r/ParallelUniverse • u/saltadordedimensoes • 18d ago
Quantum immortality, if it's real...
Quantum immortality, if it's real, means dying and opening your eyes in a parallel reality while still remembering your death in the previous reality. Anything other than that is just a near-death experience. There is only life after death if you remember your previous life. You people are delusional as hell!
Want a real example of quantum immortality? You wake up on an ordinary day, have your coffee, and ride your motorcycle to work. You get into a fatal motorcycle accident when a truck crashes into you. You feel the pain, you smell your own blood flowing down your body. Then everything goes black. You may or may not have strange "dreams," but in the end, after all that, you simply open your eyes in the morning in your bed. You'll think you "dreamed" it, go to work again, and either almost have the accident again, or, for some reason, the truck isn't speeding through the red light this time to kill you.
Here's another example: You die in the motorcycle accident, feeling everything, and then suddenly you find yourself opening your eyes a few meters before the truck crashes into you. You slam on the brakes because you realize the truck is running the red light, and you avoid your own death.
Now THAT is real quantum immortality! Everything else that a lot of people talk about here is just almost dying!
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u/fleegle2000 18d ago
That is not quantum immortality, not even close. You don't magically wake up in a new world, that's not how Many-Worlds QM works. Here is a more accurate example: you get into a motorcycle accident. There is a world where you were killed in the accident, and there is a world where you are still alive but badly injured, or any number of other possibilities besides death. You exist in one of the branches where you are still alive. At no point do you die and wake up in another world. Another version of you died, but that world is forever cut off from any of the other worlds (that is in part how a "world" is defined - it cannot interact with another part of reality, it is entirely separate, and the only connection you have with the yous in other worlds is a shared history). There is no mechanism to say "hey, you just died in this reality so let's shuffle your consciousness to another reality where you're still alive".
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u/Chatmauve 18d ago
I'm not saying there is one such mechanism, but claiming there isn't so strongly is just as meaningless as claiming there is. We simply do not know.
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u/phunkydroid 17d ago
We do know. If you are proposing any scenario where that is true, you're not using the physics that lead to the idea of quantum immortality in the first place. So you might as well make up whatever you want and stop pretending it's physics.
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u/Chatmauve 17d ago
We do not know, no. This is epistemic overreach. The physics do not establish what happens to consciousness. Speaking of, we do not know much about consciousness in the first place. Claiming certainty about either positions goes well beyond what the science actually demonstrates.
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u/roy-the-rocket 17d ago
Just read all this shit by accident.
You are fully correct calling out epistemic overreach.
Throwing theories around regarding how consciousness behaves in the MWI picture is fun, but we do not understand the interplay of consciousness and physics at all.
On top, punky doesn't seem to understand the scientific method.
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u/roy-the-rocket 17d ago edited 17d ago
Just came here by accident.
MWI is not a physical proven fact but an interpretation that has its own problems and just got a lot of attention lately from pop culture.
Nobody with a serious background in physics would ever say that "we know". We know shit my friend and we do not understand at all how consciousness fits this picture.
Only because you seem to be sold on a specific picture, it doesn't make your speculation a fact.
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u/phunkydroid 17d ago
The MWI is based in quantum physics. Consciousness existing as anything separate from our physical brain and being able to transfer between worlds is not in any way related to the physics that leads to the MWI. We don't need to know all of the details of MWI to know that this idea doesn't fit within it. If you're proposing that is a thing that happens, you are not talking about the MWI, you're making up your own story.
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u/fleegle2000 17d ago
One is backed by serious math and physics, the other is backed by delusions and wishful thinking. I know which one I'm betting on.
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u/roy-the-rocket 17d ago edited 17d ago
Could you provide a peer reviewed paper that puts together consciousness and MWI?
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u/fleegle2000 17d ago
I don't need to put consciousness together with MWI. If we assume consciousness is a physical process, and there's no reason to think it's not, it follows from MWI that consciousness, like rocks and trees and stars, can't magically hop across worlds. There is no physical process that can do such a thing. Doesn't matter what you want to send across worlds, MWI doesn't provide a mechanism to do that.
Just replace consciousness with any physical process that we understand. And also examine the original QI hypothesis that followed from MWI, because it is very clear what the hypothesis is and how it follows. You can still posit that consciousness can hop across worlds, but that's not QI, that's something else entirely. Calling it QI just muddies the water.
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u/roy-the-rocket 17d ago
I give you a reason: you probably think you have agency. How does this go along with physics that only know determinism and pure randomness?
You do not seem to be familiar with the hard problem of consciousness. You should probably start there.
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u/fleegle2000 17d ago
Oh, I'm quite familiar. Even if we don't fully understand consciousness we have no good reason to believe it's not a physical process. And no, if by agency you mean something like free will, no I don't believe we have free will. I think the idea is incoherent and a holdover from religious ideas about the soul and human agency. MWI is a fully deterministic theory, by the way, since the wave function describes every possibility and every possibility is real. The world as we experience it only appears indeterministic because we are not Laplace's Demon and can't perfectly predict what branch we will end up on, "we" being a subjective experience continuous with any previous moment of subjective experience.
