Talk:Quantum suicide and immortality/Archive 4

Biography's author
Who is the author of the biography of Hugh Everett? The text says Keith Lynch. The author in the link is Eugene Shikhovtsev. The section referred to is called "Keith Lynch remembers." Seems to me that Eugene Shikhovtsev is the author. -- Gerald Ruderman — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101gerald (talk • contribs)
 * Thank you for pointing this out. I have corrected it. Crossroads -talk- 22:56, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

I have added another physicist to the list of those commenting on the issue, Anthony Aguirre. --185.205.11.234 (talk) 01:10, 16 May 2020 (UTC) I have added another couple physicists and philosophers' comments. --185.205.11.234 (talk) 23:02, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

May 2020 changes
In the last few days, I have been making substantial changes and additions to the article. While I'm fairly satisfied with the result, I still believe that there is room for improvement in the future, as new scholarship or insight might come up on the argument, deserving to be included. Hence, I leave a few comments explaining my edits and the motives behind them: So, this is it. I hope these remarks may help improving the article and making the necessary improvements to anything that I have added. See you on the other side of Schrody's box. --185.205.11.234 (talk) 19:03, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I changed the very introduction. Whereas originally it stated that the experiment could differentiate between Copenhagen and Everett, in reality it could falsify - to the observer - every interpretation that I know of and that is not Everett. Only in the MWI - a very specific understanding of the MWI - one could expect to survive. In any single-world interpretation, the experimenter would quickly be dead. If anyone knows of any other interepretation that would allow survival, and reputable sources that say so, please make the appropriate changes.
 * [Out of chronological order] I have added a short foreword clearly stating that the experiment is not to be intended as actually to be attempted in real life, with appropriate citations of reliable sources. While it may be a bit heavy-handed, I believe it's 1) a valid addition to the article on its own, as every author mentions this one way or the other 2) it's a somewhat necessary disclaimer given the amount of disinformation on the subject. --185.205.11.234 (talk) 12:51, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * There has never been a proper, thorough scientific treatment of the issue even within the many Many Worlds Interpretations. Like Adrian Kent once said, perhaps fittingly there are many different interpretations and justifications of the Many Worlds program, often wildly different and contradictory. For example, many authors (like Alastair Wilson, Simon Saunders and very recently Waegell and McQueen) endorse a diverging ontology, in which worlds are pre-existent and separate, qualitatively identical but numerically distinct until the point of divergence. In this case obviously the entire premise of the experiment is ruled out, as, in a sense, it's already destined what result of the suicide experiment you'll get and if it's death... well too bad for "you". Alastair Wilson tweeted this but that's about it. But nobody has ever written it out clearly, so it would be my original research if I added it. The argument might work (but probably wouldn't, even putting practical concerns aside) only in a fission scenario. If someone ever does an appropriate comparison of the qs/qi thing in the different interpretations, it should be added.
 * Likewise, there's a hellish amount of confusion about how to fit probability into the many-worlds picture, and more proposed ways to do so than worlds in the multiverse. Nobody has analytically examined how the quantum suicide experiment agrees with each of them, except some brief comments by Peter Lewis that I have added, but I find them wanting.
 * Tegmark briefly added in his book that the experiment would work even just if there were infinite copies of the experimenter, in mentally indistinguishable states, in what he calls "the Level I multiverse" i.e. assuming that the spatial universe is infinite and there are infinite doppelgangers of each of us "out there" His reasoning, from what I garner, is that for the infinitely many of you who are offed by the gun, there are infinitely many who survive and so "your" perspectival experience continues with them. This peculiar metaphysical link would be something akin to what Nick Bostrom once called "unification of mind," i.e. numerically different but qualitatively identical mind-physical events are instancing a single mind-qualia identity. (For the record, he found it untenable) Also see footnote 7 of this. As far as I am aware, mercifully nobody has directly commented on this, ahem, intuition by Tegmark, either in favor or (more likely) not. Tegmark goes on explaining that he believes that the experiment would not work as he "no longer believes in the infinite." Without further sources, and considering the dubious premises, I have chosen not to add it to the article.
 * I have chosen not to dwell on the infamous "cannot-die" scenario, popularized by poor late David Lewis in his very last paper and then sporadically picked up by others. I've done so partly because I think it's memetic hazard for impressionable people, but mostly because it was debunked quite soon as it would require a rather specific cosmic definition of "consciousness," like Tegmark, Wallace and recently Aguirre have stated - and as you can figure simply by remembering the last time you fell asleep or were anesthetized.
 * A keen reader might notice that the "analysis of real-world feasibility" is quite lopsided against said feasibility. I believe that this reflects the consensus of actual philosophers and theoretical physicists. I have performed as deep a literature review as I could, checking everything from published articles, books, even social media. I have quoted many authors, but I could've quoted more if I didn't fear getting redundant or didn't mind drawing from social media or personal blogs. Naturally, most authors state the same points again, so I have mostly chosen to stick with one point per author, usually picking the most well-expressed for each, so that, at the end, the article dissected every aspect of the idea. The only paper, published on a reputable journal, in favor of the success of the experiment is this 2004 one by an independent, unaffiliated researcher. However, I chose against including it as its content is the same as Tegmark, Peter and David Lewis's original proposals, it simply re-states how the experiment is supposed to work. If new scholarship comes out defending the experiment or the related implications, it might be added.
 * There are a few fringe "papers" out there by transhumanist extremists and marginal academia which pop up if you rummage enough through search engine results, cited by literally nobody except themselves. Due to WP:DUE (and due to the fact that they're batshit crazy and chock full of macroscopic errors) I have duly chosen against including them. Still, they're a fun read if you're in the mood (and a terrifying one if you're not).
 * On the other hand, I've chosen to leave Jacques Mallah's paper in the External links section. While he's an unaffiliated author with no credentials as well, I think his paper is rather well written and ties together many of the arguments presented above it. If Mallah's paper is thought not to belong to the article, it can be removed as his points are really the same as others that are already in the article.
 * There was also another External link, a link to the archived personal page of James Higgo. He was just a regular guy who liked to write about philosophy in the late 90s and wrote something about quantum immortality after reading about it on a mailing list. Tragically, he died in a plane crash in the summer of 2001, at least in this worldline assuming you buy any of the MWI stuff. Still, I couldn't figure why his thoughts should have been included so I removed them. (Bonus track: an hilarious piece by the same poor Higgo proposing to exploit quantum suicide to solve the pension crisis) (On the subject of archived pages of independent thinkers, I find much more interesting the thoughts on qs/qi sketched by Paul Almond. Some even get quoted by Tegmark in his book. But, alas, they don't belong either to Wikipedia even though I think that they're pretty much deal-breakers for the whole qs/qi idea)
 * What has falling asleep or being anesthetized to do with not being able to die? It doesn't mean your consciousness can't be suspended for any chunk of time. Time is part of an objective universe, irrelevant to the subjective consciousness which always finds a continuation in some universe if there is a multiverse (in a Level IV multiverse, these universes might even run on quite different fundamental physics, not even requiring any "quantum" phenomena). If you just fall asleep, you can continue in the same universe, and, while there always would be other universes where you don't fall asleep, it would be exceedingly unlikely to find yourself in one where you could never do so.
 * You are right that the published opinions of notable people on the subject are generally against the idea, though I suspect that the memetic hazard you mentioned plays a role there, as the basic argument is plausible enough; all you need is the ultimate multiverse (itself more plausible than a single universe [or even a limited multiverse], where you couldn't explain why only that exists) plus understanding consciousness as an informational pattern independent of any particular "substrate." (One wonders if Higgo might not have been the first person to have tried quantum suicide. Then again, in the multiverse any such undetermined question about the past has every possible answer.) 80.132.216.74 (talk) 00:58, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I support the recent additions to the article, and thank 185.205.11.234 for their research. 80.132.216.74, since none of these rebuttals are covered by WP:Reliable sources, there's really nothing to come of it for improving the article. I'd dispute some of your statements myself, but per WP:NOTFORUM, I won't get into that here. Crossroads -talk- 04:23, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Briefly. When I wrote about sleep and anesthesia (or, more in general, degrees of consciousness) I wasn't voicing my own opinions but rather what every author who has accepted the premises of the quantum suicide experiment has said about the implications. In particular, those two examples are lifted straight from Anthony Aguirre's 2019 book. Other scientists, like Wallace and Tegmark, have gone even further and clearly said that an agent would asymptotically approach "fully dead" status. Tegmark in particular has repeated this notion multiple times, most lately in his 2014 book. In the very same link, you can also read that Tegmark himself states that some form of immortality might work only in what he calls Level 1 and 3 multiverses, i.e. spatially distanced, indistiguishable copies and Everettian copies - but a couple pages later he concludes that it wouldn't work as it would lead to absurd conclusions. He never mentions his "mathematical multiverse" in this context, nor has in later writings as far as I know. As for the Level 1 multiverse immortality, Tegmark is the only one who talks about it and does so just to disprove it; due to this, I chose not to include it (also it's not really "quantum immortality" so it wouldn't fit with the title). In my comments here I offered some food for thought for why it wouldn't work, regardless of infinity, but that was about it. Mallah's linked paper also deals with this. All other authors, from Everett on, focus exclusively on the quantum version of the idea (Level 3 multiverse so to speak). Finally, lacking a better theory of mind and consciousness, not to mention a workable definition of personal identity, practically every researcher uses an agnostic approach in which there are just "observer-moments": there is no persisting self across time or space, nor a consciousness that, in your words, "finds a continuation" into "some" available universe. (That's why I think that Jacques Mallah's article makes for a good external link, as he explains very well why this intuitive approach isn't correct) There is no consciousness that "gets suspended," as well, at least not in a philosophical sense: as the quoted authors explain, the You-ness exists even when most mental functions are abolished and you can't form memories, have internal thoughts, have sensations, keep track of time or understand what's going on. Aguirre tentatively speaks of a "wholeness" of mind in time, which would avoid any bizarre consequence, and I quoted him there, but as it's not thoroughly developed I did not delve into it in the article. Again, I would like to underscore that all of these are not my ruminations but simply the available most reliable sources on the issue. If you know of any, equally reliable sources that say otherwise, please feel free to make the appropriate changes. Lastly, I don't buy the cospiratorial idea that philosophers and scientists are keeping this a secret, as they discuss it pretty freely in academic publications or textbooks. Just look up how many citations Lewis' paper has. It's just that they simply don't think it's a realistic scenario. The article, I believe, reflects this consensus. --185.205.11.234 (talk) 11:59, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I wasn't so much taking issue with your edits or the article in general, just commenting on what did seem to be you voicing your opinion with "as you can figure" etc., as if this was a self-evident refutation of the whole idea. Of course the article has to stick to reporting the opinions of people with certain credentials, and as I said, I agree broadly that those opinions mostly pour cold water on the idea. Nor do I believe this is a conspiracy, but rather an understandable approach of many individuals who foresee certain dangers if these ideas were widely held (Larry Niven's story "All the Myriad Ways" already explored this in 1971). Mallah explicitly says that "many physicists have avoided writing about the idea, either because it sounds too crazy, or because they fear the real world consequences of risking spreading the idea even by publically criticizing it... but this 'Cat' is now clearly out of the bag... the idea is now presented on high traffic websites such as Wikipedia." So it may well be considered that this may also be a motive for people to put forward weak counter-arguments (like that one about sleep) that they may not believe in themselves. I certainly think Tegmark for one is smarter than to believe in the position expressed in that 1998 email which he still puts up on his site, tellingly concluding with "Do you buy this?" (It's not hard to see that becoming "the oldest guy on the planet" is not how it would likely work, nor is his point about "dying not being a binary thing" in the least convincing.) Having taken a closer look now, it does seem that you approached this with a similar POV, even in your message above taking it upon yourself to decide what are "dubious premises," what has been "debunked," what is "batshit crazy" etc. and admitting to be influenced by "memetic hazard for impressionable people" - which may be well-intentioned but ultimately futile. I'm not sure you're even reporting all opinions correctly. Aguirre, for example, seems rather noncommittal, saying: "Perhaps reality actually is this bizarre, and we really do subjectively 'survive' any form of death... Another response would be..." while you only take the latter part and even seem to embellish it; I can't find in his book an adequate basis for the statement "upon most causes of death an observer would slip into the most attenuated possible state of consciousness." (He says: "If a subjective view can never be instantly ended, but only transformed into a vastly different and attenuated view (as in sleep), it would take out much of the argument's force.") And the reductio ad absurdum is yet another view he offers, not as you suggest the same as the one about the attenuated state. (Of course it's another non-argument - a reductio ad absurdum would require showing a logical inconsistency, not just something strange or bizarre.) Then you pass over Tappenden by saying he "simply re-states how the experiment is supposed to work," when in fact he responds to a point by Papineau and defends P. Lewis.
