Quote:
John Henry mused:
There are certain events for which everybody's chance of dying is exactly 1.
To give an example of what I mean, take a modified version of your experiment. Lets assume that your original experiment says that if the nuclear coin toss flips heads, you get shot in the head and if it flips tails, you don't. Now lets change it to heads you get shot in the head, tails you get your head chopped off. Now all subsequent universes result in you dying.
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See, there is a problem with the thought experiment.
It is possible, though extremely unlikely, that the bullet will simply travel through your head and leave you perfectly intact.
The odds against this are huge. So huge you will never experience it happening to another.
So, the coin lands heads. The sword passes through your neck and you don't die. The odds against this are 2^10000000000000000000 to one. But, it could happen.
And this is the flaw in the thought experiment: in "reality" you'd walk into the box, and the machine would break down, or you'd be crippled by bullet unable to press the button again, or something else would happen. Something more likely than 1:2^1000 odds. Or, more precicely, you would be more likely to be one of those future selves than the one that proves that QM uses the many-universe theory.
The other cute implication of Quantum Immortality is that you are simply choosing your past. Which past do you want to have lived, one where you where a dick, or one where you where happy and had a good life? Both will exist until and beyond the point where stars wink out one by one...
I find this consequence of an interpritation of physics interesting. Don't believe it yet, but neither do I disbelieve it.