Quantum Suicide?

Most recent answer: 06/12/2013

Q:
A few days ago my boyfriend read an article about quantum suicide thought experiment and now he is constantly worried that after he dies his consciousness will be stuck in multiple universes in a state of physical pain and misery, regardless the cause of death, suicide or natural. He also says that he won't be observing his own body so his death will never actualize for himself. However, he doesn't know much about quantum mechanics in general and his idea seems to be a superstitious belief rather than a rational understanding. Unfortunately, I don't know much about QM in general so I can't tell him anything comforting. Could you please explain if we are going to live in some sort of Zeno-like universe that never ends and traps our consciousness in eternal torment?
- Ezgi (age 22)
Istanbul,Turkey
A:

There is no reason to think that quantum mechanics implies anything as horrible as what your boyfriend fears. I think it's fair to say that its implications are overall neutral for human happiness. 

Common interpretations of quantum mechanics suggest that consciousness may exist only as flecks in an enormous foam of quantum possibilities, all of which in some abstract sense happen. Nothing about the structure of quantum mechanics even begins to suggest that it has any more tendency to give rise to  "states of pain and misery" than to any other state. Your boyfriend might content himself with plain observation of the actual ratio of happiness to misery. These plain data are bad enough. Or, as someone once said, "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof".

Mike W.


(published on 06/12/2013)