 * And no, the quoted authors don't explain how consciousness exists when most mental functions are abolished. Not any mental function produces consciousness, it emerges only from a certain higher level of such processes. Nor do I see how any slippage into an eternal "minimal" consciousness would be a probable scenario. There is also no contradiction between what I said and the idea of "observer-moments." A conscious identity is a coherent sequence of such moments, and as such - like any sequence of anything really - continues in some universe even when it ends in another. Mallah, based on his preconceived intent, tries to throw everything and the kitchen sink at the idea, even if it's self-contradictory, making at one point a "general argument against immortality" (some variation of the Doomsday fallacy) and elsewhere implying QS might work but "the total amount of consciousness decreases with each run of the QS experiment" as if that should matter in the survivor's subjective view.
 * Anyway, if I find the time, I will try to add a bit of balance, perhaps by giving some consideration to "poor" (?) David Lewis. Maybe the paper by Allan Randall, which you cite below, could be added alongside Mallah. It is for the most part a good explication of the ideas, except towards the end when he too misses the point and goes on about the decrepit 98-year-old. A common misconception is to expect things to go as normal until the moment of death, and the redistribution of probabilities from the objective ones to the subjective, survival-only ones to happen only then and there, when in fact one would have to consider some "backpropagating" effects, e.g. instead of getting a normally incurable disease and then being "miraculously" cured just when one would objectively die, the overall subjective probability (from the appropriate earlier point of view) would be higher of avoiding the disease in the first place. This way, what Randall calls the "least miracles required for salvation" would usually be so minor as to go entirely unnoticed. 87.184.103.10 (talk) 14:40, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Nearly everything that you have written amounts to original research and, if you added it to the article, it would have to be deleted. They are your own ideas, and I'm sure you have thought about them quite a lot, but this is not simply not the place to discuss them (see: WP:NOTFORUM). I have, however, to defend the representation I have given to the cited authors. As for Aguirre, he explicitly says "sleep itself is a form of consciousness [...] drawing a clear line would seem extremely difficult [...] You are much more likely to follow a path of reasonable probability into partial consciousness, rather than veering into some quantum branch in which you are fully conscious via incredibly improbable means. One can imagine death, even if outwardly rather sudden, to be very similar ." I don't know how else you can interpret this. I must say, it is you that are misrepresenting his opinion. You quote: "Perhaps reality actually is this bizarre, and we really do subjectively 'survive' any form of death..." leaving out the rest of the phrase: "... that is both instantaneous and binary". Whereas he clearly says, just a few lines above that death is instantaneous and binary only in a setting such as the experiment ("With the quantum gun there seemed to be no alternative, because survival versus death was both binary and instantaneously chosen"), while in most cases there are degrees of survival ("If there are degrees of survival, things are quite different") and then he goes on to make the sleep/anesthesia comparison. You are however right that by reductio ad absurdum he refers to the whole quantum suicide idea and not to the "attenuated view"; when I wrote "this," I referred to the former as well but without a specification it easily seemed the other way around.
 * I did not quote Tegmark's 1998 e-mails - in fact, nowhere it's written "I should expect to be the oldest guy on the planet", but rather his 2014 book Our mathematical universe. You can read the whole excerpt here: . I have no indication that his position has changed and he is very clear about it. He was also quoted saying exactly the same thing in at least two other books: Schrodinger's Rabbits, in which he's explicitly quoted as saying that he does not fear the cannot-die scenario as he's confident that he will gradually fade away, and this other one, which I could not find in full. If we really want to dig into the guy's personal correspondance, in 1999, in a follow-up e-mail to the one you mentioned, he again reiterated that "So a TYPICAL expectation for my subjective future is probably that I will gradually fade away without ever making much of a comeback." If that is not enough, he went on a live video series in 2014 saying that quantum suicide would not work. Just two years ago, in a reddit Ama, he again repeated that he doesn't think that quantum suicide works (his italics not mine) as he said in his 2014 book, which he directly links. It doesn't matter if you think that he's smarter than this or anything: you simply have to admit that his position is correctly represented in the article - unless you have some reliable source saying otherwise. As I said earlier, I simply chose the best expressed point in the most representantive/reliable source for each thinker as it would be really pointless to list all the times Tegmark has spoken on the subject.
 * There are precise citations, up to the exact chapter, of every author that have been quoted: you are free to check for yourself that they are faithful representations of the authors' opinions. I have made my best effort to check that they still represent the authors' opinion, to the latest possible time, and I believe until proven otherwise that they all do.
 * Nowhere in the article is Mallah's paper quoted. As I said, I am quite on the fence about leaving it in the External links as it's very doubtful that he could be counted as a reliable source. I would be perfectly okay if it was deleted. The only thing that has stopped me from disposing of it is that it's still an article that was accepted on ArXiv and it's the only one that's entirely dedicated to quantum immortality (whether I think that all of his points make sense or not!). (And it was sporadically quoted by pop-sci books  See however: WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Again, I'm personally on the fence whether it should remain or not. Randall's writings - which I included here in the talk page just as a curiosity -, on the other hand, are just a pdf uploaded on a guy's personal page, just like Higgo's or Almond's were. Notice that if I were biased as you say, I might have easily sneaked in Almond's papers against QS, as I frankly find them quite persuasive - more than Mallah's. But they're not reliable sources simply for this, as they are self-published sources. Without entering their merits, they cannot be included - much less your own unsourced speculation, worthy or not it might be! Lastly, note that there are quoted three researchers (Tegmark's initial proposal, Aguirre and Sebens) who think that the idealized experiment might work, and a whole series of others, without quotes but with links to their papers or books, in the "History" section, whose opinion is explicitly represented as such - whether I think they're right or not! As far as I know, of all reliable sources (discounting WP:FRINGE), only David Lewis' paper portrays the "bad immortality" scenario - all of the others don't, often flatly rejecting Lewis' scenario. That is the real reason why I left it out, well aside from humanitarian concern. See: WP:DUE. What I want to stress one last time is that while I did offer some personal comments of mine in this talk page, in editing the article I always followed only Wikipedia's rules and so should everyone else.  --185.205.11.234 (talk) 18:47, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I wasn't intending to add any of my own opinions to the article (just offering some personal comments of mine, as it were). However, I take note you indeed have no basis for ascribing to Aguirre anything about a most attenuated possible state, so I might correct this. As to the "instantaneous and binary" part, I just left that out as secondary to the point, which is that Aguirre does allow, under certain circumstances, for the possibility of "surviving death." Perhaps you should have generally given more direct quotes rather than writing your own interpretations just on the basis that you "don't know how else you can interpret this."
 * I did not suggest you used Tegmark's email or object to your coverage of him specifically - that was just in connection to the overall attitude taken by people like him and which I saw you amplifying even more. While the article inevitably will have a preponderance of "negative" views, you made it even more one-sided than it had to be. It is not convincing to say that you left out D. Lewis because his view is just one when you quoted various individual views by others (even if those others may agree in their broader negative view). There is certainly no consensus about every aspect of the matter. Your contention below that Lewis' "arguments are quite weak" is your interpretation, and yet that seems a good part of your motive for excluding him. But no need to belabour it; I may or may not add him later (or rather I will and won't, if you get my drift). 80.132.216.74 (talk) 21:52, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Good reply. At the risk of perpetuating a forum-esque discussion, I feel I need to briefly point out a problem with 87.184.103.10's statement that instead of getting a normally incurable disease and then being "miraculously" cured just when one would objectively die, the overall subjective probability (from the appropriate earlier point of view) would be higher of avoiding the disease in the first place. But of course, people do exist who get an incurable disease and are conscious of that for years. They aren't philosophical zombies; they really experience that just as other people experience not having a terminal disease. But anyway, I really think we should stick to talking about the article. Crossroads -talk- 05:16, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Of course you can see people getting an incurable disease; after all, you can also see people dying. Nor do those have to be philosophical zombies. Their position is merely, from the subjective view of most of their own earlier selves, highly unlikely, commensurate with the relatively "major miracle" they now need to survive. As such they could be forgiven for not believing in this theory from their vantage point. But it is otherwise no argument against. As to 185's related comments below, let me just briefly say that I certainly don't expect a physicist (as such) to espouse these ideas, as anything outside "our universe" is simply beyond their ken. It is pure philosophy, impossible of hard proof, but IMHO more plausible than any alternative overall theory of existence. 80.132.216.74 (talk) 21:52, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it seems to me that he or she has a very personal (and very comforting! Perhaps this is why our friend is so passionate about it!) theory of immortality in which one never even falls deathly sick with a kind Cartesian Ego that somehow knows and chases good universes in which you never fall ill, while leaving bad ones empty to philosophical zombies, that s/he would have a very hard time finding reliable sources for. No philosopher or physicist that I know of, no matter how marginal, seems to espouse a similar idea (never even heard the word "backpropagating" in this context). I would advise reading very carefully Wikipedia's guidelines before making edits, as there seems to be a risk of wasting time and energy to create content that would have to be deleted as WP:OR.
 * Speaking of deleted content, after playing some devil's advocate with myself, I decided to delete the link to Mallah's paper. I do believe that I was holding it to a double standard simply because it agreed with me and, more widely, with the consensus presented in the article. After all (see WP:SCHOLARSHIP) it is a primary source outside of a reputable journal, that had next to no impact on scientific debate - it was never cited by another reputable publication afaik. It was a good rundown of the idea, but I don't think that that was enough. There was no real justification why Mallah deserved to be cited here, and not several other less reliable sources, both in favor and against the idea. By keeping Mallah, we were giving it a disproportionate amount of visibility. So it's gone now and there are only well-credentialed people cited throughout the article. Mallah's paper is still one of the first results that pops up on Google when one looks for quantum immortality so hopefully people will still read it. --185.205.11.234 (talk) 10:58, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Have you seen your thoughts on QI echoed by anyone else? I have researched QI extensively and I think this article is a nearly complete overview of the professional opinions on the matter. As you mention David Lewis was the only public scholar who seemed to give the idea credit, though he found it horrifying. If you want to add some of his stuff back to the article, it was here years ago but deleted - I could point you to it if that's helpful.
 * If you would like to discuss QI more or work on getting your ideas heard, this isn't the place. I would suggest going to longecity.org or you can contact me. For what it's worth, I think people who read this article will be aware of the possible ulterior motives of public scientists and will be free to judge the logic behind the criticisms themselves. Akvadrako (talk) 20:25, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, not my exact theory. The ultimate multiverse, of course, has been espoused by Tegmark and others (I would express it in even more radical terms than him). It follows rather obviously that the ideas of "quantum" suicide and immortality can be extended to that, the "quantum" part then becoming superfluous; providing only you reject any mysticist interpretation of consciousness (at the extreme end there are people who say with a straight face that even atoms are conscious). Beyond that (and aside from looking into objections to the above and finding them unconvincing), I have been mainly studying the probability issues (this mostly comes down to the measure problem; some conclusions can be drawn, but interesting questions are still open). Longecity.org seems too much like the cryonics crowd for my taste; personally, before even coming to any of these ideas I was quite at peace with my mortality, and as D. Lewis and others have shown, immortality potentially has its own scary aspects. While my theory indeed suggests you can subjectively not only not die but are not even likely to come into "near-death" situations (which would require highly "miraculous" escapes), there are some difficult ethical implications. There's a certain kind of self-absorbed "longevity" people who I'd expect to be the last to be helpful there. But if you're aware of a more philosophical forum that might be congenial, let me know. 80.132.216.74 (talk) 21:52, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Please read very carefully Wikipedia's guidelines on original research and forum-like discussions. Thank you for your understanding! :) --185.205.11.234 (talk) 22:43, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't know of any better forum at the moment but if you leave your contact via my user page I'll let you know if I come across one. Akvadrako (talk) 11:28, 5 June 2020 (UTC)


