Quantum Suicide

There is a thought experiment in quantum mechanics called quantum suicide. The experimenter literally places their life on the line – the thing they are testing is whether they will live or die. They run the test over and over, like Russian roulette, again and again. The experiment is based on a particular interpretation of quantum mechanics: the many-worlds interpretation. They say that if many-worlds is true, the experimenter will always live.

Now a thought experiment is to be attempted in thought only, but I wanted to tell this story. What would drive someone to commit quantum suicide? What would they need to know to be true about our reality? What type of person, with what type of ethics? And what are the consequences, for them and those around them?

This is not a story about invented science, it must be underpinned by the body of human knowledge – this is a story that explores how the universe actually works. In researching this project, I discovered that in surveys of professional quantum physicists, when asked about the various interpretations of quantum mechanics, the majority believe the leading candidate theory is the many-worlds interpretation (on which the quantum suicide narrative is built). The questions we explore here are not just narrative in nature, they are also explorations of fundamental cosmological and existential questions key to the workings of the universe and our place within it.

There are profound questions to be answered about the nature of reality and its relationship to consciousness that are not normally explored – in daily life, in what we read, in what we watch. These are some of the most important ideas we could contemplate, and yet we spend our lives treading on the surface, forgetting to look at the marvels underneath.