Quantum ethics?

[Buckaroo]

Just for fun, let's assume Wheeler's many-worlds interpretation is correct. Here's a question: Do we now have to worry about quantum ethics? Here's a (over)simplified example of what I mean: you engage in some very risky behavior or other, that has a high probability of injury or death -- say, some extreme-sport that only the slackers in a Mountain Dew commercial would try. You miraculously make it through the event unscathed. But in a significant number of the universes that have split off, chances are you've splattered your brains/drowned/been rent limb from limb, though these universes are forever cut off from the "you" that you perceive. So your decision and action in your perceived universe has resulted in the death or dismemberment of innumerable "not you's" that the action created, who are just as "real" as you are.

So my question is this: In Wheeler-world, would we have an obligation to minimize the peril we knowingly place ourselves in, so that we do not unnecessarily endanger the "not-ourselves" that our actions would create in the multiverse? How is this any different from, for example, having an ethical responsibility not to drive recklessly in heavy traffic?

Why or why not?

 

[Roboramma]

Before you undertake the action, all those possible yous are still you, they aren't "not-yous". To explain why I say this, look at it from their perspective, each one of them traces their lives back in time, and would say that he is you (before the action). It's only after the split that there is more than one of you.

I don't know how this affects your point, but it really is only yourself that you are endangering.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

While I really do care about lives of other people that may be proven to exist even if they will never affect me, I say "not", and here's why.

If such a choice actually comes up and you don't make the choice to endanger your life, someone else will, and that will result in the same thing. The only thing you did was decide which "you" you were, but those universes where the you that did put yourself in danger and suddenly got horribly mangled or killed are still there. So, since your choice is irrelevent in the sense that the same universes are going to exist anyway, nah.

BUT, here's an ethical question for you. That still leaves the fact that you pick WHICH reality you are in. So, let's say you have a choice, you either almost certainly live, or you almost certainly die. Like, you are presented with the option to shoot yourself in the head or something. The second you decide NOT to kill yourself, another you has made the choice TO kill themself in their reality.

That's the big moral dilema, whether you should sacrifice yourself so you don't have parallel blood on your hands, or to realize that there's an infinity of worlds out there and every choice you make to prevent your harm results in harm occuring to those countless others, and just accepting it, the way a mafia don accepts the murders they commit to protect themselves (that's just terrible isn't it?).

 

[rocketdodger]

BUT, here's an ethical question for you. That still leaves the fact that you pick WHICH reality you are in. So, let's say you have a choice, you either almost certainly live, or you almost certainly die.

I don't think you understand what roborama is saying. He is completely correct. What he is talking about also applies to your second question.

 

[uncy]

Well first we need to decide if we in this Universe are the one’s that affect all the others, or if another, “you,” is the one causing the actions of us. Is it like the theory that with infinite stars in the universes, the center is everywhere and therefore balances itself out in which case each, “you,” would be responsible for their own actions and not our concern. Or is it like the theory that the center can not be everywhere, the only way to figure infinite is to create a central point and continue adding around it forever, in which case there is a central point and all is affected by it so that the, “you,” here or in some other universe is the one making the first decisions that then cause all others to react to it, then they are the one responsible for all the other, “you,” being maimed and killed.

 

[Buckaroo]

Before you undertake the action, all those possible yous are still you, they aren't "not-yous". To explain why I say this, look at it from their perspective, each one of them traces their lives back in time, and would say that he is you (before the action). It's only after the split that there is more than one of you.

I don't know how this affects your point, but it really is only yourself that you are endangering.

Hmm, I dunno. They might think they're you, but they're only sharing your memories up to the point when the universes split off. At that instant they become separate, individual beings occupying their own universe, with their own thoughts, their own consciousness. Before the split, it's just YOU deciding to bungie jump from that hot-air ballon over the volcano, and these other beings have to suffer the consequences, even though they share the memory of having made the decision.

If such a choice actually comes up and you don't make the choice to endanger your life, someone else will, and that will result in the same thing. The only thing you did was decide which "you" you were, but those universes where the you that did put yourself in danger and suddenly got horribly mangled or killed are still there. So, since your choice is irrelevent in the sense that the same universes are going to exist anyway, nah.

