On 02/06/07, "Hal Finney" <hal.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> Another possibility is that Boltzmann Brains arising out of chaos are the
> > observer moments which associate to produce the first person appearance
> of
> > continuity of consciousness and an orderly universe. Binding together
> > observer moments thus generated is no more difficult than binding
> together
> > observer moments generated in other multiverse theories.
>
> So how would this explain why we see an orderly universe? I think we
> would have to say that Boltzmann brains that remember an orderly universe
> are substantially smaller (take up fewer Planck units) than those that
> remember chaotic ones.
>
> I considered this possibility but I couldn't come up with a good
> justification. Now, keep in mind that the Boltzmann brain does not have
> to literally be a brain, with lobes and neurotransmitters and blood;
> it could be any equivalent computational system. Chances are that true
> "Boltzmann brains" would be small solid-state computers that happen to
> hold programs that are conscious. Shrinking the brain even a little
> increases its probability of existence tremendously.
My immediate thought on hearing the term was that the Boltzmann Brains are
due to fortuitous arrangement of matter in any physical system, such as
interstellar clouds of hydrogen, which happens to instantiate a particular
Turing machine, but only for a tiny instant before it goes into another
arrangement. Thus, not only will smaller systems be more frequent, but
briefer systems will be more frequent; it is very unlikely that a large and
long-lasting entity like a human brain will appear by chance, but rather
more likely that very brief human brain-equivalent snapshots will arise,
widely separated in time and space.
This is really very much like saying "every possible observer moment
exists", and then trying to define a probability or measure which explains
why in fact we tend to experience a certain kind of observer moment.
(I am assuming that probability makes sense even though we are speaking of
> events that happen a countably infinite number of times; both Boltzmann
> brains and whole universes like ours will appear infinitely often in
> the de Sitter state, but the smaller systems will be far more frequent.
> I assume that this means that we would be more likely to experience
> being the small systems then the big ones, even though both happen an
> infinite number of times.)
>
> So to explain the lawfulness we would have to argue that Boltzmann brains
> that remember lawful universes can be designed to be smaller than those
> that remember chaotic universes, as well as slightly lawless flying-rabbit
> universes. It's not completely implausible that the greater simplicity
> of a lawful universe would allow the memory store of the Boltzmann
> brain to be made smaller, as it would allow clever coding techniques to
> compress the data. However one would think that memories of universes
> even simpler than our own would then be that much more likely, as would
> memories of shorter lifetimes and other possibilities to simplify and
> shrink the device. This explanation doesn't really seem to work.
>
--
Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Sat Jun 02 2007 - 09:34:09 PDT