The Boltzmann brain
The Boltzmann brain thought experiment suggests that it might be more likely for a single brain to spontaneously form in a void, complete with a memory of having existed in our universe, rather than for the entire universe to come about in the manner cosmologists think it actually did.
Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906 by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics.
-Opening sentence of the textbook States of Matter by David Goodstein.
Dear @hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone, please do not study statistical mechanics.
Meh. If the universe is infinite, the likelihood of the super gradual evolution of something like us is 1.
We are observer selection bias.
This doesn’t solve the problem. If the universe is indeed infinite then there are infinite cases of our evaluation and infinite identical yous out there. If the Boltzmann brain hypothesis is true though, there are vastly “more” of those. It’s a larger infinity, making it much more lively you are a Bultzmann brain than a full physical person.
There’s a story or comic I read recently about a man who realises he is a Boltzmann Brain and had dreamt up the world around him to stave off madness.
