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A man sits down before a gun, which is pointed at his head. This is no ordinary gun; it's rigged to a machine that measures the spin of a quantum particle. Each time the trigger is pulled, the spin of the quantum particle -- or quark -- is measured. Depending on the measurement, the gun will either fire, or it won't. If the quantum particle is measured as spinning in a clockwise motion, the gun will fire. If the quark is spinning counterclockwise, the gun won't go off. There'll only be a click.
Nervously, the man takes a breath and pulls the trigger. The gun clicks. He pulls the trigger again. Click. And again: click. The man will continue to pull the trigger again and again with the same result: The gun won't fire. Although it's functioning properly and loaded with bullets, no matter how many times he pulls the trigger, the gun will never fire. He'll continue this process for eternity, becoming immortal.
Go back in time to the beginning of the experiment. The man pulls the trigger for the very first time, and the quark is now measured as spinning clockwise. The gun fires. The man is dead.
But, wait. The man already pulled the trigger the first time -- and an infinite amount of times following that -- and we already know the gun didn't fire. How can the man be dead? The man is unaware, but he's both alive and dead. Each time he pulls the trigger, the universe is split in two. It will continue to split, again and again, each time the trigger is pulled
...death is not binary. You are not either alive or dead, but may exist in various intermediate forms of suffering and reduced cognitive abilities. This means that what actually happens when you play russian roulette is the following:
In those universes in which you win, everything is fine. In those in which you lose, however, you now have a gaping head wound. I assume that this hurts a lot, at least in those instances where you still have enough mental capacity to actually feel anything. Due to some fluke however (remember that absolutely all possible scenarios happen), you may still be alive and in a lot of pain. Most instances of you will then die from bloodloss or something, but for every timestep afterwards there will alway be an infinite number of universes wherein you continue to live, in most of them in complete agony.
Originally posted by FeelingPure
reply to post by AussieAmandaC
I was also thinking of a movie that is symbolic towards this topic, Inception, Like you said topics like these can make you do crazy stuff & forget we survive on reality.
Originally posted by DaRAGE
Pffft. Prove to me the universe cannot split into two universes!
You cant.
Originally posted by FeelingPure
reply to post by winofiend
I mean people that are crazy like use drugs or mentally ill
Originally posted by silent thunder
it raises the possibility that there are an infinite number of universes already in existence where we are not only alive, but alive and suffering hideous agony.
Originally posted by Wertdagf
reply to post by silent thunder
We assue that things appear and disapear at a quantum level because our vision isnt detailed enough.
All of this foolish mental masterbation is a waste of time... even if a million alternate realities are spawned that is useless information.
Although it's functioning properly and loaded with bullets, no matter how many times he pulls the trigger, the gun will never fire. He'll continue this process for eternity, becoming immortal.
But what matters is their relative scarcity -- that there's only a few of them compared the majority.