## [Challenge Companion] Quantum Suicide and Immortality

* Author: u/alexanderwales  *Time flies like an arrow**
* URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/6lpeqt/challenge_companion_quantum_suicide_and/
* Score: 10

* Created: 2017-07-06T22:34:03

### Post:

**tl;dr: This is the companion thread to the [biweekly challenge](https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/6lpb1z/biweekly_challenge_quantum_suicide_and_immortality/?utm_content=title&utm_medium=hot&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=rational). Post ideas, questions, general discussion, recommendations, chit-chat, etc. below.**

[See this wiki page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_immortality). My personal opinion is that if you take the "no scifi" route, this is a pretty tough prompt that *probably* revolves around the anthropic principle (e.g. a main character survives freakish odds to stay alive). If you're willing to bend or break the rules of reality in order to make a story work, or examine the thought experiment in detail, then you'll have a much easier time of it.

### Comments:

> **u/MagicWeasel** [+8]  *Cheela Astronaut* (2 hours later)
> 
> I swear I read a short story on this subject that I was going to post here for people to read, but I can't find it. It was about someone who found a book called "you will never die", and he met an old man (?) in a book store who was telling him all about quantum immortality (actually, I feel like the viewpoint character was a woman, but that could just be because I'm a woman and the viewpoint character was bland). 
> 
> It felt like it was written in the 70s but I'm not sure if that's true or not. I read it probably about 10 years ago, and almost certainly on the internet (though I have read paperback anthologies on very rare occasions). 
> 
> FWIW, I recall not finding it terribly good (watch it turn out to be a Heinlein masterpiece...) and I'm not even sure if I finished it as I don't remember what the punchline was.

>> **u/daydev** [+8]  (7 hours later)
>> 
>> Have you tried googling it? Because I didn't even know the story, and I found it on the first page for "book called you will never die". [Here it is](http://www.tor.com/2010/08/05/divided-by-infinity/). Unless it's a different story about a character being given a book titled *You Will Never Die*.

>>> **u/MagicWeasel** [+6]  *Cheela Astronaut* (8 hours later)
>>> 
>>> I did google it, but I think I have the worst google luck in history because I never seem to be able to find stuff like that by googling it. (Seriously, [in this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/comments/ixd2m/book_crashed_spaceship_becomes_friends_with_an/) years ago, I even knew the book's title and the names of a few characters, and still didn't manage to find it!)
>>> 
>>> Looking at your link, I'm 99% sure that's the right one. My heartiest congratulations for finding it!

---