But the same universes won't exist. The state of each universe depends on the conditions of the universe that spawned it, and on the choices you make. And if you make a choice not to put yourself in danger, that means that the universes that split off of YOUR universe are safe, regardless of what's happening in the universes where you did decide to bungie jump from that hot-air ballon over the volcano. You have no influence or control over the not-yous are that ARE placing themselves in peril, so you have no obligation to them.

BUT, here's an ethical question for you. That still leaves the fact that you pick WHICH reality you are in. So, let's say you have a choice, you either almost certainly live, or you almost certainly die. Like, you are presented with the option to shoot yourself in the head or something. The second you decide NOT to kill yourself, another you has made the choice TO kill themself in their reality.

I'm not sure you have a choice which reality you are in, any more than I had a choice when I was born to be me instead of being Jack Black. Why am I me instead of you? Is this even a meaningful question? I think the same thing applies to the you/not-yous in the multiverse.

Well first we need to decide if we in this Universe are the one’s that affect all the others, or if another, “you,” is the one causing the actions of us.

I don't think that's really how it works -- in the Wheeler multiverse, the act of observation causes new universes representing each of the superposed states to split off into their own "orthogonal" realities. These universes in turn also spawn new universes. So there aren't any "puppet" universes being controlled by some other. Once created, they are completely independent, and go about their merry way. There's no universe that's any more or less real than any other, based on some hierarchy of realities.

 

[uncy]

in the Wheeler multiverse, the act of observation causes new universes representing each of the superposed states to split off into their own "orthogonal" realities. These universes in turn also spawn new universes. So there aren't any "puppet" universes being controlled by some other. Once created, they are completely independent, and go about their merry way. There's no universe that's any more or less real than any other, based on some hierarchy of realities.

But in this theory there must have been 1 universe at somepoint which in turn means the original universe is the spawned all others from itself meaning it is the center and caused all other actions to happen indirectly by creating them through it's own actions. I say it's the fault of the original, "you," because all other universes are an extension of it.

 

[Cecil]

I don't think the current you is responsible for the actions taken in the past that turn out to have horrible outcomes in other worlds. From the point of view of the other yous who were injured, it was their own actions which led to their maiming. By engaging in potentially dangerous activities those yous were tacitly accepting the potential risks. While skydiving, say, will contribute to the death of one you with 100% certainty (since it is a conceivable outcome, a world will be created for that eventuality), the you who in fact resides in that world has already accepted that risk and deemed the enjoyment to have been worth the risk.


Thread-jack: An interesting consequence of the many-worlds interepretation that I can't figure out how to refute is that it seems to bestow subjective immortality (though not objective immortality). Maybe someone can help.

That is, since you clearly cannot have conscious experience after you have died, your conscious experience will always reside in a world in which you are alive. Then, since every event causes the creation of new worlds corresponding to every possible outcome, as long as it is conceivable that you continue to survive, you will. A nuclear bomb could go off next to you and you would continue to live in a world in which all your atoms simultaneously tunneled 100 miles to the west.

Of course, you will still see other people die, though they still live on in other worlds. This also has the interesting consequence that every person is considerably luckier than average, from his or her own point of view.

 

[Buckaroo]

I say it's the fault of the original, "you," because all other universes are an extension of it.

I tend to agree, but Cecil has a point:

I don't think the current you is responsible for the actions taken in the past that turn out to have horrible outcomes in other worlds. From the point of view of the other yous who were injured, it was their own actions which led to their maiming. By engaging in potentially dangerous activities those yous were tacitly accepting the potential risks. While skydiving, say, will contribute to the death of one you with 100% certainty (since it is a conceivable outcome, a world will be created for that eventuality), the you who in fact resides in that world has already accepted that risk and deemed the enjoyment to have been worth the risk.

The only problem with this for me is that it doesn't account for the fact that after the split the Not-yous are separate, distinct entities that just share a common history in this universe. I think we can resolve this problem by creating a new category of being, one that is partly "you" as we currently think about it up to the split, and partly a distinct "not-you" that you share no sense of sentient or causal continuity with -- a separate being. We should then begin to think about the ethical issues the existence of such a being would create.

