Okay you want to see the world differently? When I learned this highly regarded scientific theory it completely changed the way I perceive my reality. The theory called quantity immortality or quantum suicide is as a result of a theory called the Everett Wheeler many worlds theory. It is a quantum theory that describes how reality we know unfolds in our universe as well as unfolding in an infinite number of adjacent realities. What really shook my worldview and led to a broadening of my perspective was what the theory implies about the nature of subjective reality versus objective reality. Better put, what you experience versus what everyone else who observes you is experiencing.
Basically in a nutshell (and vastly simplified) every particle in the universe and their interactions can be described by something called the wave function. A wave function is essentially a mathematical artifact used to ascribe a numeric value to the probability that a particle embodies any given characteristics it might have at a certain time in space. At the finest scales the universe is not clearly defined and deterministic but instead is a soup of probabilities and likelihoods of a certain characteristic being represented at a particular place in space and time I ,e. Spin, charge, velocity and momentum.
It is only by observation or measurement of these characteristics does the fuzziness disappear and all of the probable permutations for any given characteristic become absolute and real and all of the other probabilities Fall away and the wave function collapses into definite reality. Interesting to note that with some of these characteristics the more you know of one the less you know of the others. (See Bose- Einstein condensate for more interesting info)https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose%E2%80%93Einstein_condensate
Historically scientists have leaned towards the Copenhagen interpretation of the wave function collapse; in which it states that all those other probabilities present in the uncollapsed wave function vanish into unreality. Up until that moment of the wave function collapse, all probabilities and possibilities that can exist, do so, simultaneously in a superposition.
At the moment of observation (measurement)the superposition collapses and all of those possibilities evaporate into nothing. This interpretation was an artifact created by the scientists of the day who were not comfortable with the idea of multiple universes or realities and desired to live in a more deterministic universe. Many still clung to an traditional anthropocentric worldview and were already uncomfortable after Hubble's Revelation that the nebulas they once thought were gas clouds within the Milky Way are in fact island universes ( galaxies) of their own and the universe was a much bigger place than we ever thought it was.
So when Everett Wheeler published his many worlds paper it was received coldly by the scientific community(Everett left science shortly thereafter).
The current scientific opinion has since changed(although there is no consensus) and more and more scientists are beginning to agree that the quantum wave function collapse and the Copenhagen interpretation is indeed an unnecessary human artifact and not a true representation of reality. That in fact Wheelers hypothesis is a more honest and accurate representation of what the math is telling us. There is no requirement mathematically speaking for the wave function to collapse. In fact quite the opposite.
So what does the Everett wheeler many worlds theory predict? Well in a nutshell; everything that is not forbidden by the laws of physics in any given moment is happening simultaneously in other universes. This theory is often called the branching multiverse theory. Basically at any given Plank time(the shortest interval of time possible) every subatomic particle in the universe has a "choice", a probabilistic list of world line options available to it as it moves through space and time.
When we are not directly measuring the properties of any given particle, then it exists as the sum of all of its possibilities, a quantum wave function that is in what's called a "superposition" with all probabilities and permutations the particle can be in simultaneously. The moment we, in our universe, take a measurement of a particle; a single permutation of the myriad permutations that were possible within the superposition suddenly snaps into a single and defined particle as the wave function "collapses" in our universe. Yet those other possibilities and permutations the particle embodied when it was in a superposition don't just vanish into the ether; they become the "real" wave function collapse in a different universe, not our own. Basically everything that can happen does happen somewhere in the branching multiverse. That by itself is pretty awe-inspiring but the longer you think about this and its implications you eventually arrive at an inescapable conclusion. If this is true then that means that there are a vast uncountable number of doppelgangers in separate yet parallel realities that have all of your memories and even the quantum state of every particle in your body.(hard to say that's not you) Every single thing in a countless number of parallel universes (minus one quark that went left rather than right somewhere in the triangulum Galaxy) would be exactly the same and indistinguishable from the reality we're living in now.
