Christian_Szegedy 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: Christian_Szegedy 18 September 2009 06:56:46PM *  1 point [-]

The Elitzur-Vaidman is really amazing: more sophisticated than my scenario. However it is quite different and not directly related.

The Quantum suicide is much more similar, in fact my posting derived from an almost identical idea that I also posted on lesswrong. I got that idea independently when reading that thread.

The reason I find the quantum roulette thought experiment interesting is that it is much less speculative. The payoff is clear and the in can easily be motivated and performed by current technology.

Comment author: cousin_it 18 September 2009 06:59:39PM *  1 point [-]

Yes, that last point is important. Too bad we won't get volunteers from LW, because we're all kinda friends and would miss each other.

Comment author: Aurini 18 September 2009 10:43:00PM 0 points [-]

If we all did it together though, the worlds we left behind would be like some sort of geeky Atlas Shrugged dystopia. Heh.

Comment author: Christian_Szegedy 18 September 2009 08:50:01PM 0 points [-]

:) We could still make the second experiment and if the numbers match, throw a party... ;)