Oh, so we're talking ghost space dicks here.
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New Scientist: "String theory may limit space brain threat"
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Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Didn't they have a few of these in the Department of Mysteries?
I have to admit, the "space brain" thing kind of intrigues with the idea that maybe the universe exists for them and we're just a freak anomaly that reached the same end from a different, possibly more flawed route. Kind of Lovecraftian actually, sans the horror aspect, just the "we're nothing in the greater scheme of things" angle.
Bronco'Bama
Neo Member
This all sounds like some Philip K. Dick short story fodder.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Nothing to stop it. Just probability to determine the relative frequency of its occurrence.
Man, thank god for the Planck time. Without that everything would get really weird
Monocle
Member
You're assuming it's even possible to be bitter. What is bitterness, exactly? Can you locate it? How do you know that what you think of as bitter corresponds to what I think of as bitter? Who are you? Who am I? What are we? Are we? Is what is, is?
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
It doesn't necessarily have to be biological as we think of it. Just capable of the energy/matter manipulation patterns analogous to our methods of thought. Or even more broadly just something that we could "recognize" as thought.
Of course there's also the possibility of something we couldn't recognize, but that's kind of a futile road to travel.
space dicks made from energy and exotic matter? sure.
actually...
you're not really bitter, you just think that you are, but it would be better for you to stop deluding yourself with your imaginary bitterness. You are addicted to feeling, which is understandable, but wouldn't it be better to focus on more enjoyable sensations?
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
The Bart, the
They would die. But if a space ship spontaneously apeared with a crew they would be fine for a bit.
More handwaving! Are we talking actual physical possibilities here or not? Because if not then it doesn't qualify for the "probabilities trending to 1" bit.
The way I interpreted it was this:
String theory states that particles are actually waves, but we can only observe them in a particular snapshot of time, not in motion in their "wave" form. To expand on that, the universe (made up of said particles) we observe is only as it is when we observe it. In the future, given infinite time and thus an infinite number of brains, they will observe the universe infinitely more times than the human race has/will, thus, the universe will have been observed from a brain point of view infinitely more than from a human point of view.
Given that, one could make the statement that the universe observed by the brains is the more "regular" version of the universe compared to the human version, because the human version has only been observed, say 6 billion times, whereas the brain version has been observed...100 million billion trillion times.
So really, the universe observed by humans is some isolated, weird, alternate reality compared to the vastly more "common" brain version of the universe.
Am I on the right track?
String theory states that particles are actually waves, but we can only observe them in a particular snapshot of time, not in motion in their "wave" form. To expand on that, the universe (made up of said particles) we observe is only as it is when we observe it. In the future, given infinite time and thus an infinite number of brains, they will observe the universe infinitely more times than the human race has/will, thus, the universe will have been observed from a brain point of view infinitely more than from a human point of view.
Given that, one could make the statement that the universe observed by the brains is the more "regular" version of the universe compared to the human version, because the human version has only been observed, say 6 billion times, whereas the brain version has been observed...100 million billion trillion times.
So really, the universe observed by humans is some isolated, weird, alternate reality compared to the vastly more "common" brain version of the universe.
Am I on the right track?
That's why we want them to be real and likely
Mgoblue201
Won't stop picking the right nation
This is what I think he means by typical observer. Essentially, imagine the entire history of the universe stretching from the initial moments of its low entropy state all the way into an infinite future in which all matter is evenly displaced and uniform (as some models predict). Since under this model the universe will never end, our present occupation of the universe at 13 billion years since its inception represents only a small amount of time. This present state is "unusual": a relatively low entropy state. In the future, the universe will exist for an infinite amount of time, much of which will be spent in a high entropy state.
However, even in this high entropy state, there is a small chance that a part of the universe will at random decrease its entropy. This could take the form of anything, even a brain (the idea of a brain appearing at random is intentionally meant to be absurd). Since the universe will not end, but merely continues on for infinity, a brain like this has a chance of appearing, multiple times. Boltzmann's brain is more "typical" because this high entropy state in which the brain appears is much more common than our present state. In order for a state like ours to appear again, the entire universe would have to return to a low entropy state, which is much, much rarer than a random brain appearing.
Edit: Actually, I don't know if you could literally get "anything" by decreasing entropy. I don't know enough about physics to make that claim. A brain is just a common example.
Gabotron ES
Member
my brain hurts from reading that.
Aaah, but WHICH brain?
From the mind of Time comes, Brains!
You mean the one with paradox during the end of time?
You mean the one with paradox during the end of time?
Are you begging an avatar quote?
So... There might be a formation of particles that form a consciousness for a moment in the universe? And if the String theory is correct, they won't overrun the universe?
And these minds...
Who thinks this stuff?
User 100115
Banned
...
I am so confused.
Head of Vengarl
Banned
People farrrrr out of the main pools of society. Like most scientific breakthroughs.
Philosophical stuff ain't scientific breakthrough, is it?
