Vladimir_Nesov comments on Quantum Russian Roulette - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Christian_Szegedy 18 September 2009 08:49AM

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Comment author: cousin_it 18 September 2009 02:41:45PM *  9 points [-]

Here's a funny reformulation of your argument: if you live in a quantum world where deaths are swift and painless, it makes sense to bet a lot of money on the assertion that you will stay alive. This incentivizes many other people to bet on your death and try hard to kill you. The market takes this into account, so your payoff for staying alive grows very high. Sounds like a win-win situation all around!

That said, at root it's just a vanilla application of quantum immortality which people may or may not believe in (the MWI doesn't seem to logically imply it). For a really mindblowing quantum trick see the Elitzur-Vaidman bomb tester. For a deeper exploration of the immortality issue, see Quantum suicide reality editing.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 18 September 2009 03:12:30PM *  3 points [-]

For a really mindblowing quantum trick see the Elitzur-Vaidman bomb tester.

Interesting.

Consider a collection of bombs, some of which are duds. The bombs are triggered by a single photon. Usable bombs will absorb the photon and detonate. Dud bombs will not absorb the photon. The problem is how to separate the usable bombs from the duds.
...
A solution is for the sorter to use a mode of observation known as counterfactual measurement
...
In 1994, Anton Zeilinger, Paul Kwiat, Harald Weinfurter, and Thomas Herzog actually performed an equivalent of the above experiment, proving interaction-free measurements are indeed possible.

See also:

Comment author: Jonathan_Graehl 18 September 2009 06:47:01PM 1 point [-]

As I understand it, the only way to have a known-live undetonated bomb in this branch is to cause it to actually detonate it in other branches.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 18 September 2009 08:14:22PM 0 points [-]

Sorta, but not quite, as the probability of it actually detonating can be brought as close to 0 as one likes (if I'm not mistaken).

Comment author: Jonathan_Graehl 18 September 2009 09:36:30PM 0 points [-]

Yes - I didn't mean all other branches.