The Boltzmann Brain idea is that the thought in your brain at this very moment could be the result of randomly bouncing particles (e.g. particles in a soup or gaseous state). So maybe you're not actually here reading these words. Maybe the universe we know, the milky way, and earth doesn't actually exist. You're just a product of a momentary serendipity of particles randomly bouncing in a very specific way which just so happened to correspond to this exact thought you're thinking of, about reading these words. The past didn't actually happen.
Proponents of the Boltzmann Brain idea claim it's way more likely you're a Boltzmann Brain than a real brain, because there must be such a surplus of disordered particles (like randomly bouncing gas) that surely the thought in your brain is a result of one of those processes rather than one which takes millions of years.
My counter to the Boltzmann Brain is that the estimated probabilities are all wrong. Yes, there is a non-zero chance that a bunch of randomly bouncing particles suddenly, out of nowhere, produced the very specific complex thought your brain is thinking right now. But there is a far greater chance that they did it with a more gradual process. The particles became stars and planets. Some of those particles became chemicals, which became rudimentary life, which eventually evolved into humans, which became you. I contend that the latter scenario is way more likely than the former scenario, and the reason is evolution.
If you think about it, once you have the most basic form of life and DNA (or really just any self-perpetuating thing that mutates and can thus be subjected to natural selection; it does not have to be DNA as we know it), there becomes an arms race for greater awareness and intelligence for survival, and it's only a matter of time before the emergence of interesting and sentient life. In other words, once you have the scaffolding for evolution, life will naturally tend towards higher and higher complexity, just as surely as water falls downward, or as entropy increases in a closed system.
What is more likely: That a group of particles spontaneously formed a thought, or that a group of particles spontaneously formed the barebones scaffolding which allows for pre-single-celled life? We know that a thought of a brain is extremely complex, whereas all that's needed for evolution is some basic form of information which can be passed on and mutates once in a while -- this starts a snowball effect whereby intelligence has a high chance of arising naturally and is practically inevitable. Thus, taking evolution into account, it seems far more likely that you evolved out of more basic building blocks via a long and gradual process, than that you're a Boltzmann Brain.
Thursday, September 12, 2019
How to reverse entropy
Believe it or not, it is possible for entropy to reverse in a closed system, at least according to current understanding of physics.
Entropy is purely a statistical process, which means the only reason we tend towards higher entropy, is that there's a higher chance of going to a high-entropy state than a low-entropy state. A common analogy is throwing a deck of cards in the air. What are the chances that after being thrown in the air, a deck of cards comes back and lands in a perfectly neat pile and completely in order? Almost zero. ALMOST is the key word of course, and the fact is if you had an infinite amount of time and did this forever, it would happen eventually (you wouldn't actually need an infinite amount of time. The point is, it would happen eventually, given a long enough time).
This mathematical concept applies to any process in the universe. Glass unshattering? Life randomly forming? Way less likely than cards landing in order, but it's the same principle; you just have to wait that much longer (way longer than the age of the universe)!
If you're still not convinced, just apply the proof by induction. Say there's a 0.01 chance of some pocket of bouncing matter lowering its entropy by some small amount over a small amount of time. Then there's a 0.01^2 chance that it happens twice in a row, and 0.01^3 chance it happens three times in a row. You can do this as many times as you want and end up with arbitrarily low entropy, where the matter has been reshaped to pretty much anything you want -- statue of liberty, a computer, or a human brain. Yes, the end result probably is an abysmally small number, but it's bigger than zero!
The problem when applied to entropy is that the universe is also expanding. Which means we don't have infinite time to wait for the metaphorical cards in the air to finally land in an interesting order, because the cards are getting further and further apart as time passes so that eventually they won't even be able to interact with each other at all. That's no fun.
So how do we give the universe time to reverse entropy, even though it's expanding?
What we need to do is figure out a way to give some system enough time to do random stuff for entropy to reverse. And this system has to be truly closed, not like an expanding universe.
We need to build an unbreakable, totally insulated box with a lot of stuff inside it -- enough matter/energy to make interesting information and/or life as we know it. Once you've built the box all you have to do is wait.
Unfortunately for us this box will just be a stagnant uniform soup for as long as we're alive. By the time the randomly bouncing matter in the box spontaneously develops into something interesting by pure chance, we'll probably be long gone. But I am sure whatever alien is birthed from this once-in-an-eon lowering of entropy will be grateful that it exists whether or not we're around to see it.
Actually, we probably wouldn't be allowed to see what's inside anyway, as that would violate the requirement that the box must be unbreakable and not even light can escape it, to insulate it from the expansion of the universe.
Entropy is purely a statistical process, which means the only reason we tend towards higher entropy, is that there's a higher chance of going to a high-entropy state than a low-entropy state. A common analogy is throwing a deck of cards in the air. What are the chances that after being thrown in the air, a deck of cards comes back and lands in a perfectly neat pile and completely in order? Almost zero. ALMOST is the key word of course, and the fact is if you had an infinite amount of time and did this forever, it would happen eventually (you wouldn't actually need an infinite amount of time. The point is, it would happen eventually, given a long enough time).
This mathematical concept applies to any process in the universe. Glass unshattering? Life randomly forming? Way less likely than cards landing in order, but it's the same principle; you just have to wait that much longer (way longer than the age of the universe)!
If you're still not convinced, just apply the proof by induction. Say there's a 0.01 chance of some pocket of bouncing matter lowering its entropy by some small amount over a small amount of time. Then there's a 0.01^2 chance that it happens twice in a row, and 0.01^3 chance it happens three times in a row. You can do this as many times as you want and end up with arbitrarily low entropy, where the matter has been reshaped to pretty much anything you want -- statue of liberty, a computer, or a human brain. Yes, the end result probably is an abysmally small number, but it's bigger than zero!
The problem when applied to entropy is that the universe is also expanding. Which means we don't have infinite time to wait for the metaphorical cards in the air to finally land in an interesting order, because the cards are getting further and further apart as time passes so that eventually they won't even be able to interact with each other at all. That's no fun.
So how do we give the universe time to reverse entropy, even though it's expanding?
What we need to do is figure out a way to give some system enough time to do random stuff for entropy to reverse. And this system has to be truly closed, not like an expanding universe.
We need to build an unbreakable, totally insulated box with a lot of stuff inside it -- enough matter/energy to make interesting information and/or life as we know it. Once you've built the box all you have to do is wait.
Unfortunately for us this box will just be a stagnant uniform soup for as long as we're alive. By the time the randomly bouncing matter in the box spontaneously develops into something interesting by pure chance, we'll probably be long gone. But I am sure whatever alien is birthed from this once-in-an-eon lowering of entropy will be grateful that it exists whether or not we're around to see it.
Actually, we probably wouldn't be allowed to see what's inside anyway, as that would violate the requirement that the box must be unbreakable and not even light can escape it, to insulate it from the expansion of the universe.
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