 * There is an important remark to be made about David Lewis' notorious paper, though. What people often forget is that, in it, Lewis actually harshly rejected the many-worlds interpretation and openly said that he preferred the GRW theory, which is a dynamical collapse theory (it's not even technically an interpretation of quantum mechanics as it makes some different, potentially testable prediction). See: at pages 7-8 ("The GRW hypothesis... I much prefer this, or something like it, to all the other hypotheses we shall consider..."). So he did not really say that he believed that we are actually condemned to bad immortality, rather something along the lines of "curb your enthusiasm you Everettian fools, you don't realize what you're asking for" as a last parting shot after some other arguments against the many-worlds interpretation. In all fairness to Lewis, though, it was his very first - and, sadly last - foray into quantum mechanics and it shows, as his arguments are quite weak and superficial across the spectrum of all the interpretations he examines. It's not a coincidence that the only part of that talk that is usually remembered is the vivid bad immortality scenario - but it's not any deeper or more thought-out than the rest of it. His criticism of the many-worlds interpretation was based on an understanding that was already obsolete and has become more so: both the current approaches for explaining probability within the many-worlds theory (decision theory and self-locating uncertainty) are subsequent to it, and so are several metaphysical explorations of many-worlds. I say so as a deep skeptic of Everett myself. All of this context would have to be mentioned in order to give a honest picture and I simply don't think it is necessary due to WP:DUE as literally everyone else - both critics and supporters of MWI - who commented Lewis' immortality argument either denied its premises (those who refute the quantum suicide effect, nearly all of them as a misuse of probability) or its implications (those who accept the quantum suicide effect but deny that it leads to such a scenario). I don't deny that I also factored in my decision of keeping Lewis' mention very brief the desire of avoiding to expose readers to such a disturbing image, but it was only a small part of the whole reasoning. --185.205.11.234 (talk) 23:00, 1 June 2020 (UTC)


