@timb, @lausten, @citizenschallengev3,
First, I’d like to sincerely request that if you agree with the below and think that we are immortal, please keep your thoughts to yourself. The point of this thread is to refute this ludicrously dangerous idea. Ditto for any other whacky new age ideas, related to this one or not, that purportedly make us immortal.
Second, just so we’re on the same page, I’ll ask, do you think suicide cults who convinced their followers to let themselves die by convincing them they are immortal were bad? I do! Because these suicide cults have existed and societies response was to condemn them, I think it is uncontroversial to say that convincing people they are immortal can lead to their death and that this is morally reprehensible and abhorrent. Now, as bad as these rare cults, with very small in number of adherents were, imagine a secular idea, supported by the scientific mainstream taking off that promotes unheard of levels of bad behavior all over the world. One may argue that this is different, as it’s not literally encouraging suicide. I’d argue it’s worse, as convincing someone to ignore danger is easier than convincing them to deliberately commit suicide. Suicide cults may convince their adherents to drink poison, this is probably not easy. This physics theory may convince people to not wear their seat belts and every other safeguard, unarguably this is much easier to do, and would lead to countless needless deaths, much more than any suicide cult in history. Both are absolutely horrid and should not be promoted by anyone, ever, certainly not by the scientific community. And this is more dangerous than almost any religion, because almost every religion gives good reasons to not let oneself die, and also almost invariably teach that immortality is a spiritual thing, not literal indestructibility, where death is completely impossible. And science takes root world wide, where no religion is practiced by almost everyone in the world, almost everyone in the world believes that Newtons laws apply and other scientific ideas. Science has a higher likelihood of being more widely accepted than religion.
That said, here is the issue:
The current story is that due to the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which purportedly is true and held as correct by many respected physicists, we are literally immortal. Our bodies and minds literally cannot die. Every time we apparently “die” a new universe is created where we did not die. So death quite literally does not exist for each individual. So we can see others die, but each individual never dies. Those that we see die live on in another universe, totally and literally immortal, while they, for us, absolutely do die.
So basically, if this is true (I think it is laughably untrue) things like bringing food while going on an excursion in the wilderness where you’ll be totally cut off from the world for a month is totally pointless. You will find food and live. You are immortal. Bring water to the desert? Nope, you’ll find an oasis. Wearing a parachute when skydiving makes no sense at all, you’ll land on something soft. If skydiving instructors were as smart as these proponents of scientifically proven immortality, they would allow their customers to jump without one, and jump without one themselves. But, luckily for you, and me, because I think this is extremely dangerous thinking, the vast majority of people are not genius physicists and do safeguard their lives.
I also notice that, thankfully, the physicists that say these things don’t truly believe them, as they are still alive in our universe. If someone truly believed they were immortal, they would be dead in a matter of hours, a week tops. The behaviors that keep us alive every day would be suppressed and so we’d end up dead very quickly. So, while lots of smart people are claiming this is true, none of them seem to believe it on any but a theoretical level. Perhaps they, every single person who believes this, all are such saints that they stay alive and don’t enjoy their immortality merely to make others happy? This seems improbable. The urge to make others happy is largely connected to keeping ourselves happy, and all of it is based on mortality. Someone who truly believed this wouldn’t look both ways before crossing the street or any other cautionary behavior and they’d be dead very quickly. Thankfully they know very well that this idea is incorrect and so avoid danger and stay alive!
If this theory becomes more mainstream, people may start to take it literally, and this would be extremely bad for society.
So, please refute this idea.
.