Just for yuks.

Thread-jack: An interesting consequence of the many-worlds interepretation that I can't figure out how to refute is that it seems to bestow subjective immortality (though not objective immortality). Maybe someone can help.

Yeah, I've thought about this too. It certainly would explain the improbability of my continuing existence...

 

[arthwollipot]

This is possibly the silliest conversation I've ever read.

 

[Buckaroo]

This is possibly the silliest conversation I've ever read.

Wow, high praise indeed. Please elucidate -- in what way is it the silliest?

 

[Bri]

It seems that the question posed in the OP is worded a little inaccurately. It really seems to have less to do with many-worlds and more to do with whether or not you believe that people should be held responsible for risks to their own lives. The answer to that question would be the same for the many-worlds interpretation as for other interpretations.

Any behavior has some risk to it, so in the many-worlds scenario, some future versions of you will die or be injured just from fetching the newspaper in the morning. So the only thing you could do is to minimize the number of injuries and deaths by minimizing risk, but you could never be expected to prevent all injuries/deaths of future "yous." Without the many-worlds interpretation, the dilemma isn't much different, except that the risk doesn't correspond to the number of future "yous" that will die or be injured, but rather the chances that the one future "you" will die or be injured by an action.

Whatever your view is on risking one's own life, it's likely going to be the same for either interpretation.

-Bri

 

[gnome]

Think of it the other way around... since inevitably every consequence of your choices will occur in one universe or another, one could fall into an ethical vacuum and decide that the consequences don't matter at all, since they all happen. Not only that, it doesn't matter what you decide to do, because there's universes where you decided to, and ones where you didn't... it's enough to create a psychosis

 

[Dr Adequate]

Just for fun, let's assume Wheeler's many-worlds interpretation is correct. Here's a question: Do we now have to worry about quantum ethics? Here's a (over)simplified example of what I mean: you engage in some very risky behavior or other, that has a high probability of injury or death -- say, some extreme-sport that only the slackers in a Mountain Dew commercial would try. You miraculously make it through the event unscathed. But in a significant number of the universes that have split off, chances are you've splattered your brains/drowned/been rent limb from limb, though these universes are forever cut off from the "you" that you perceive. So your decision and action in your perceived universe has resulted in the death or dismemberment of innumerable "not you's" that the action created, who are just as "real" as you are.

The other versions of me who got splattered chose to do so and did so at their own risk, just as I did.

It makes as much sense for me to blame them for bad choices I've made as vice versa, i.e. none at all.

I also don't think quantum theory works like that, but that's my response to the ethical question.

 

[Bri]

Think of it the other way around... since inevitably every consequence of your choices will occur in one universe or another, one could fall into an ethical vacuum and decide that the consequences don't matter at all, since they all happen. Not only that, it doesn't matter what you decide to do, because there's universes where you decided to, and ones where you didn't... it's enough to create a psychosis

Well, theoretically, if you do something that is a lower risk, the negative outcome should occur in fewer future worlds whereas a higher-risk outcome should have negative consequences in more worlds. Dr. Adequate is right though, it doesn't really matter since all instances of you took the same risk (at that time, they were the same you). The blame is equal for each instance, and is exactly the same as whatever blame you would have in a non-many-worlds interpretation for taking the same risk.

The blame would likely be proportional to the risk in either case.

-Bri

 

[TobiasTheViking]

Well, theoretically, if you do something that is a lower risk, the negative outcome should occur in fewer future worlds whereas a higher-risk outcome should have negative consequences in more worlds. Dr. Adequate is right though, it doesn't really matter since all instances of you took the same risk (at that time, they were the same you). The blame is equal for each instance, and is exactly the same as whatever blame you would have in a non-many-worlds interpretation for taking the same risk.

The blame would likely be proportional to the risk in either case.