 * I think this is only true for realistic single-world interpretations. Copenhagen is just not well defined enough, because the experimenter sits outside the analysis. It's the same with QBism - it's a single user theory - so there is no way to even express what happens after that user ceases to exist. I don't know of any sources talking about this either way. BTW, thank you 185.205.11.234 for all your recent improvements to the article. It really servers now as a very good jumping off point to all the research out there. Akvadrako (talk) 14:49, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
 * FYI this has to do with 185.205.11.234's first bullet point. Crossroads -talk- 05:24, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you both. I tried to do my best to portray a balanced description and to cover all possible angles on the issue. I think it's pretty complete by now; the only argument that is missing is one that Tegmark presents in his 2014 book, Our Mathematical Universe, having taken it from Paul Almond. It's a reductio ad absurdum that basically says "having survived X iterations of QS, being very very unlikely, is less likely than being in a very unlikely (but still more likely than the former) situation in which you never went through the experiment," so after a certain numbers of iterations you'd discover that you were insane, you were dreaming, you were being pranked, you were being simulated, your brain has quantum-fluctuated into containing fake memories of having gone through the experiment and so on. Tegmark then proceeds to link this with the measure problem in cosmology and says that there cannot be infinitely many observers, so the entire experiment would never work. I can't comment on the quality of this argument but the reasons I didn't add it are that I have not yet found the way to do so succintly and clearly. As for Akvadrako's comments, I have gone back to Tegmark's original paper and to say the truth he says this: "Is there then any experiment that could distinguish between say the MWI and the Copenhagen interpretation using currently available technology?" I frankly don't know if my extrapolation counts as WP:OR; it seems a fairly innocuous one, as I can't fathom how one could expect survival in any other interpretation. In al that I know of, one outcome is picked as the "real" one. But I concede that this might very well be original research. (As for Qbism, as it happens it's my pet favorite interpretation. While there are no Qbist writings on the issue, I'm fairly sure that it cannot entail necessary survival. A Qbist agent, knowing the setup of the experiment, would have subjective belief in a 0.5 chance of either life or death at each iteration and that's it. I don't think there's any "official" Qbist writing on the QS experiment though.) --185.205.11.234 (talk) 16:29, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
 * [OR/Fringe] For those interested, Paul Almond's argument is not entirely new. There was a guy who reasoned that if quantum immortality is true, it still wouldn't yield miracolous results due to said miracles, even if physically possible, being less likely than finding oneself in unlikely situations which rule them out; he argued that in most causes of death the likelihood of surviving as a living corpse or a handful of floating neurons, or being resurrected in futuristic paradise - in short to continue to exist against all natural laws is lesser than that of quantum-fluctuating into an "eternal sleep" where the only the barest of consciousness is mantained by some means in a timeless, spaceless, featureless condition. This is one of the marginalia that I mentioned earlier and obviously can never be included in the article due to being well into fringe territory, but still it's an interesting line of thought that reinforces the whole reduction ad absurdum character of the idea. --185.205.11.234 (talk) 16:39, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

