The Many-Worlds Interpretation Has Many Problems
Quantum suicide is a fascinating thought experiment. If consciousness is a property of a certain type of brain (or calculation?), then the concept of ‘’’me” is just a variation of the anthropic principle: I believe my subjective experience to be something unique, but there’s nothing unique or special about a human brain and the conscious experiences it produces.<p>So even if there are billions of worlds, there aren’t billions of “me”s out there. There are simply billions of consciousnesses which share common memories and thought patterns. Each variation would believe itself to be the true “me”, when in fact they are all wrong: there is no “me”. Just the consciousnesses that all those brains create.<p>So in quantum suicide, there is no transfer of any sort. One consciousness is simply extinguished forever. The other continues.<p>This aligns somewhat with Buddhist teachings about the illusion of “self”. I don’t believe in the supernatural, but one could consider the idea of reincarnation as merely the fact that there are not instances of consciousness, but instead manifestations of one phenomenon. Which could possibly mean that if you are a conscious being reading this comment at this moment, you can rest assured that your death will not stop “you” from continuing to experience subjective experiences as another person, in another place, at another time. You just won’t realize it, because you won’t be “you” anymore.<p>Or maybe it’s all nonsense.<p>I have a hunch there is a variation of quantum suicide that would be less lethal, but no less measurable.