Roger Ebert's Journal: The Quantum Theory of Reincarnation

[Robin Landseadel]

Roger Ebert's article on incarnation and the Multiverse, from July 25.

"Against the Day" was the first thing his missive brought to mind:

	If you want to see fear in the eyes of a quantum physicist,
	mention the word "measurement." -- Folk saying

	Is reincarnation possible from a scientific, rationalist point of
	view? For my purposes today I'm going to argue that it is. We
	will never, however, be aware of it, and indeed "we," as we like
	to think of ourselves, will be completely out of the picture. I'm
	going to approach the problem from the point of view of
	quantum mechanics--a field about which I understand almost
	nothing, although discussing it permits others to assume I have
	gone mad.

	Let's begin, for the sake of argument, by saying that when you
	get right down to the bottom--under the turtles--everything, and I
	mean Everything, consists of quantum particles. These particles
	can as well be in one place as another, even at the same time.
	As Wikipedia informs us: The Everett many-worlds
	interpretation, formulated in 1956, holds that all the possibilities
	described by quantum theory simultaneously occur in a
	"multiverse" composed of mostly independent parallel
	universes.

	The crucial word here is "simultaneously." I take it to mean that
	Everything can be thought of as being in no particular place at
	any particular time. If you choose to think of it that way, be my
	guest. Whatever you think will be sublimely irrelevant, because
	places and times are concepts we bring with us to the quantum
	level. They do not seem to exist there. Or if they do, they are
	created only in the act of our applying them, and our
	measurements have meaning to us but not to them.

	Readers who are informed on this subject will have already
	stopped reading. Some may have been seized by helpless
	laughter. Disregard them. They're gone. I am writing for the rest
	 of us. Experts have had decades to make this clear. Now it's up
	to us to do the heavy lifting. Please don't repeat that tired old
	meme about how I shouldn't believe everything I read on
	Wikpedia. It knows a damned sight more than I do. . .

A whole lot more [including cool graphics and a Robert Anton Wilson  
interview on quantum physics] @

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/07/everymans_guide_to_quantum_the.html