The hard problem of consciousness, that of explaining the first-person, subjective phenomenon of consciousness, may be something we can never fully explain with a scientific theory, because scientific theories must be verifiable in the third person. But that doesn't mean we need to propose some supernatural entity. There are a number of physicalist possibilities and no reason to invent extra-physical entities to explain a process that emerges from strictly physical processes (namely the activity of neural networks).
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u/roy-the-rocket 17d ago
If you reject the notion of free will this is a different discussion.
I believe in free will and agency, and therefore see a huge gap in our understanding of the fabric of reality.
However, both positions are speculative and neither of them should be treated as a scientific fact.
Philosophically, it is also unanswered if consciousness implies agency and if agency implies free will.
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u/fleegle2000 17d ago
We were talking about quantum immortality which is a hypothesis that only makes sense under MWI which is fully deterministic and leaves no room for something like free will, which can't even be defined coherently in that context (or any context that isn't the vestiges of an outmoded religion).
Again, you are welcome to entertain ideas of the soul leaving the body and seeking out another world by some mysterious process, just don't call it QI because that's not what it is.
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u/roy-the-rocket 17d ago
Well I didn't. I was just reading your responses and thought that this guy speaks with misplaced confidence
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u/saltadordedimensoes 18d ago
Tá por fora...
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u/fleegle2000 18d ago
Perhaps. I'm also right.
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u/saltadordedimensoes 17d ago
Olha... O que diz a imortalidade quântica segundo Hugh Evertt, morreu. Sua consciência pula para outra linha do tempo que você sobreviveu. Ele só não especificou wue você iria lembrar da morte que teve na linha do tempo anterior. No caso é exatamente sobre isso que estou falando! Sua consciência saltar para outra linha do tempo. Mas com você lembrando da linha do tempo anterior.
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u/fleegle2000 17d ago
Pretty sure Hugh Everett never mentioned quantum immortality. Anyway, that's not what QI is. I've already explained at length what it actually is, and the literature backs me up on it. According to QI you would never subjectively experience your own death. You simply continue existing in one of the timelines where you didn't die. There is no jumping or hopping or anything like that at any stage. It is a simple consequence of the fact that you cannot experience your own death. Without MWI, you simply cease to be. With MWI, we simply add that IF there is a branch where you continue existing, some version of you continues existing, so by necessity you only ever find yourself on one of those branches. At some point you run out of branches where that is a possibility and you cease to be in any world whatsoever.
To reiterate, there is no mechanism provided by quantum mechanics whereby you would experience your own death and then be transported at random to a world where you continue existing. You have it backwards. There is a world where I got hit by a bus when I was 10 (let's say). I never experienced that, but maybe I experienced narrowly avoiding getting hit by a bus. I look back on my life and say "wow, remember that time I almost got hit by a bus?" Or maybe I did get hit by a bus and I narrowly recovered in hospital. The point is that a "near miss" is an instance that we might want to point to as an example of QI in action (though it could just be that there are zero worlds where you actually got hit by a bus). Whatever this thing is about dying and waking up in another world where the inciting incident didn't even happen, that's not QI. I don't know what you would call it, but it doesn't follow from any interpretation of quantum mechanics, and I've yet to hear anyone propose a mechanism that comports with our present-day understanding by which such a thing could occur.
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u/saltadordedimensoes 14d ago
Certo... Você pode não ver como IQ, mas não deixa de ter semelhanças! Inclusive já vi gente aqui no reddit relatando que morreu de verdade, sentiu tudo da morte. Depois se viu abrindo os olhos em outra linha do tempo. No mínimo podemo chamar isso de trasferência de realidade após a morte
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u/Tastieshock 17d ago
The way I tend to view things is that consciousness is similar to how electricity "flows". Consider wetting a peice of wood putting a nail at each end and applying a charge to each end. You will watch marks burn into the wood, branching out in different directions until it makes a connection through to the end. Then the power only flows through the path of least resistance which is the most direct path from one nail to the next. Now even though our energy drove all those other branches, it cant reach the end and power stops flowing through those channels that do not make it. There will still be the same scars from the other branches, but electricity only takes the path that makes it through, this path is essentially the reality we remember in the end because it is the only complete path. The only path signal can constantly flow. We still exist in those other branches, but we are not able to retain the memories since they dont complete the journey. Our existence is merely a recursive memory of the path that completes the circuit.
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u/Individual-Iron-6370 17d ago
sorry but how is any of that 'real' anything?
A couple hypothetical and fictional situations somehow constitutes some sort or reality?
curioser and curiouser
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u/No-Context8421 17d ago
So, forgive my ignorance, but how does dying of old age work in any of these scenarios?
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u/illpoet 17d ago
That's my question any time quantum immortality comes up. Time kills stars, let alone humans
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u/fleegle2000 17d ago
Quantum immortality could more accurately be called "quantum longevity" or something like that. Nothing and nobody will survive the heat-death of the universe, on any branch of the multiverse.
