Summary: The Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics can help us respond virtuously to improbably good circumstances. Contemplating the less lucky branches of the quantum multiverse can be seen as a beneficial 'negative visualisation' practise comparable to those in Stoicism and some Buddhist traditions.
I’ve previously suggested that when we think about the ethical implications of the many-worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics, the kinds of implications we should expect are ones about how to feel in certain ethical situations, and what kinds of character traits or ‘virtues’ we should try to develop.
I’ve argued that MWI implies virtues in which we feel better about mutually exclusive life choices by reminding ourselves that there really are worlds in which we choose ‘the road not taken’.
I’ve also shown that MWI can help us feel better about improbable bad events, since the things we value remain unaffected in most other worlds.
But what about improbable good events?
Is the multiverse bad for well-being?
Suppose you’ve just won big at a Las Vegas casino - or made a fortune on the stock market, or through a series of high-risk, start-up ventures. Or perhaps you’ve been lucky to survive a plane crash or terror attack, or a lifetime of extreme sports.
As we saw last time, any such outcome can be seen as the result of classically chaotic processes which bottom out in quantum probabilities.
So if you find yourself in these situations, if MWI is true, there’s a large proportion of other worlds in which you were not so lucky.
And therefore if MWI helps us feel better when faced with misfortune, by the same logic it seems it should make us feel worse when faced with good fortune.
The many-worlds perspective confronts you with a majority of worlds in which you or your multiverse counterpart struggled on the stock-market, or in business, or in which they died in a plane crash or rock-climbing accident.
These reflections might dampen your happiness, especially if you meditate on how close the relationship is between you and your multiverse counterpart, and visualise their fate in vivid detail.
And this might seem to present a challenge for the view I’ve put forward, that MWI has implications for how to understand virtue.
Virtue is usually seen as closely related to happiness or human flourishing. And we now seem faced with a case where the supposed ‘virtue’ of taking the many-worlds point of view moves us away from such flourishing.
In addition, one might think that on balance this leads us back to the view that ‘it all adds up to normality’, since the benefits of this virtue in some circumstances are offset by its negative consequences in others.
Memento Mori
I think these challenges can be met, and the case of improbable good events actually supports the idea that taking the many-words view is a virtue.
On the way to this conclusion, let's go back to Ancient Rome.
In some accounts of Roman triumphal processions, a companion or public slave would stand behind or near the triumphant general and remind him from time to time to “Look behind. Remember that you are a mortal man”.
This practise is part of wider tradition of memento mori, remembrance of death, in Stoicism. More recent Stoic thinkers have coined the term ‘negative visualisation’, expanding the practise to include meditation on bad outcomes other than death.
The psychological benefits were conceived in various ways, but a neat summary is provided by the stoic Epictetus:
Keep death and exile before your eyes each day, along with everything that seems terrible — by doing so, you’ll never have a base thought nor will you have excessive desire.
There is both an elevating and a chastening effect. Mindfulness of death, and of other bad outcomes, can serve to focus your attention on what really matters and by the same token regulate your desires, helping avoid excessive focus on the trivial or ephemeral.
This might sound a bit joyless, but that would be a misunderstanding. An awareness of ephemerality can also lead to a fitting (neither excessive nor too little) appreciation of the pleasures of the present moment, in the spirit of carpe diem.
Contemplating Worse Worlds
When you’ve experienced a lucky escape, whether from death or from shallower evils, taking a many-worlds view means meditating on the majority of worlds in which you were not so lucky.
Though it’s true there’s a sense in which this involves ‘dampening’ happiness, this is far from the whole story: we can now see how contemplating those worlds is a specific kind of negative visualisation.
The fact that your multiverse counterparts are worse off than you, can deepen an appreciation for the specific qualities of your current branch.
In the case where your counterparts met their death, it can deepen your gratitude for just being alive.
At the same time, contemplating the improbability of your current good fortune, in comparison to those other worlds, helps to guide your desires towards sustainable values; towards goals and virtues that are resilient to the ups and downs of random events.
So while it’s true that taking the many-worlds point of view in a sense dampens your current mood - just as no doubt the whispers of mortality dampened the triumphant mood of the returning roman general - this is in service of a deeper and more lasting happiness.
Kinds of Negative Visualisation
Negative visualisation practices of this sort can be analysed along two dimensions:
The classic memento mori approach is to take an object of contemplation your possible death in the future - specifically the near future.
It’s often thought to be more effective to consider not only that you will die at some point, but that you could die today.
Seneca writes
Let us continually think as much about our own mortality as about that of all those we love … Now is the time for you to reflect … Whatever can happen at any time can happen today.
The Maranassati Sutta takes this even further: the Buddha says that the best way to be truly mindful of death is to consider that your next breath may be your last, rather than merely thinking that this may be your last day
An alternative approach is consider the actual death of someone else in the recent past. The Satipatthana Sutta describes a form of meditation that focuses on the stages of decay of a real human corpse.
The use of a skull (either real, sculpted or depicted) as a memento mori in the European tradition can be seen as a less visceral version of this.
The Many-Worlds Kind
Contemplating multiverse branches in which you fared worse can be seen as a further example of this second approach. 'Fared' here is past tense: you are generally considering events in the recent past where your multiverse counterparts were less lucky than you.
And according to MWI, these counterparts are fully actual, and not merely possible.
We can expect this many-worlds variant of negative visualisation to be as effective as the historical practices mentioned above - and potentially more so.
Given that one is seeking a heightened appreciation of one's own circumstances, it makes sense that it is particularly effective to contemplate one's own death or misfortune.
It also makes sense that contemplating something actual, rather than merely possible, can have a greater impact on your mental models of the world and yourself.
Something you believe to be true can plausibly go further in your mental economy than something you hold to be possible, given the many interconnections between beliefs and desires, and between beliefs and other beliefs.
The many-worlds practise uniquely combines both kinds of effectiveness, since it allows you to think of your own death or misfortune (or that of your multiverse counterpart) as actual (in other branches).
Fickle Fortune
So the many-worlds point of view, like the memento mori tradition, can breed humility and a focus on what really matters, including compassionate, virtuous action and a heightened presence in the here and now.
When faced with good luck, contemplation of worlds in which you fared worse can help us appreciate our good fortune without misattributing it to necessity or personal agency.
And here we can draw together the perspective just described with the perspective on improbably bad events sketched in the previous post.
In the case of both good and bad fortune, the virtuous and emotionally healthy attitude is to recognise unpredictability as part of the natural order.
In the case of bad luck, the answer to the question ‘why me’ is not some fundamental flaw in myself or reality. In the case of good luck the answer to the question of ‘why me’ is not that I am special or chosen.
MWI helps us appreciate these facts by locating our histories among countless others in which we fare differently.
Like the medieval image of the wheel of fortune, elevating some and dethroning others through its natural motion, MWI offers a picture of the natural order that consoles us in dark times and helps keep us honest when times are good. The former, though, is a myth; the latter is science.