Would Boltzmann brain see its universe chaotic?

This post is an reaction to another blog article of Lubos Motl, where he presents a Richard Feynman's lecture about arrow of time. At the beginning of the third part, Feynman explains, why Boltzmann brain is a "ridiculous theory", because it "incorrectly predicts", that the rest of the world should be completely disordered. We can see this as a another demonstration of Popper's methodology symmetry, where every negation of theory becomes new testable theory as well. So that not only validity of theory - but the validity of all arguments against theory must be allways checked carefully. If we consider every logical theory wrong from its very beginning, the objective stance becomes biased quite often.

As I explained previously here and specially to Lubos, Boltzmann brain hypothesis has nothing to do with situation, when 10^{23} particles will get organized suddenly into something like human brain. It describes the situation, when unspecified amount of particles is involved into Boltzmann brain creation. When we consider 10^{23*23} particles, the probability of formation of some particular configuration of just 10^{23} particles will be unitary - so we can say safely, the existence of human brain in every 10^{23*23} particles of matter will become undeniable. This number roughly corresponds the number of particles inside of observable part of Universe and the number of string theory possible solutions, which could serve for falsification of this concept. So we can interpret both Universe, both human brains entities as a product of random fluctuations of hypothetical particle gas - which is basically what the whole AWT is about.

Among other things, this approach explains, why every large group of people tends to check all meaningful answers and theories, before the most relevant one is considered at the very end. This is because the intelligent stance of individuals in every large group of people is compensating mutually, so that such group is behaving like chaotic Boltzmann gas as a whole. This can explain, why Aether theory was recognized so early in human society - but understood and accepted so late.

Every brain can see (i.e. to interact via transversal waves with) just the causal portion of Universe, which corresponds the causality of Boltzmann brain hypothesis - so we can expect, if we find an even more general approach later, it could predict even larger number of states, then the random walk model considers - our causual Universe would expand with time. Because of nested character of density fluctuations of Boltzmann gas - which undergoes a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution - our Boltzmann brains could never see the rest of our environment empty, "completely random" the less - particularly because both Feynman, both Motl didn't realize, their intepretation considers no environment at all. I do believe, virtually every human brain (including this one of average string theorist) could understand the difference between Boltzmann and Feynman approach to random Universe and stop to misinterpret this simple, yet powerful theory.

Can Boltzmann eggs really exist?

This post is a reaction to recent article of Lubos Motl, where he disputes the illustration presented from prepared book of Sean Carroll about thermodynamical time arrow. As usually, when Lubos begins to deny something, one can be sure, he's wrong, because he is applying strictly causal stance despite the fact, here's always symmetry between causal and intuitive approach. In general, consecutive logic of formal math isn't quite robust tool for determination of time arrow symmetry, being based on time arrow asymmetry. Therefore people with strictly logical thinking have often problems with unbiased, symmetric thinking, especially when supersymmetric ideas are separated by more distant space-time perspective (for example consideration of ancient Aether models together with modern geometrodynamics). Only emergence of many isolated formal theories, which are apparently singular/inconsistent mutually can bring us the clue about general symmetry in causality and to convince the hard core of formally thinking theorists about relevance of Aether concept.


Boltzmann egg is an paraphrase of Boltzmann brain concept in somewhat more edible form, related to famous chicken or the egg problem supposedly. Despite of Motl's algebraic game with entropy it's apparent, in sufficiently dense gas such egg can be formed spontaneously in less or more distant perspective, because every chaotic system forms a nested density fluctuations of various degree of complexity. We can observe for example a formation of two levels of density fluctuations during condensation of supercritical vapor and inside of environment of ultradense stars (so called "black holes") we can expect a spontaneous formation of even more complex systems. This is because despite low probability of intelligent brain formation the number of space-time states possible increases with number of particle involved fast and many combinations are even redundant: they lead to the same working brain - just rotated, translated or scaled in space-time perspective.

The complexity and number of nested levels of density fluctuations is virtually limited just by mass/energy density and here's no arbitrary reason not to suppose, Aether is infinitely dense environement. This makes formation of eggs or even moderately clever scientists undeniable. Suppose the human brain consist of 10^{23} particles, while we have landscape of roughly 10^{23*23} = 10^520 particle configurations available (maybe this number may sound fammiliar for someone in connection to solutions number of certain strrr...ange theory). After than the probability, at least one group of 10^{23} atoms would appear here in configuration, corresponding human brain complexity is just unitary. According to Hawking, a black hole of M kg has exp(1016 M2) quantum states. A typical astrophysical black hole formed by stellar collapse weighs about 1031 kg and carries as many as states. Converselly, the number of particles configurations observable inside of Universe by conscious creatures corresponds 10^{23*23} particles, which roughly corresponds the visibility scope of observable Universe.