Now we get to the concept of Quantum immortality sometimes referred to as quantum suicide (by the more pessimistic scientists). When I first arrived at this idea after thinking about the many worlds theory for a few years it absolutely knocked my socks off. Basically (if I don't explain it to your liking here, Wikipedia has a good excerpt)
So in a nutshell the idea goes like this:
The first thing you need to understand in order to intuitively grasp the implications of this is to understand that death and subjectively what follows it is not an experience. It is the absence of experience. (You can't square this idea with the idea of an afterlife so if you expect Pearly Gates then this probably won't, make much sense)
Death is not a cosmic "waiting room" it is the complete and total cessation of experience and the memory of experience.
The second thing you need to realize is that you are not an individual you are a vast multi-dimensional, branching wave function that encompasses all possible probabilities and permutations of reality that are allowed given the laws of physics in all universes.
Metaphorically "zooming out" to see the collection of multiverses as a whole and your place among them; you see that countless variations of you in an uncountable number of multiverses are dying every Plank moment for a variety of reasons, spanning the very likely to the patently absurd. Many of the former variety of typical fated fatalists in other realities are living very similar lives if not identical lives to your own. Every time you get in a car or out of bed for that matter there is a non-zero probability that something tragic could happen ending your life. The likelihood, for most of us, is not high that we will die during our day but the probability is still there.
Now think to yourself what it would be like, subjectively, to be one of these unlucky fellas in a universe where you die.
Say you're driving down the highway and someone pulls into your lane side swiping you causing a terrible accident and you die. If death is not an experience but instead it is the absence of experience; then it follows that death, by definition is the only experience that we all have that we will never subjectively be able to experience . Remember, you are not just a single "you" you are all the permutations of you that are possible.
So subjectively you would only be able to remember the experiences of those who survived the event. Basically this is due to the fact that there is always a timeline, no matter how unlikely, that contains version of you with a non-zero probability of surviving the car wreck.
It is in these timelines that we exist. (I'm assuming if you're reading this that you exist.)
However, objectively from the perspective of the people in the universe where you just perished, they watched you die in a burning car wreck. However your subjective experience differs from The observers in that universe not only due to the fact that you are not only that "you" from that single timeline; you are the one that survived and you will always be the "one" that survived, because you are all of them, all the time and all at once.
The fact that all of these individuals in all of these universes are still in all respects down to the smallest particle "You" makes your subjective experience a bit different than the the objective observers in any given single universe.
"You" would narrowly avoid the car wreck and carry on with your day thanking your lucky stars you didn't just die.
Pushing this thought experiment out further; as time goes on and the likelihood of your survival diminishes as you age, encounter new or novel experiences that may prove to be dangerous, you may notice a strange trend developing.
"You" seem to be avoiding death more and more often by the narrowest of margins. Eventually (a very very long time) the mortal events and the methods you employ to evade death's touch (oftentimes unintentionally) will become increasingly less and less probable bordering on absurd as time goes on; and time will go on, and on... and on.
The thing is this; if the Everett wheeler multiverse hypothesis turns out to be true then every single one of us is subjectively immortal. What this means is that everyone around you will die eventually, except for you. You will continually avoid death by the narrowest of margins or through the most unlikely of circumstances. Conversely, and from the perspective of the individuals around you, your mortality is assured and your death is witnessed by many.
In a few words, death is an objective experience one observes happens to others and is a mutually exclusive event from one's own subjective reality. As long as there is a non-zero probability in any given situation of your survival, then it is ensured.
It is possible that over a long enough period of time everyone's chance of survival drops to zero. After all it's pretty tough to escape the heat death of the universe or the temporal decay of the proton. If there is a way to escape the fate of death, and it is allowed by the laws of physics, even if it exists in the least probable reality where pigs fly, or in only one universe out of an infinite number, then that is the reality that you will experience and you will survive. You will always experience the reality that allows for a continuation of experience no matter how unlikely or improbable that reality may be.
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