Some thoughts about QM

[laissez-faire]

OK - firstly I am doing an MPhys at Edinburgh, this isn't some total flight of fancy. They are just some thoughts on Quantum Probability inspired by my lecture notes.

'I will live to be the oldest man/forever'. Since every possible cause of death only has a certain chance of occuring, QM predicts that there is a chance you will survive and therefore the universe divides at that point. Because we simply can't be conscious when we are dead, we will only be aware of the universes where we survive. The other people around us will suffer the loss of you dying, but you yourself in your mind will simply have 'cheated death' and just carry on living in a new reality. Once it is possible for one man to live forever due to advances in medical technology, we will all in theory only be aware of living forever.

'How to become a millionaire - guaranteed'. This is an extension of the Schrodinger cat theory. Firstly you buy a lottery ticket. Then you write a computer program that somehow knows if you have won the lottery (maybe looking at bank balance but this could be risky - I am sure you can think of some way a computer could determine it, perhaps simply if you program in your ticket detail and it just downloads the results from the internet!) Anyway, you rig yourself up to a machine that delivers a lethal dose of something if you do not win. This way, because there is a one in 30 million chance of winning or something, you will die in all realities where you do not win the lottery. You will only be aware of winning the lottery. You can only perform this experiment on yourself because if you do it on another person there is obviously a 29'999'999/30 million chance of your subject dying on you!

 

[Visage]

'I will live to be the oldest man/forever'. Since every possible cause of death only has a certain chance of occuring, QM predicts that there is a chance you will survive and therefore the universe divides at that point.

Im not convinced. When tossing a coin, neither heads nor tails is certain, so your argument is that its possible that neither will happen. Its the possibility that at least one result will happen thats important.

Because we simply can't be conscious when we are dead, we will only be aware of the universes where we survive. The other people around us will suffer the loss of you dying, but you yourself in your mind will simply have 'cheated death' and just carry on living in a new reality. Once it is possible for one man to live forever due to advances in medical technology, we will all in theory only be aware of living forever.

Hmm....thats not very scientific language though is it? Its more metaphysics/philosophy than physics.

'How to become a millionaire - guaranteed'. This is an extension of the Schrodinger cat theory. Firstly you buy a lottery ticket. Then you write a computer program that somehow knows if you have won the lottery (maybe looking at bank balance but this could be risky - I am sure you can think of some way a computer could determine it, perhaps simply if you program in your ticket detail and it just downloads the results from the internet!) Anyway, you rig yourself up to a machine that delivers a lethal dose of something if you do not win. This way, because there is a one in 30 million chance of winning or something, you will die in all realities where you do not win the lottery. You will only be aware of winning the lottery. You can only perform this experiment on yourself because if you do it on another person there is obviously a 29'999'999/30 million chance of your subject dying on you!

Interesting hypothesis, but again, its more metaphysics and philosophical questions of realisty than QM per se.

 

[bam0]

OK - firstly I am doing an MPhys at Edinburgh, this isn't some total flight of fancy. They are just some thoughts on Quantum Probability inspired by my lecture notes.

'I will live to be the oldest man/forever'. Since every possible cause of death only has a certain chance of occuring, QM predicts that there is a chance you will survive and therefore the universe divides at that point. Because we simply can't be conscious when we are dead, we will only be aware of the universes where we survive. The other people around us will suffer the loss of you dying, but you yourself in your mind will simply have 'cheated death' and just carry on living in a new reality. Once it is possible for one man to live forever due to advances in medical technology, we will all in theory only be aware of living forever.

The cause of death may not have a certainty of occurring, but do the actions that cause your death always have an outcome that can allow you to be living while being consistent with physical laws? If I collide with an antimatter version of myself I can't imagine any scenario allowing me to come out of it in one piece (unless it's a very very small one).

 

[laissez-faire]

Im not convinced. When tossing a coin, neither heads nor tails is certain, so your argument is that its possible that neither will happen. Its the possibility that at least one result will happen thats important.

There are always chances of survival, Jumping off a tall building you land in a pillow truck, gun at head jams etc. With the coin, what about the coin landing on its side, or if simulated - what of the computer crashing?

 

[fatiain]

Laissez-faire, please put the spliff down and go the the garage to get a kit-kat.

 

[Treefrog]

There are always chances of survival, Jumping off a tall building you land in a pillow truck, gun at head jams etc. With the coin, what about the coin landing on its side, or if simulated - what of the computer crashing?

Or the two students tossing a coin to decide what to do: "Heads we go to the Uni bar, tails we go into town and pick up some girls. If it lands on edge we'll work."

Laissez-faire, please put the spliff down and go the the garage to get a kit-kat.

Or pass it here.