eaten. E.g. a paperclip maximiser might want to do this.
Also, the fermi paradox isn’t really a thing.
Vacuum decay is fast but not instant, and there will almost certainly be branches where it maims you and then reverses. Likewise, you can make suicide machines very reliable and fast. It’s unreasonable to think any of these mechanical details matter.
It expands at light speed. That’s fast enough that no computational processing can possibly occur before we’re dead. Sure there’s branches where it maims us and then stops, but these are incredibly subdominant compared to branches where the tunneling doesn’t happen.
Yes, you can make suicide machines very reliable and fast. I claim that whether your proposed suicide machine actually is reliable does in fact matter for determining whether you are likely to find yourself maimed. Making suicide machines that are synchronised earth-wide seems very difficult with current technology.
No, vacuum decay generally expands at sub-light speed.
How sub-light? I was mostly just guessing here, but if it’s below like 0.95c I’d be surprised.
I could be wrong, but from what I’ve read the domain wall should have mass, so it must travel below light speed. However, the energy difference between the two vacuums would put a large force on the wall, rapidly accelerating it to very close to light speed. Collisions with stars and gravitational effects might cause further weirdness, but ignoring that, I think after a while we basically expect constant acceleration, meaning that light cones starting inside the bubble that are at least a certain distance from the wall would never catch up with the wall. So yeah, definitely above 0.95c.
I’d also be surprised.