From AWT follows, every formation of egg will be followed by spontaneous dissolving / destruction of some other egg in less or more remote perspective in analogy to spontaneous formation and dissolving of particle fluctuations inside of dense gas or elastic fluid. Evolution combines both the formation of complex system from chaos by the same way, like formation of chaos from complex system. String theory is the best illustration of the later with its landscape of 10E+500 solutions, because it's serving like quite costly generator of random numbers...

So I'm quite convenient with Dirac's and Carroll's idea of two or more reciprocal time arrows, separated by distant space-time perspective, as we can met with this phenomena at all dimensional scales: rain droplets condense and evaporate at the same moment, by the same way like stars evaporate into radiation, while still condensing into more dense clusters of galaxies or even black holes and this process still appears like causal from more general time perspective. The same conclusion follows from brane world cosmology. Our Universe may dissolve gradually during passing through even much larger gradient (space-time brane) and the acelleration of Universe expansion even supports this model. We can say, it's evaporating like black hole. The relation of reciprocal time arrows to the dark matter and antimatter distribution was disputed recently.

It's just a question of symmetry, where we should place such such general time scale, because in AWT the time is local concept by the same way, like space and at sufficiently remote scale Universe is basically aspatial and timeless, when looking both into past (i.e. cosmic scale), both future (i.e. Planck scale) and if some local symmetry violation still exists, it's probably of anthropic origin by its very nature.

Aether and Boltzmann brain concept

The idea of Boltzmann Brain (BB) was originated by unnamed assistant of L. Boltzmann, who conjectured, whole Universe is sort of especially huge and complex, but still quite randomly formed fluctuation inside of chaotic particle environment. Such Universe could enable the spontaneous formation (evolution) of hypothesized self-aware entity which arises due to random fluctuations out of a state of chaos. It's apparent, this conjecture follows the dense Aether concept of AWT so closely, so that BB appears to be a integral part of it. No wonder, BB concept is recently gaining interests of mainstream physics, which gradually saturates all possibilities, how to understand the Universe in classical positivistic way based on formal sequential logic.

The purpose of this post is to explain the conceptual mistake of seeming BB paradox, which is arguing, if we are just a low-entropy fluctuation in a high-entropy world, then virtually everything in the Universe should appear in a disordered state without a consistent history. Such argument is the consequence of deep misunderstanding of physical reality, because the highly ordered states cannot interact with low ordered states by the same (i.e. causual) way, like with each other mutually. After all, my struggles in explanation of AWT concept to the rest of society illustrates this problem clearly. Similia similibus affecter, only similar things can influent each other similarly - so we cannot exchange information with less or more conscious creatures easily due the dispersion and total reflection phenomena of casual energy spreading.

From AWT perspective people are driven by symmetric (flat) bra(i)nes comprising of a large, but convoluted time dimension. Just because human brain is product of long term evolution, it cannot interact with atemporal density fluctuations well. It's completely a symmetry problem, following from laws of inertial energy spreading inside of large particle system. The flat density fluctuations of Aether (i.e. gradients or "branes") can interact with those symmetrical only temporarily in longitudinal waves. Such interactions are only weak and/or short distance ones. The long distance atemporal interactions would require the transversal waves instead, which can be produced/exchanges just by another flat branes - end of story.

Briefly speaking, the fact we aren't seeing the whole Universe chaotic consist just in fact, such chaos interact by quite weak way in gravity waves or short distance interactions with us. Whole the vacuum is full of such disordered states, which we cannot see, just because we are special flat brane (a density gradient of fluctuation) involving a large amount of compacted time dimensions. So that we are perceiving these highly entropic states as a empty space-time, i.e. as a vacuum only, thus ignoring whole such part of reality completelly.

While for primitive organisms the Universe appears small, for well developed creatures, which are product of long term evolution of many mutations such Universe appears large. So we can imagine the causal portion of such chaotic system like nested foam or fractal tree or nested foam/sponge, the complexity of which increases with scale together with its ability to interact with indeterministic portion of Universe. By AWT the Universe can be modeled by dense system of many nested fluctuations and after then the scope, in which every fluctuation can interact and observe it neighborhood simply depend on space-time scale (the number of states/mutations involved). It means, the density fluctuations of every sufficiently large volume of such particle system are becomes sufficiently complex to interact with the rest and to observe it as a Universe by the same way, like tiny density fluctuations can interact with its neighborhood inside of dense gas.

BB concept makes the occurrence of intelligent life rather undeniable, but such civilizations should be dispersed regularly through space-time, i.e. along flat spatial branes (surface medium sized planets inside of medium sized galaxies, enabling sufficient long term evolution). The flatness of space artifacts increases the probability of long term evolution due the space-time symmetry reasons. With respect to AWT definition of time we can see again, Aether concept simplifies the understanding of BB concept a lot.