June 2020 changes
While the other IP has not felt the need to motivate his or her changes in this talk page, despite the fact that there was an active, unresolved discussion, I believe it is helpful to explain one's reasons in order to allow a constructive discussion on how to improve an article.
 * The science fiction works cited in the "History" section, while likely pertinent (though I've not personally read them), fall under the WP:SYNTH policy and unfortunately cannot be added. I have however left Euan Squire's citation, so thank you for letting us now about him.
 * I have left the extended quotation of Peter Byrne's biography of Everett as it indeed adds context.
 * Likewise, I have left in the article David Wallace's consideration that his arguments are not a knock-down refutation of the thought experiment.
 * I have partially re-written Aguirre's section, hopefully it's balanced to everyone's satisfaction now. Aguirre clearly states that common causes of death are neither binary nor instantaneous, unlike the thought experiment, and that observers should expect to "follow a path of reasonable probability into partial consciousness ... death even if outwardly rather sudden, to be very similar." The argument whose force is taken out if one can only instaneously slip into partial consciousness, that Aguirre refers to, is not quantum suicide, like it was erroneously written, but rather the "mind has a wholeness-in-time" one that Aguirre makes in a bit more detail (but still very vaguely, as he himself admits, that's why it's not more thoroughly developed) a few chapters later. I have also added that Aguirre is a skeptic of most versions of MWI, as he says in a footnote.
 * I have left deleted the extended quotation from Peter Lewis' books, as it's already covered. It referred to the branch-counting/person-counting approach that Lewis explicitly deprecates as giving wrong probabilities, and thus unviable; this is already summarized. The IP's wording insidiously made it look like Lewis finds it potentially valid, which is false. I quote literally "Counting persons faces the same conceptual difficulties of counting branches, but if these difficulties can be overcome... [the person-counting approach] undermine the viability of the many-worlds approach". The full explanation of why it breaks MWI viability is in the preceding chapter, but as the article is not about probability in the many-worlds, it would be off-topic to delve into this.
 * Coming to what is likely the most contentious point, I stand by the decision of not including in extense David Lewis' "bad immortality" picture. This addition, if it's even sensible to include it, would have to made in necessary context, which was lacking: that Lewis rejected the whole MWI for different arguments, leaving the immortality one as a last shot of sorts against it, that he endorsed GRW, that he was not a quantum mechanics expert and most importantly that his point was directly refuted by Tegmark and Wallace on its own premises, and by many others who refuted one or more assumptions behind it. However, like User:Crossroads has argued, I maintain that D. Lewis should be entirely left out because of WP:DUE. D. Lewis is literally the only one scholar who accepts the bad immortality as a consequence of the many-worlds interpretation: all others, all others, even marginal or self-published authors, refuse it.

