[Avodah] Big Bang and Boltzmann Brains

Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org
Wed Mar 14 13:32:56 PDT 2018


By definition, low entroy states are unlikely. The idea that the Big
Bang started all of the visible universe off in a low entropy state is
a less likely theory than one of us being a Boltzmann Brain.

A Boltzmann Brain is a hypothetical self-aware entity that arises due
to extremely rare random fluctuations out of a state of thermodynamic
equilibrium. It thinks there is a universe and a personal history,
that it has a body etc... But the perceptions are disconnected from
everything outside it. ("The Matrix", or "Brain in a Vat", or
Bishop Berkley's ontology, in which we can't know whether we really
sense the world around us, or just collect sensations.)

In other words, it is actually less likely that there is a universe of
the sort we think we live in than that you are a cloud of atoms that
coincidentally move around to think it is a person living on a planet
within a universe. Just look at the particles involved in each case,
the number of possible arrangements, and the number of arrangements that
have the desired properties.

That assertion is mathematically provable. (And discussed enough for
"Boltzmann Brain" to be a buzzword.) And then was the scramble to defuse
the bomb. See this article.
<http://nautil.us/blog/-can-many_worlds-theory-rescue-us-from-boltzmann-brains>

Of course, asserting that the initial entropy of the universe wasn't
random -- or redefining "random" to include H's hashgachah -- would also
solve the problem.

Occam's Razor, or a variant thereof that includes probability theory,
is strongly on the side of a Creator.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When one truly looks at everyone's good side,
micha at aishdas.org        others come to love him very naturally, and
http://www.aishdas.org   he does not need even a speck of flattery.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Rabbi AY Kook


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