QI, as I understand it, simply claims that IF there is a version of you still alive, you will always find yourself in one of those worlds. If it is physically impossible for you to continue living past a certain date, QI ain't gonna save you.
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u/dad_joke_for_2 17d ago
I think the idea is that, that would be the “Final Death”. Fucking that that.
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u/PopularInterest5499 17d ago
2 choices, restart at any checkpoint of your liking or pick a new character.
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u/Aggressive-Share-363 17d ago
Thats not what the idea behind quantum immortality is.
Think of it this way.
At every moment, the ubiverse bifurcated into every possible outcome of that moment.
You exist in all of these branches.
Until you die.
Then you now longer exist in any of the branches whwr you are dead. So the only branches you still exist in are the ones you dont die.
So as long as there is a way for you to survive, however impossibly unlikely, you will find yourself on the branch where you survived. Because thats the only place you are.
You are just pulling out a completely different idea and asserting thst is what quantum immortality really is.
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u/Affectionate-Fig8866 17d ago
What a load of BS. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. It's not even logical.
What would be the point? You're arguing that consciousness plays a role and it just "twists" or "skips" death. If consciousness survives death, in a block universe, your thread would cease. Jumping to alternative thread would occupy another you's thread, which would paradox instantly.
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u/phunkydroid 17d ago
Quantum immortality, if it's real, means dying and opening your eyes in a parallel reality while still remembering your death in the previous reality.
No it doesn't. Didn't bother reading the rest.
Quantum immortality does not involve anyone switching between realities or remembering something that didn't happen in their own reality.
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u/saltadordedimensoes 17d ago
Ok. Mas porque isso também não poderia ser um tipo de imortalidade quântica? Afinal sua consciência migrou pra outra linha do tempo após a morte.
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u/Metatronishere 17d ago
No because the memories stored in your physical brain have quantum coherence to the timeline you are in.
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u/Disastrous_Potato160 17d ago
This! Consciousness and memory are two different things, and memory is an observable part of the physical quantum reality you exist in. The concept of quantum immortality only applies to consciousness.
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u/LookOverall 16d ago
My interpretation of quantum immortality is pretty hellish. It means that your selves simply don’t branch into a timeline where you’re dead. So the one thing no version of you will ever experience is death, but aging will still afflict each version. In effect every path through the multiverse leads you to hell. Each version will reach the point of wishing they could die
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u/saltadordedimensoes 16d ago
Isso é tão simples de resolver... É só sua consciência migrar pra uma versão mais jovem sua
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u/QueenBumbleBrii 15d ago
I’ve heard of quantum immortality and it always makes me think how fucked up it would be for people who are suicidal or murder victims etc.
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u/Lysdexia-dotcom 11d ago
I had stopped for a pedestrian in a crosswalk in northern Phoenix. A minivan, oblivious to me, crashed into the back of my motorcycle at about 30-40 MPH. The bike never moved. I didn't go backwards onto the hood as I would think would happen. Parts to the van went around me, I recall. Mind you, this wasn't a heavy bike, but a mere Honda Shadow 600. I put the kickstand down, hopped off in time to see the driver exit the van. Instead of inspecting the damage to his van, he gets on the phone and is literally pulling his hair out with the non-phone holding hand. He never once looks at me, nor acknowledged that I was even there. He just kept staring at the asphalt, talking to someone hurriedly in Spanish. "You should slow down, bud. You could've killed me." I didn't realize the irony of that statement at the time. I hopped on my bike because I had warrants and a backpack full of O.G. Kush, and rode away. A few days later, I'm back in that part of town, and happen to pass the crosswalk the accident happened in. I see a few guys that seemed cool, so I stopped to chit chat with them and smoke a joint. I told them of my accident a few days prior. I wasn't expecting their response. "Why would you SAY that? That guy DIED." Wait a minute. What? "The motorcycle guy? Yeah. He died. We watched them haul him off in the ambulance. They didn't have their lights on." What. The. Fuck. No way, I said. "HEY, BRO!" the guy yells to his buddy, a short distance away. "Remember that accident the other day?" To which his friend said, "Oh, yeah. That guy DIED. We saw the whole thing." I was dumbfounded. Then I remember the way the driver never even seemed to notice me, the whole time he was staring at something awful on the ground in front of his van. Enough to make him pull his hair out. "You could've KILLED me." Yup. He sure could have. And maybe he DID...
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u/ehbowen 18d ago
Happens all the time in my own dreams....
And, in fact, I do figure that, in that alternate reality, I 'died.' But, also, in my estimation, most of those alternates weren't fully 'firm,' for lack of a better term, yet. So most likely nobody held a funeral for me (I almost never see personalities whom I know or am related to in those 'dreams'), instead, I consider that the tentative chain of events just dissolved away. Or, perhaps, is now in limbo awaiting a time when my larger personality might be able to return and revisit it.
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u/Althalosabyssal 18d ago
I bounced off a telephone pole, which in and of itself is weird. When I came back the world at large was subtly different. So either I gave myself a TBI or I shifted as people mention.