it begs the "Boltzmann brain" hypothesis - it's astronomically more likely that the neurons of my brain will spontaneous configure to make me see a tree rather than a tree spontaneously forming from a collections of atom.
The timeline for a BB is about 10E(10E50) years, quite a bit of time. But this gets me thinking as well: What kind of mess would that BB be?
Imagine you could actually survive that long, floating out in the black vacuum. In a flash, a BB appears in front of you, spun out of the electrons and dark energy. Over the eons you've figured out how to plug these BBs in and chat with them. But they are mostly just random fictions of physics. Sure, some astronomically small number of these BBs are the Kings of France, but nearly all of them are just gibbering lunatics of random thoughts and memories. I guess, in this manner, all possible versions of us are reincarnated as BBs in the void. The quantum chance of an entire universe winking into being is ~10E(10E(10E56)), so there's a bit of time to expect these things to happen. But God! How boring!
why not both? Why can't we be a Boltzmann brain that happens to spontaneously configure in such a way that we make measurements confirming our existence to be the result of a simulation?
Is that really any different/less likely than a Boltzmann brain with any other "understanding" on a topic? It seems just as likely to me as a Boltzmann brain spontaneously forming that understands our existence to be the result of religion or any other origin story.
And ultimately I think Boltzmann brain doesn't get talked about all that much because it's unfalsifiable by its very definition (as some might argue this hypothesis is), but it doesn't have all that much to talk about other than "yeah, I guess that can happen".
Similarly if it were "proven" true in any instant that a Boltzmann brain were to exist it would be inconsequential because the brain would cease to exist in the very "next" moment, there would be no purpose for the observation.
I've heard this argument a lot, but I'm not sure it stands up to scrutiny. Since this is HN, I'll put my counterargument in the context of computer code complexity.
How much effort is required to build an entirely new 'modern' operating system from scratch?
How much effort can be saved in that effort of producing obscene amount of complexity if you start with a small idea that is fairly generic and is able to be incrementally grown?
The Boltzmann brains specifically relies on an argument of statistical mechanics, which is really a statement about the average energy costs. But brain neurons forming spontaneously to the hallucination-in-isolation kind require extreme amounts of hidden Joule fees in creating that structure compared to a slow ramp up of complexity lowering the next set of energy barrier costs at an increasing rate.
This just scratches the surface of the idea of _catalysts_, that there are huge barriers between highly structured states arising from the chaotic, and even if the absolute energy cost is smaller it's still very possible to be more unlikely to spontaneous form if the physical dynamics of the universe itself have caveats as to how the successive tiers of compounding catalysts are constrained in ability to form, rate of formation, and bottlenecking supply of input reagants and the expedient utilization of outputs.
In fact there are nearly always a series of prizes one typically sees before the Nobel, e.g. the Wolf Prize, Boltzmann medal, etc. It would be odd that someone comes out of left field and takes the Nobel.
