I just read something so dumb ...

[Pumbelo]

Let me give you the whole story:
I opened my science-journal and take a look at what they write on cosmology.

They explain the hypothesis of the so called "Boltzmann-Brain". When I first read this, I had to check the date, maybe it's first of April or something like that.
But they are serious.
Sorry, I can't really describe it.

I found an article on the web:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/science/15brain.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain

When I think about it, Dawkins argument about God being complex is now pwnd.

But honestly, thats what cosmologists consider a hypothesis?
The flying spaghetti-monster made more sense than that.

I think this one summs it up pretty well:


If you are inclined to skepticism this debate might seem like further evidence that cosmologists, who gave us dark matter, dark energy and speak with apparent aplomb about gazillions of parallel universes, have finally lost their minds.

[MarcusAndreas]

:doh:

[technomage]

Dude, re-read the Wikipedia article. They're not predicting that there are random brains out in the universe.

Sheesh. Creos. Buy them books, and buy them books, and all they do is eat the covers.

[Sparko]

tweb is just a brain in a jar

[technomage]

I think the jar is cracked. :hehe:

[rogue06]

I think the jar is cracked. :hehe:
Cracked? No. We fixed that when the screen window was installed.

[technomage]

Cracked? No. We fixed that when the screen window was installed.
Is that like the screen door you installed on your submarine? I told you to use wire screens, not nylon!

[rogue06]

Is that like the screen door you installed on your submarine?
Yeah but putting a door on a jar is just silly.

[technomage]

Yeah but putting a door on a jar is just silly.
But the door is a jar. At least my truck keeps telling me that. :hehe:

[rogue06]

But the door is a jar. At least my truck keeps telling me that. :hehe:
So you agree that a jar being ajar is silly then. Now you can start to see the wisdom of a screen window instead.

[technomage]

So you agree that a jar being ajar is silly then. Now you can start to see the wisdom of a screen window instead.
The jar is ajar! And Silent Running was enlightened!

[Dr.GH]

I really hated JarJar. Crummy character.

[Sparko]

ever get the feeling that quantum physics is just so whacked that one day we will look back on it and roll on the ground laughing at how dumb we were to even believe some of the weird stuff it came up with? It reminds me of the whole period of astronomy where they believed that the planets were embedded in celestial spheres. The calculations all worked out and allowed them to make accurate predictions and everything, but it turned out they were ridiculously wrong about their basic premises.

Quantum physics reminds me of that. You have particles that are both waves and particles, you have time that is not consistant but breaks down at quantum levels, you have virtual particles popping into existence from nowhere, and now anything can just appear at any time and disappear again, complete with its own internal history.
:lolo:

[technomage]

ever get the feeling that quantum physics is just so whacked that one day we will look back on it and roll on the ground laughing at how dumb we were to even believe some of the weird stuff it came up with?

I'd have to be able to actually understand it to laugh at it. :wink:

[Sparko]

I think one day we will find an simple underlying theory to it all and the quantum physicists will all go :doh:

[technomage]

I think one day we will find an simple underlying theory to it all and the quantum physicists will all go :doh:
You, my piratical friend, are an optimist!

[Sparko]

You, my piratical friend, are an optimist!

don't you remember the "universe is a doily" theory?

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?t=104315

[FreezBee]

Let me give you the whole story:
I opened my science-journal and take a look at what they write on cosmology.

They explain the hypothesis of the so called "Boltzmann-Brain". When I first read this, I had to check the date, maybe it's first of April or something like that.
But they are serious.
Sorry, I can't really describe it.

I found an article on the web:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/science/15brain.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain

When I think about it, Dawkins argument about God being complex is now pwnd.

But honestly, thats what cosmologists consider a hypothesis?
The flying spaghetti-monster made more sense than that.

I think this one summs it up pretty well:

I certainly won't claim that I have understood, what it is all about -- it appears to be rather confused speak in both of the articles you provided links to, but I do happen to know about Boltzmann, so I think the argument goes something like follows.

That the universe is ordered means that there is some structure to the universe: we have super clusters of galaxy clusters, we have galaxy clusters, we have galaxies, we have solar systems, we have stars and planets, and so on. If the uníverse has exísted for an infinite time, this is rather improbable. Where is all the energy in the universe not evenly distributed across the universe?

Think about N coins, all starting with head up. as you pick coins at random and flip them, you will move further and further away from the initial state and closer to a state where half of the coins are head up and the other half are tail up. However, the probability of reverting to the state with all coins head up never becomes exactly 0, although it becomes smaller and smaller.

Boltzmann believing in a universe that had existed an infinite time suggested such a solution to why the universe wasn't completely disordered.

Today the consensus is that the universe has existed for a finite time and therefore there is less surprise in order (though the trick is to explain, how that order came around in the first place). However, instead we have an infinite set of simultaneous universes.

Now consider an infinite sequence of coin tosses. Assume that the sequence has the ergodic property (that is, any subsequence has the same statistical properties as the entire sequence. In such a sequence any finite subsequence will appear an infinite number of times.

The infinite universes can each be seen as a subsequence and may be further subdivided into subsequences. The subsequence that happens to be you may be replicated any number of times. Which of these incarnations is really you?


- FreezBee