[ExI] Boltzmann brains

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Mon, May 11, 2020 at 3:45 AM Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> On Mon, 11 May 2020 at 15:02, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> ### The theories assume that the quantum vacuum fluctuations sample the
>> space of all possible arrangements of matter in an inverse-size dependent
>> manner. All structures are created by fluctuations but the larger the
>> structure the lower the density of such structures in the De Sitter space.
>> Since De Sitter space is infinitely growing, Boltzmann brains at some point
>> outnumber evolved brains, for some choices of measurement basis. I agree
>> that this assumption is not enough to dismiss those theories.
>>
>> As I mentioned before, Wolfram's approach dispenses with randomness and
>> imposes structure on vacuum, thus allowing (but not necessarily forcing)
>> universes without Boltzmann brains. This is of course not a sufficient
>> reason to choose his approach over conventional ones. However, if his
>> research program generates theories that have an equal explanatory power to
>> conventional theories, then the potential absence of Boltzmann brains might
>> be a factor in his favor, for Occam's razor reasons.
>>
>
> Randomness is not required, in general, to explore the possibility space.
> We see this with deterministic Many Worlds compared with probabilistic
> Copenhagen Interpretation.
>
>>
>
### Indeed, randomness vs. determinism is not the whole story. It's the
structure that Wolfram imposes on vacuum that matters as well - each of his
hypergraph/rule combinations generates only patterns specific to that
combination, rather than all imaginable patterns. Many Worlds on the other
hand generates all possible outcomes according to the Born rule. The
hypergraph that describes our universe and subsumes QM, GR and string
theory might (but maybe does not have to) restrict quantum fluctuations to
generate only a subset of physical structures.

Rafal
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