Informationalism 101 - Quantum Suicide... Squad?

This is the first of a multi-part blog on topics drawn from the world of science that are rapidly entering the popular consciousness and being spun into all kinds of weird crap that simply isn't there.

Quantum Mechanics is the science of observable phenomena at the smallest scales of the Universe. The level where the Universe becomes discretized, i.e. quantized.

Informationalism is not a Quantum Theory and does not stipulate a specific Quantum Theory per se, but tends to favor Quantum Field Theory (QFT) heavily for explanations about QM.

Quantum Theories (and there are many) are rational attempts to explain the phenomena but some of the thought experiments called "absurdisms", are being extrapolated into Quantum Woo and even QBS (Quantum Bullshit), in order to promote religious views as science.
I have no problems if you want to find a "god of the gaps" and you find that somehow satisfying in your search for God..
But for everyone else, I want to equip you with some tools to quickly be able to tear apart arguments from Quantum Woo & QBS and convert them back into QM, using techniques drawn from an "Informationalist" perspective.

What is informationalism?

Informationlism is a perspective, i.e. interpretation about the laws of the Universe including Quantum Mechanics. The perspective has a primary postulate which defines everything as quantifiable information. Informationalism states that information is what is conserved, because information is all that really exists. Matter, energy, space, time, all the forces etc are all discretized and quantifiable, i.e. knowable information and thus conserved in all cases. Nothing can simply cease to exist. But it can be transformed.

Quantum Suicide is an example of an "absurdism". Absurdisms are the result of taking a theory or a postulate to an absurd level in order to demonstrate it's INCORRECTNESS by pointing at flaws in the logic and reasoning behind them.
However, you see many people including scientists who should know better, using it to push either abject or latent religious viewpoints, instead of sparking debate.

Quantum Suicide is a thought experiment that goes like this...

John Doe was seriously depressed, and decided to end his life.
He loaded a six shooter revolver with six bullets, put the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger.
The gun failed to fire. He did this again and again, each time the gun failed to fire.

Eventually he gave up in frustration and went to see his local Quantum Mechanic, Eve.
Eve examined the gun, finding it in working order. She pointed it at John and pulled the trigger.
The gun fired, John collapsed dead. Eve had a shiny new gun.

Come on, did you really expect her to look any different?

John's ghost returned and asked what happened.
Harley, umm I mean Eve, explained that what really happened, is that under the many-worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics; at each point where he attempted suicide, time diverged.

The whole universe went in two or more different and mutually exclusive directions. In one direction John had died, in the other direction the gun failed to fire.
The direction where the gun went off, resulted in the man's death each and every time.
He was no longer aware and thus for him, it was game over. But in an alternate reality he survived, only to try and fail, again and again.

Our John had just been incredibly lucky up to this point.

He had achieved Quantum Immortality only because he couldn't collapse his own wave function. He was "unable to observe himself" without interference.

John's ghost disappeared in a puff of logic leaving behind a very scared cat who immediately hid in a box in Harley's Garage, err I mean Eve's garage.

This explanation is a consequence of the Many Worlds Interpretation applied to Schrodinger's cat.

Schrodinger's cat exists as Schrodinger's retort to the Copenhagen interpretation of the Schrodinger wave function which is used to explain the observed phenomena of wave/particle duality.

There is nothing wrong with Schrodinger's wave function. It correctly describes observable phenomena. As does Newtonian/Classical Physics and General Relativity, Special Relativity etc. These all describe things correctly within the limits of their precision. So does the Copenhagen Interpretation. All of these things are real in the context of informationalism, but they cannot give a complete picture, because the complete picture requires a much broader perspective.

The cat story is there to remind us that an observer can be anything. It doesn't have to be a conscious human performing the experiments. In fact the observer can be anything with what informationalism defines as an "identity function", i.e. it is composed of some unit of distinct information.

To the informationalist, the cat doesn't actually exist in a superposition of states, it's our knowledge or information about the state of the closed "blackbox" which is in a superposition of states. This is because we have yet to perform the computation required to "collapse the wave function" into a definitive state. This computation is embedded in the act of observation.

This also means we don't need the MWI to explain observable phenomenon.
If MWI were correct, then at each divergent moment in time entire universes would be coming into existence. For the purposes of what? While I have a detailed explanation in my next blog posting, a quick summary is that if MWI is correct, then the energy of the Universe would be rapidly decreasing at each quantum event. Yet this does not happen. In fact the information of the universe is increasing and now Dark Energy constitutes 80% of the energy of the Universe. If MWI were occurring, this effect would be slowing down, not speeding up.

Yet tearing down the postulates of Quantum Suicide and MWI cannot be used to rule out Quantum Immortality, even under Informationalism. Because the primary postulates of informationalism assert Quantum Immortality as fact. However it's not what you think.

What is Quantum Immortality?
Check my next blog posting for the answer.