As I understand that seeing your work deleted can be frustrating or irritating, I advise the other IP - especially given his or her seeming unfamiliarity with Wikipedia's guidelines - to first discuss his or her reasons here, before making new edits, so that we can find a consensus, with mutual benefit. --185.205.11.234 (talk) 23:53, 8 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I guess, for not letting Crossroads' blanket revert stand; I will thus pass over his arrogation with silent contempt, but I still have to take issue with your version. First though, there is no need to patronize me; I am well familiar with the rules, as, I trust, are you - not least with WP:OWN. I announced and motivated my main changes days ago, to no strict opposition. You didn't say "I'd have to remove any mention of D. Lewis" or the like, which would have indicated that more discussion here would be needed. There is no general requirement to make prior announcement of every edit on the talk page; sure enough, you have not done so with yours. Anyway, now you know my intended changes, so we can discuss.
 * As far as the science fiction works go, what has WP:SYNTH to do with it? Compared to the humongous "In popular culture" sections that seem almost de rigueur around here, this brief sentence is extremely pertinent, considering they preceded the scientific treatments (we don't need to add any later works). If you think a secondary source should be needed, this could be easily found.
 * About Aguirre, I still see no evidence of him saying anything about "progressively slip[ping] into the most attenuated possible state of consciousness." I also have to disagree about your interpretation about what argument he refers to as being diminished in force; it would make little sense for him to effectively say that "this argument A that I just made may be flawed because it would weaken argument B that I'm going to make later." However, be that as it may, we can do without any reference to that particular sentence.
 * The quote I gave from P. Lewis says what it says; I don't see how it would give a false impression, let alone "insidiously." He does find D. Lewis' position potentially valid, under a certain understanding which he simply does not consider the "most promising approach." Of course this addition is only intelligible if we have described D. Lewis first.
 * D. Lewis' position on MWI is adequately covered by the final quote of my section; you are free to expand on it, although I don't see the point - he made his arguments on the assumption of MWI, it makes no difference to the arguments themselves whether he believed in the premise or not. If the arguments are sound, then they are valid and relevant for anyone who does believe in MWI. And as I said before, what you consider a "refutation" is your interpretation. Just because Lewis died and can't respond anymore is by no means reason to assume he would have accepted these "refutations." I am also amazed how you can completely oversee all authors, even marginal or self-published ones! What's certain is that his position was widely noted and replied to. That alone makes it notable. The reader may be puzzled about why all your cited authors should bother to argue that probabilities should be taken as normal, when the alternative position is nowhere mentioned! In fact, I think it belongs even further up than where I put it. It would probably be best to put all authors in a chronological order. As I noted before, any of the other scholars is likewise "the only scholar" to make exactly the argument they make, otherwise there'd be no need to cover all of them separately. That they may come to broadly similar conclusions is irrelevant to the extent that their reasoning is different. The particular minority position of D. Lewis automatically comes out among all the others, but by leaving him out, the real picture is exaggerated. Insisting on "silencing" someone who has been so thoroughly "refuted" (instead of just giving his arguments and the counter-arguments) would seem to indicate that his position is more convincing than you like for certain reasons (which indeed you have expressed before). Of course we could, separately from the contrary views on the probabilities, include a counter-position on the "bad immortality" aspect (e.g. István Aranyosi, "Should we fear quantum torment?"). 80.132.221.94 (talk) 08:25, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, believe it or not I did as deep a literature search as I could before making edits so I'm fairly sure that I have surveyed all of the relevant (and non-relevant) academic material on the subject. And I continue to maintain my positions. For example, I still don't see how else you can interpret Anthony Aguirre's book: "sleep itself is a form of consciousness [...] drawing a clear line [between consciousness and not-consciousness] would seem extremely difficult [...] You are much more likely to follow a path of reasonable probability into partial consciousness, rather than veering into some quantum branch in which you are fully conscious via incredibly improbable means. One can imagine death, even if outwardly rather sudden, to be very similar." Now he's quoted almost word-by-word in the article. Likewise, it's clearly written that Peter Lewis's textbook describes immortality as a conclusion that one can draw out of the many-worlds interpretation only if one adopts a flawed understanding of probability. Adding another quote, in an already quote-heavy article, is simply unneeded and I believe you did it so to insert an element of uncertainty that is simply not present in Lewis' account, as he refutes that view of probabilitytout court. (I have slightly re-worded the paragraph to make the point clearer) Since you seem to convinced that I am in bad faith and trying to suppress an idea that I don't like, then why on Earth would I have left David Wallace's admission that his arguments are not a knock-down refutation? However, I went back at his book and that sentence definitively adds a nuance that would have been unfair not to represent faithfully. If you manage to find a reliable, cite-able secondary source on the science-fiction precursors, then by all means do so: it would be a worthwile addition. Finally, I also stand by my position that you seemed to be unfamiliar with Wikipedia's policies, given that you were proposing to insert the self-published article by Randall and discuss your own original research theory; if you're not, good for us.
 * Coming back to David Lewis' paper, it's already mentioned in the article - in fact, in the very first paragraph - that quantum immortality is "sometimes conjectured to be applicable to real-world causes of death as well." It was one of the first additions I made, well before you commented, as I believed that this aspect was of at least equal importance as the thought experiment itself. And multiple references are made to real-world causes of death as well in the rest of the article. Clearly, real-world immortality is an important and widely discussed potential consequence of the quantum suicide effect: and it's represented as such. The point is, Lewis is the only one who considers the "bad immortality" scenario a legitimate consequence of MWI. All the others, don't, for one reason or the other. I will, however, concede that Lewis is often cited by other authors, even if just to dismiss his position. After all, while most of the 88 citations (more than almost any other paper cited in the article) focus on the first part of his arguments, several do discuss the immortality argument. Again, literally none of them lend any credibility to it, coming from either pro, neutral or against MWI, but they do acknowledge it. Thus, I've come to believe that Lewis' position, properly contextualized and hopefully stripped of any sensationalism, does indeed deserve to be mentioned. I've substantially re-organized the article to address this. I also added the Aranyosi paper; I knew of it but, as there was no mention of Lewis in article, it was pointless to bring Aranyosi in it. While he's not the most famous or widely discussed philosopher, he's not fringe either, he has his own wikipedia page and his paper was published on a reliable, reputable, peer-reviewed journal which it too has its own wikipedia page. (I'm a lot more inclined to think that if one were willing to buy all of D. Lewis' assumptions, Aranyosi's Momentary Life scenario is way more likely than the other one, but, hey, we're not here to do [[WP:OR|])
 * I've also added another take by a fairly influential critic of the many-worlds interpretation, Philip Ball.
 * Hopefully now the article is finally balanced to everyone's satisfaction. I continue to believe that it must emerge clearly that the general consensus is wildly against the feasibility of both quantum suicide and quantum immortality, and I think that the article faithfully represents this situation. Also, the article has come to a worryingly large size, some points are even repeated, so I think it's time to call it a day. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.205.11.234 (talk) 13:59, 10 June 2020 (UTC)