LiveFromKyoto
Member
It's cool. Fighting off space brains from the future is why we have ninja turtles.
yeah and everyone ending up as little dessicated heads kept alive by little metal headcases.
edit:
it's an interesting, if fucking spooky theory. Seems like it's a logical conclusion drawn from some other hypotheses. If higher consciousness as we understand it can evolve from the known processes of the known universe, then who knows what could come out of the chaos of the largely unknown and greater infinite universe. And the idea that consciousness evolved because it was a necessary component of our universe, then in the greater universe, it's possible for the conditions necessary for the bootup process of consciousness to occur somewhere out there in the...I'm guessing physical mega-universe. Not consciousness as the biological process of an actual brain, but something else, a "blinking cursor" with a way to gather and process data and stimuli, built out of time and space itself.
A Boltzmann brain is just a conscious entity. It wouldn't think it was a person on Earth unless Earth itself existed for it, either separately or as part of the random shit. If Earth existed for it, there's no existential crisis for the Boltzmann brain, and you don't need to worry about being one. Everything is very real to you because it is real, regardless of whether or not you're a bbrain or an an ebrain. You could have popped into existence just now, sitting in your chair, on a planet full of ebrains who happen to think you were always around. So what?
If the bbrain is crazy and is imagining being a person on Earth when it's not, again, so what? It's just like you, an ebrain, wondering if you're really in a padded room in an insane asylum in the year 1894.
If there are bbrains rains they would not outnumber ebrains. Ebrains requirements are higher in entropy than bbrains. Bbrains occur instantly due to insanely low levels of entropy, ebrains develop gradually due to moderately low levels of entropy over a period of time.
Assume a brrain and an equivalently-complex ebrain require an entopy level of 100 rando-fucks.
A bbrain would need entopy in some location to drop all the way down to 100 rando-fucks for 1 planc time.
An ebrain would need entropy to drop down to only 100,000,000 rando-fucks, but for 1,000,000 planck times.
Because of a little thing called causality, ebrains are more likely. Pockets of space don't have wildly fluctuating entropy levels. Some pace with low entropy will have low entropy for some length of time. The larger the Universe gets, the longer this length of time gets, making it easier for ebrains. Ebrains also have the benefit of being able to seek out lower entropy for themselves and their environment (the whole evolution part of ebrains), again making them more likely than bbrains.
For a simulation scenario, so what if it's all a simulation?
So things will change a lot in the future. I get that. But so what? Why does that change anything we know now? What do spacebrains and the number of them have to do with anything? I dont think it being a brain is a completely random choice of object by what it sounds. Cyan mentioned something earlier about how our existence could actually be something to do with it, but I dont understand that part, especially as a brain in space couldn't survive.
Grizzlyjin
Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
God?
I think the theory goes that if previously there was a massive universal change that made "consciousness" possible, as part of our relatively highly organized universe...if we're a product of that organization, then changes like that in (possibly connected) 'universes' (local parts of the same giant infinite thing) where organization isn't there, or has broken down like our local universe will one day be, (a place with high entropy)...if consciousness as we know it was such a rare occurrence, then other consciousnesses of this other sort could be conceivably less rare. And they might have formed in these other areas due to those "fluctuations". I think you first have to imagine that our universe is a tiny corner of a more infinite one. But we have a hard time with that concept of infinity anyway.
I'm not sure what they mean by local parts of a larger universe. Like bubble universes, or pockets separated by void or what.
oh god, floating superminds that are lonely and insane.
seriously, why are there no works of fiction dealing with these?
make it happen!
Conciliator
Banned
i was literally about to post this exact shit. Even with the all lowercase.
Conciliator
Banned
It matters because you will be eaten by space brains. Tomorrow.
WordAssassin
Member
I read the entire article in the first post in the voice of The Guide from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie. Don't know why, it just happened.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
Sorry guys, that's one less chance at an after life.
Shame, I was kinda betting on an infinite universe eventually recreating me, but if the universe is finite then death truly is non-existence.
Shame, I was kinda betting on an infinite universe eventually recreating me, but if the universe is finite then death truly is non-existence.
I don't think that's how Boltzmann brains work. My understanding is that it pops into existence, some particles move around in such a way that it thinks it's experiencing things (and has memories of having experienced a lifetime of things and so on) and then pops back out again because it's in the middle of hard vacuum.
Yes, it's more or lerss equivalent to the brain-in-a-jar/Matrix argument. You might not really be experiencing stuff, you might be just a brain being fed false experiences in the form of direct neural stimulation.
And yes, as far as daily life goes, it's more of an existential angst-generator than anything else. I mean, does it really matter if your experiences are real or if you merely think they are? I'll leave that one to the philosophers.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
It is an interesting concept, but ultimately dumb.
I mean, the whole thing rests on the idea that eventually, everything is possible in an infinite universe. Our universe is not chaotic enough to generate the infinite randomness needed to create ridiculously improbable events like the Boltzman brains.
I mean, the whole thing rests on the idea that eventually, everything is possible in an infinite universe. Our universe is not chaotic enough to generate the infinite randomness needed to create ridiculously improbable events like the Boltzman brains.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
In an infinite universe, there is a random change that a GAF user might blink into existence.
In fact, the mathematics dictate that there will be far more of these cosmic GAFfers than human GAFfers.
In all probability, you are the only human on this forum.
In fact, the mathematics dictate that there will be far more of these cosmic GAFfers than human GAFfers.
In all probability, you are the only human on this forum.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
If it's infinite, it will happen - regardless of how ridiculously improbable they are.
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