Random Rambling: Halloween Special

We have... let's say an eclectic mix of interests, and we feel our patrons do too.  With that thought in mind, we present a feature we call "Random Rambling."  It isn't quite random, but it's close:  we made a little spinner with some of our favorite subjects.  Every Friday, we give the thing a spin, and then you, lucky people that you are, get to learn a fact related to the subject the spinner landed on.

This week's topic is:

Ooh!  A Wild Card!

Well, since today is Halloween, why don't we do something special?  Let's chat about how, with the right quantum physics interpretation and a fun little thought experiment, you are currently living through the zombie apocalypse... and have been since you were born.

Step By Step

Let's take this nice and easy.  To start with, consider Schrödinger's Cat.  Originally developed to make fun of quantum physics, it has since become a staple of the field, in much the same way that Machiavelli's The Prince was such a subtle jab at nobles that it became most nobles' favorite book.

We (probably) aren't quantum physicists, so we'll use the simple version:  a cat is placed in a box with a radioactive isotope and a rather nasty device.  The device, when activated by being hit with radiation, immediately releases a poison that will kill the cat instantly.  We then wait.  Radioactive isotopes release radiation rather haphazardly, so we can't actually tell when and if the isotope releases radiation; we can, however, tell when there's a 50-50 chance that it has done so.  We wait until that moment, then open the box.

Is the cat alive or dead?  Who cares?  Besides cat lovers, of course.  The really weird thing is that, due to the way quantum mechanics works, there's no way of knowing until we open the box... and the way the math works, the implication is that, until we open the box, the cat is both alive and dead.

One Cat, Infinite Worlds

Surprisingly, we aren't at the zombies yet.  The cat is alive and dead at the same time, not craving human flesh.

One possible way to interpret how that math works out is to assume that, the moment the box opens, two realities spring into existence at the same time.  In one reality, the cat is dead.  In the other, the cat is alive.  If this interpretation is true, then every single time an observation is made in which there is any uncertainty (and, thanks to the Uncertainty Principle, we can shorten that down to "every single time an observation is made") new realities are created, one for each possible outcome.  Scale that up from the quantum level to the atomic level, and functionally an infinite number of universes are being created every single instant, each on average different from the next by the direction an electron took.

We don't perceive all these universes, however, because in a nonzero number of those universes, the difference between that universe and this one is that you're dead.

Why Action Movies Make Sense

Even though you're both alive and dead now, we still aren't to the zombies.  In fact, it's kinda the opposite.  You don't perceive any reality in which you're dead, yes?  Because, well, you're dead.  Therefore, you can only perceive realities in which you are alive.  By extension, you only perceive realities in which you survive.

Survive what?  Anything.

For example, let's say you take a Science Gun™, put 5 bullets in it, then put the gun up to your head and pull the trigger.  But, uh oh, you weren't paying attention!  The Science Gun™ is semi-automatic, not a revolver!  What does this mean?

Well, it means there are an awful lot of realities where you die immediately, but the only realities you perceive are the ones where, due to unlikely chance, you didn't die.  From your perspective, despite having a 99.999999% chance of instant death, when you pulled the trigger you just heard a quiet *Click*.

This extension of the Many Worlds Interpretation is known as Quantum Immortality, and one of the side effects is that anyone who lives long enough will experience several unlikely events that they lived through, despite the odds being that they would have died.  Those of us who didn't study this in school probably just consider ourselves lucky.  Then we go watch an action movie where the hero survives an explosion with just a few bruises, instead of dying immediately, and think to ourselves, "Yeah, that makes sense."

Finally the Zombies

To this, we are now going to add a special kind of zombie.  They're known as philosophical zombies, and they tie into something we already experience regularly called The Dead Internet.

So, if you've been on the internet for any length of time, you are well aware of the fact that there are profiles, chatrooms, and whole websites that have, for one reason or another, been abandoned.  Many of those can still be interacted with, even though the original owner/moderator has wandered off, never to return.  Some of those people are no doubt dead, which gave this phenomenon its name:  The Dead Internet.

Some folk have developed a theory that, at some point, the Dead Internet will be bigger than the internet that all the living people are interacting on.  A slightly smaller group of folk believe we've already crossed that point.  Given how hard it is to catalog the entirety of the internet, we won't know for sure anytime soon, but it's kind of spooky to think about— thanks to chatbots and the like, at some point we might be the only living person on the internet and never even notice it.

Related:  have you ever considered what it would look like if the same thing happened in real life?  If people were capable of wandering around, doing all the things that they normally do, but the soul behind that person left a long time ago... or maybe was never there at all?

This particular thought experiment refers to such people as Philosophical Zombies:  people who look and act just like the rest of us, but there's no consciousness running the person.  The original form of the thought experiment asks us to consider if there is any difference between a conscious person and a philosophical zombie, but we here at Vagrant Dog Productions prefer to wonder something else.

Descartes Before The Horse

One more bit to reference.  This time we're going to mention René Descartes.  You may or may not have heard of him, but you definitely know about his most famous statement:  "I think, therefore I am."  It's important to place that in context, however.

See, at the time that he said that, Mr. Descartes was attempting to figure out what about existence he could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt.  Realizing that his senses could be ruled out, Descartes tossed the external universe.  Knowing that people could get by without body parts and even certain organs, he ruled those out too.  Eventually, he narrowed it down to his mere existence.  No matter what he considered, he could not discount the fact that something had to be thinking, or else there would be no thoughts.  Therefore, since he was thinking, he existed.  Neat, yeah?

The thing is, when Descartes tried to rebuild reality on that single stepping stone, his proof was not nearly as elegant or inarguable.  We were left with "I think, therefore I am," as his one unassailable argument.  We can prove to ourselves that we exist, but there is no proof that anything else exists; it could be a figment of our imagination, or we could be plugged into a simulation.

Or, to get very specific, we could be surrounded by zombies.

With Our Powers Combined

So, let's put all this together.

We know we exist, but we can't prove that anyone or anything else does.

We perceive only those realities in which we continue to exist.

If philosophical zombies are a thing, there is a non-zero number of people wandering around who aren't actually conscious.  Thanks to Descartes, we'll never know for sure how many, only that we aren't one of them.

Suppose the infinite number of realities that we perceive is smaller than the total number of realities (which should be true, since we don't perceive the ones we don't exist in), and the number of people who are philosophical zombies isn't zero in any given reality. What are the odds that the particular reality we're experiencing is the same as even one other conscious person?

...Given the number of infinities we're dealing with, that's a hard question to answer.  However, it is safe to say that, if philosophical zombies are a thing, then in a non-zero, theoretically infinite number of realities, you are the only person in the world who isn't a philosophical zombie.

Is one of those realities the reality you're currently experiencing?

Will you ever be able to know for sure?

...

Happy Halloween!