-Bri

But, theoretically, in some of the other worlds you will choose to do something at a higher risk, so the overall harm to you, in all the worlds combined, won't change based on whether or not you choose to go doing something high risk, because if you go with the low risk here, in another one you will go for the high risk, and the same combined harm will come to you. Only difference is which one of you chooses what, but all the choices are still taken.

 

[nescafe]

Just for fun, let's assume Wheeler's many-worlds interpretation is correct. Here's a question: Do we now have to worry about quantum ethics? Here's a (over)simplified example of what I mean: you engage in some very risky behavior or other, that has a high probability of injury or death -- say, some extreme-sport that only the slackers in a Mountain Dew commercial would try. You miraculously make it through the event unscathed. But in a significant number of the universes that have split off, chances are you've splattered your brains/drowned/been rent limb from limb, though these universes are forever cut off from the "you" that you perceive. So your decision and action in your perceived universe has resulted in the death or dismemberment of innumerable "not you's" that the action created, who are just as "real" as you are.

So my question is this: In Wheeler-world, would we have an obligation to minimize the peril we knowingly place ourselves in, so that we do not unnecessarily endanger the "not-ourselves" that our actions would create in the multiverse? How is this any different from, for example, having an ethical responsibility not to drive recklessly in heavy traffic?

Why or why not?

In short, no. The many-worlds interpretation of QM can just as easily be used as an ethical saftey net -- no matter what heinous or thoughtless act I commit, some version of me either did not perform that act, or performed it such that no-one was killed/injured/embarrased/chagrined.

To use your example, yeah, a Vastly (in the Dennetian sense) huge number of copies of me dies heinously performing that motorcycle stunt, but that number is still a Vanishingly (again, in the Dennetian sense) small subset of the number of universes in which I either did not perform that motorcycle stunt, or performed it flawlessly.

 

[Bri]

But, theoretically, in some of the other worlds you will choose to do something at a higher risk, so the overall harm to you, in all the worlds combined, won't change based on whether or not you choose to go doing something high risk, because if you go with the low risk here, in another one you will go for the high risk, and the same combined harm will come to you. Only difference is which one of you chooses what, but all the choices are still taken.

I may be misunderstanding the original post (or the many-worlds interpretation for that matter), but I understood the issue to concern a single decision made that produces multiple results as the world "splits" after the action is taken, and whether you are morally responsible for all of the results that occur in all of the resulting worlds from the decision you made. In other words, you take an action that has some risk associated with it, and in one world the action causes death and in another world it doesn't. Is the "you" who survived responsible for the death of the "you" who died in the other world as a result of an action taken when you were both the same "you?"

I believe you are responsible since the two "yous" were the same person when the choice was made, but in my opinion even if the many-worlds interpretation is false, you are still responsible for putting yourself as risk whether or not you happen to survive as a result. In other words, a positive result of a risky action doesn't excuse the action in any interpretation. This becomes more clear when you consider whether or not you are responsible for placing another person at risk even if no harm came to the other person.

The scenario you seem to be discussing is whether or not we're responsible for the choices made by another of "us" in another world. To that I would have to answer that we're not responsible for the actions of other instances of ourselves since we cannot control them, nor are they any longer "us" but rather distinct people who happen to look like us and share our past up until the time when our two worlds split off from one another. At the point of divergence, they become completely separate people, and one isn't responsible for the behavior of another.

-Bri

 

[Kopji]

I'm thinking of starting a charity fund to help the victims of poor quantum reality choices.

This may seem a kind of ignorant quantum question, but exactly when in this supposed quantum universe is there a single decision making event? If such a thing were actually possible, wouldn't that be kind of self refuting to the whole theory?

(Kopji thinks quantum physicists should spend less time acting like they live in the woodom.)

 

[arthwollipot]

Wow, high praise indeed. Please elucidate -- in what way is it the silliest?

It's not that I'm against erudite conversations on obscure subjects per se - heck I've participated in no few of them myself!

But the idea of modifying your behaviour so as not to harm an inhabitant of a parallel quantum time stream?

That's just silly.

Please, carry on! Have fun. Just because it's silly doesn't mean that it isn't worth having the conversation. Silly is good sometimes.