 * By the way, if anyone has any idea of a rational criteria to divide the "Analysis of real-world feasibility" in sub-sections, please come forward. As of now, it roughly follows a chronological order, but I would strongly like, for readability purposes, to break it into smaller sub-sections. I can't find any criterion to do so, though, as there has never been an organic, analytical treatment of the subject, like I pointed out. --185.205.11.234 (talk) 14:09, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Quite ironically, considering that I was against including David Lewis, the only feasible, logical-ish way I've found to break the article into smaller chunks was devoting a sub-section entirely to David Lewis' intuitions. I'm not entirely convinced that it's the best way, so please if anyone has any better idea... --185.205.11.234 (talk) 14:24, 10 June 2020 (UTC) It doesn't work from a logical POV, so I leave the problem open for now. --185.205.11.234 (talk) 14:29, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I apologize for this mess. I've done my best to break the article into readable chunks, dividing it into three sub-sections: one devoted to Lewis' argument, one to other proponents of the MWI who didn't explicitly comment on Lewis, and one to critics. It was the best that I could came up with, but I'm more than willing to hear any better proposal. --185.205.11.234 (talk) 14:38, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I think your division is good. While I still don't believe David Lewis' commentary is strictly needed, the way you contextualized it is very good, so I am willing to accept it. Per WP:False balance, we would of course not go on to make feasible/not feasible out to be equally plausible. With regard to "in popular culture" sections, most articles on academic topics - which this is - do not have such a section, and these days such sections that do exist are often removed. To even qualify to be mentioned here, such a science fiction work would need a WP:Scholarship source directly stating it is an example of quantum suicide or quantum immortality in fiction. But even then, per WP:ONUS and WP:NOTEVERYTHING, consensus may decide it is not encyclopedic - a position I would espouse, as it ends up putting fantasy entertainment fiction on near equal footing with serious scholarship in the minds of readers. Crossroads -talk- 14:59, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I didn't believe it either, but I ask you to consider that while Lewis' picture of immortality was universally rejected, it was however acknowledged by several other authors: Peter Lewis, Wallace and Tegmark in the 2004 book, Wallace quotes a very brief part of it in his book, Papineau, Sebens, Aranyosi, Toby Handfield (who briefly mentioned it in his textbook on probabilities). It pops up even in peripherally related papers like this one by Huw Price. Again, all of these mentions are dismissive: like Aranyosi says, researchers simply picked out various premises, ranging from the definition of consciousness to the entire many-worlds theory, and refuted them. Lewis himself didn't accept the many-worlds theory in the first place. (Incidentally, I think that towards the end of his paper, Aranyosi stumbled upon an even more reassuring corollary, which is the same defended by Tegmark, Wallace and Aguirre - and by Randall in his self-published paper -, that there is no strict treshold for consciousness as cognitive activities are a continuum and one could qualify even while medically in vegetative state, but he dismesses it.) Like the other IP said, it was simply unjustifiable to keep these "counter-points," without explaining what they arose from - David Lewis' lecture and its contents, even if these arguments were widely superseded by subsequent scholarship. While the lecture was far from Lewis' most influential document, it did receive [88 citations, which is more than nearly anything else quoted on the page.
 * Like you correctly say, though, a balanced article should clearly portray the consensus of experts as being sufficiently against the quantum suicide thought experiment, very strongly against its feasibility in real-world conditions and universally against the immortality picture. I believe that the article currently reflects this consensus. At this point, the article has reached a respectable size and depth of scope, and I am satisfied with it. I don't plan on making new additions and I'm confident that, by now, everyone should be satisfied that all points of view are thoroughly and extensively portrayed, using only reliable sources. I also hope to have demonstrated to our friend IP that we were not conspiratorially hiding "uncomfortable truths we didn't like," but doing my very best to develop a balanced article on a niche, exotic but interesting subject, and I was in fact quick to welcome his or her suggestions when they were appropriate. --185.205.11.234 (talk) 19:24, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

[Moved to maintain chronological order]
 * That's certainly better than your previous version; the "sometimes conjectured" line did not explain much. The other disagreements remain:
 * Aguirre says "partial consciousness" and you make this into the "most attenuated possible state of consciousness." How else to interpret this? Well, like this: when you objectively die, you subjectively fall into an eternal sleep-like state. Doesn't have to get progressively sleepier. (Of course it remains Aguirre's secret how this would come about by any less incredibly improbable means than your survival under "real-world" circumstances.)
 * Yes, P. Lewis rejects D. Lewis' approach, which should be obvious from the context, but we can make it more explicit if needed. Seems quite analogous to Wallace's reservation to me, so I don't know why on Earth you react so differently.
 * There is no strict rule against self-published articles in external links, which is all I proposed (as some sort of counterpoint to the Mallah link you had). Nor did I ever seek to discuss my own theories in the article (or even on the talk page other than in the same tangential way in which you have also expressed your opinions here).
 * I believe you did as deep a literature search as you could, but you are still not omniscient, so it is presumptuous to make statements about all authors of any kind. I am reviewing the literature myself and may yet add one or the other. The general consensus is stated clearly enough in the introduction and comes out in the article accordingly. 80.132.221.126 (talk) 18:16, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I have changed Aguirre's assessment to "an attenuated state of consciousness", without any specification as to the intensity of said state. To be honest, he does make the example of anesthesia as well, which is rather deeper than sleep, but in the book Aguirre specifically regarding death writes "follow a path of reasonable probability into partial counsciousness," without using the word sleep (or anesthesia). So I follow his phrasing faithfully. For the other points, Peter Lewis clearly rejects quantum suicide and immortality, he has no uncertainty or reservation, whereas Wallace admits that he has some on the thought experiment. He just explains how one can, in his analysis, come to such a conclusion. So, I stand by my position that there is no need for further quotations. You are of course free to add new content, provided it follows the guidelines and doesn't skew the article away from the consensus of experts by giving undue weight to minority positions, or into fringe theories, let alone original research. For me, personally I'm satisfied with the article and I don't plan on making new additions. --185.205.11.234 (talk) 19:26, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

July 2020
As an admitted non-physics expert, I think the Many Worlds Interpretation is the biggest piece of pseudoscienctific BS I have ever heard of. I think scientists were correct to write Hugh Everett off as a drunk quack in the 1950s, and I think it's pretty embarrassing his idea has gotten respectability since then. Even granting that the Copenhagen Interpretation might not be perfect, I think it's far more likely that there's simply something missing from our understanding of quantum physics than it is that there are infinitely many universes forming at every quantum interaction.

