Quantum Suicide and Immortality

Quantum Suicide And Immortality

In quantum mechanics, quantum suicide is a thought experiment. It was originally published independently by Hans Moravec in 1987 and Bruno Marchal in 1988 and was independently developed further by Max Tegmark in 1998. It attempts to distinguish between the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics and the Everett many-worlds interpretation by means of a variation of the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment, from the cat's point of view. Quantum immortality refers to the subjective experience of surviving quantum suicide regardless of the odds.

Keith Lynch recalls that Hugh Everett took great delight in paradoxes such as the unexpected hanging. Everett didn't mention quantum suicide or quantum immortality in writing, but his work was intended as a solution to the paradoxes of quantum mechanics. Lynch said "Everett firmly believed that his many-worlds theory guaranteed him immortality: His consciousness, he argued, is bound at each branching to follow whatever path does not lead to death", Tegmark explains, however, that life and death situations don't normally hinge upon a sequence of binary quantum events like those in the thought experiment.

Read more about Quantum Suicide And Immortality:  Quantum Suicide Thought Experiment, Max Tegmark's Work, Criticism, In Fiction

Famous quotes containing the words quantum, suicide and/or immortality:

    The receipt to make a speaker, and an applauded one too, is short and easy.—Take of common sense quantum sufficit, add a little application to the rules and orders of the House, throw obvious thoughts in a new light, and make up the whole with a large quantity of purity, correctness, and elegancy of style.
    Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)

    If you are of the opinion that the contemplation of suicide is sufficient evidence of a poetic nature, do not forget that actions speak louder than words.
    Fran Lebowitz (b. 1951)

    ... the random talk of people who have no chance of immortality and thus can speak their minds out has a setting, often, of lights, streets, houses, human beings, beautiful or grotesque, which will weave itself into the moment for ever.
    Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)