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Mitchell_Porter comments on If MWI is correct, should we expect to experience Quantum Torment? - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: Furcas 10 November 2012 04:32AM

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Comment author: Mitchell_Porter 10 November 2012 09:30:55AM 8 points [-]

How likely is it that Quantum Torment is real?

The more conventional perspective on QM is of a single nondeterministic world or of a single world in which events have subquantum causes. From this perspective "quantum torment" - lingering indefinitely in a near-death state - is logically possible but inconceivably improbable, something that wouldn't happen even if you reran the history of the cosmos a googol times, because it involves the quantum dice (whether deterministic or nondeterministic) repeatedly coming up just the right way to prevent your body from finally giving up the ghost.

In a many-worlds theory all logical possibilities are supposed to happen, but the empirically validated probabilities still have to be respected. That is, we don't see all possible events occurring with equal probability, we see them occurring with probabilities given by the Born rule of QM. How to justify this within MWI is a major problem, one of several that the theory faces. But assuming that it is resolved, then the frequency with which quantum torment is realized in the multiverse must be the same as the probability with which it is expected in single-world QM, i.e. it represents a vanishingly small fraction of worlds. In the vast, vast majority of worlds you just die.

Comment author: lukstafi 10 November 2012 02:38:28PM 2 points [-]

If someone is an "identity freak", they need to condition the distribution on "person X is alive" (where "X" -- the person of interest). And now the question is whether the average health deteriorates "as time goes to infinity" -- it probably deteriorates to some minimum livable floor and then bounces up once we cross singularity. (I'm not an "identity freak" BTW.)

Comment author: lukstafi 12 November 2012 11:47:00PM 0 points [-]

To explore some possibilities, have a look at http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5389450/1/The-Finale-of-the-Ultimate-Meta-Mega-Crossover -- where MWI is generalized to what I call "Universal Distribution Metaphysics".