However, if Many Worlds is seriously true, self-perceived immortality would seem almost inevitable. There's no law of science saying you have to actually die. It's just that, under the one universe model, the odds of dying catch up to almost everybody after no more than 110 years. However, if there's infinitely many copies of you there would seemingly have to be some universes where you constantly survive against all odds for all of eternity. There literally could be an asteroid that destroys all of earth, and you seemingly would have to perceive yourself as being the only person on earth who survives.

I think there would have to be some copies of you that survive at least until the heat death of the universe in about 10^100 years. That's honestly the only situation I can think of where the odds of you dying might actually be 100%, rather than just 99.9999999999999999%. And, to be honest, I'm not even sure if the odds of dying are 100% at the heat death, but that's the only situation I can think of where the odds might be 100%.

Furthermore, I think your consciousness would have to go to the universes where you survive in every situation where death is possible. And I'm generally inclined to agree with David Lewis' idea that this would result in infinite suffering for everybody starting at about age 150, and lasting until you either die from the heat wave or are the only thing in the universe to survive the heat wave. This isn't the nice kind of immortality where you stay young and healthy forever. This is a kind of immortality where you constantly coming infinitely close to death without actually dying.

Anyway, MWI proponents generally deny quantum immortality, for seemingly little reason other than they philosophically dislike the idea. I don't think people here are correct to reject quantum immortality as a wacky idea. (Well, I think MWI is a wacky idea, but cosmic immortality seems to me to be an almost inevitable extension to MWI.)

I think that way too much space of this article is devoted to debunking quantum immortality and David Lewis. Yeah, MWI supporters deny it, but do you really think they don't have a motivation to deny quantum immortality? What are they going to do- admit yeah, I support a scientific theory that suggests you'll be going through the greatest of hell forever?

Anyway, I hope to God this idea isn't true like I hope no other idea I've ever heard of isn't true. Wikidude87654321 (talk) 17:11, 20 July 2020 (UTC)wikidude87654321Wikidude87654321 (talk) 17:11, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
 * The article represents the WP:Due weight of the sources. We do not give equal validity if the sources do not. Please remember that talk pages are not a forum to discuss the topic. Crossroads -talk- 01:09, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
 * There was actually some discussion on whether to include or not David Lewis' argument, given how it is almost universally rejected - nobody, not even David Lewis believes it. At the end, it was indeed inserted, considering how it is still widely quoted in the academic literature on the subject, in what I hope is proper context. The purpose of the article is not to debunk anything, but to present the consensus on the issue, which I believe it does fairly and extensively - it's just that the consensus is negative on the feasibility of quantum immortality. I also don't buy the idea that there is some kind of conspiracy among physicists and philosophers to hide the truth to avoid spooking the public; the idea has been out long enough and is discussed pretty freely among those in the field, both formally and informally. and by both supporters and critics of the many-worlds theory. What is true, on the other hand, is that the quantum suicide thought experiment is often presented as a kind of fun, colorful thing by some physicists (like, at least initially, Tegmark) and popularized treatments. Many authors (like David Wallace) have strongly and in my mind correctly criticized this as potentially dangerous. The article includes a reference to this in the introduction, which serves as a disclaimer as well.
 * As this is not a forum, I can't really reply to your worries except to note that 1) Everett was not a "drunk quack" but an insightful although troubled mind and his theory - while probably ultimately unviable (I myself lean towards other approaches) - has served as a catalyst for new approaches in quantum mechanics (like decoherence or the avoidance of collapse) 2) the many-worlds theory does not imply subjective immortality, which hinges on a number of unspoken assumptions on personal identity, consciousness and probability which are most likely wrong; sadly, these have never been given a thorough examination, at least not in sources that we could actually quote in the article, and considerations on them are disorderly scattered here and there in the literature; 3) even if it did, and MWI was a viable description of reality (I reject both assumptions), I personally find Istvan Aranyosi's dicotomy vastly more plausible than David Lewis' picture. The quantum immortality argument does not say that you should expect to become biologically eternal, even less that you should expect to be eternally continuous and connected with your present identity, "just" that for any time in the future the perspectival or indexical you will have a subjective experience, r egardless of its quality or its circumstances. It's entirely possible that said experience is either much more attenuated than your current wakeful one, the absolute most minimal consciousness state (the "momentary life" corollary, in which case you are dead in all but name) or is in completely different circumstances, where your existence is sustained by more mundane means rather than an incredible series of quantum miracles. Or a combination of both. Finally I believe you're underestimating quantum weirdness: if you believe that you're going to exist forever, then - in an infinite amount of time - everything that is physically possible will happen to you and your only worry should be the frequency of each incident. Even the heat death of the universe won't stop, say, quantum fluctuations that revert entropy and re-create a suitable environment around you, or even recreate your whole current existence from birth onwards. However, like I said, there's absolutely zero reason to believe that this doesn't involve the destruction of whatever memory or knowledge of self-history, effectively making these all different persons. In fact, under tese assumption, given a spatially infinite and past-eternal universe, it is reasonable to assume that this already has happened infinite times to "you": you're not bothered by it as you don't remember, just as you're not bothered by the pain you experienced during a medical procedure under conscious sedation, and you shouldn't be bothered by the prospect of it happening in the future. It will be another person's worry. --185.205.11.234 (talk) 04:40, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

February 2021
I am coming across a lot of this lately. Where I am finding the article itself has already been, or is in jeopardy of becoming a debunking message for the theories, rather than references of what it is about. Particularly with theories involving Quantum = energy or matter. I saw the Quantum mysticism article has already fell victim to that. The mythbusters have their part, but there is nothing in the scientific method or scientific evolution in blocking and shaming theories one doesn't believe in. Wikipedia then becomes an information warzone. Naninnewetuah (talk) 12:57, 6 February 2021 (UTC)


 * I agree with you but I think this article is the the most complete overview of the research around QI. The truth is that there is very little written about it in a scientific or philosophical context. And it's almost all critical or dismissive. There is really nothing to point to which explains how it would work practically; just the contrived examples given already. So not much can be changed unless you have pointers to reputable articles which are of a more explanatory nature. Akvadrako (talk) 22:21, 14 February 2021 (UTC)