Living in Many Worlds
Followup to: Many Worlds, One Best Guess
Some commenters have recently expressed disturbance at the thought of constantly splitting into zillions of other people, as is the straightforward and unavoidable prediction of quantum mechanics.
Others have confessed themselves unclear as to the implications of many-worlds for planning: If you decide to buckle your seat belt in this world, does that increase the chance of another self unbuckling their seat belt? Are you being selfish at their expense?
Just remember Egan's Law: It all adds up to normality.
(After Greg Egan, in Quarantine.)
The Failures of Eld Science
Followup to: Initiation Ceremony, If Many-Worlds Had Come First
This time there were no robes, no hoods, no masks. Students were expected to become friends, and allies. And everyone knew why you were in the classroom. It would have been pointless to pretend you weren't in the Conspiracy.
Their sensei was Jeffreyssai, who might have been the best of his era, in his era. His students were either the most promising learners, or those whom the beisutsukai saw political advantage in molding.
Brennan fell into the latter category, and knew it. Nor had he hesitated to use his Mistress's name to open doors. You used every avenue available to you, in seeking knowledge; that was respected here.
"—for over thirty years," Jeffreyssai said. "Not one of them saw it; not Einstein, not Schrödinger, not even von Neumann." He turned away from his sketcher, and toward the classroom. "I pose to you to the question: How did they fail?"
The students exchanged quick glances, a calculus of mutual risk between the wary and the merely baffled. Jeffreyssai was known to play games.
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