Not everyone shares your extreme positivism, I guess.
ETA: Re-reading this comment, I see that it might come across as flippant or hostile. It’s not intended to be either. I just think that you have a perspective on what questions are worth addressing (and how they should be addressed) that is unusual. Whether it is the right perspective (I don’t think it is) is the subject of another discussion, one that I don’t wish to have here.
Thank you. I suppose I did not state my point well, just expressed my frustration. What I meant to comment on is that the odds of a Boltzmann brain are so minuscule, they are way down in the noise level, somewhere way below Jesus being an actual son of God or the Galaxy being on the Orion’s (the cat) belt. Thus, what is the reason to prefer this particular pseudo-scientific model over others? Every time I hear Don Page talk about it with a straight face, I get a twilight-zone feeling.
Depends on what odds you’re talking about. If you’re talking about the odds of a Boltzmann brain popping into existence at any particular instant, then yes, the probability is absurdly low. If you’re talking about a Boltzmann brain existing at some point in the universe, then I don’t think the odds are all that small. It’s the latter probability that’s relevant to the kinds of issues Page cares about.
Why do you think that? That’s precisely the point of discussion.
Please start by explaining whether you think BBs are very unlikely to exist over the history of the universe, or whether (reading your wording carefully) many BBs (will) exist but you think being one is unlikely for some reason.
I don’t see why they’d be unlikely a priori. You’d expect them to pop up in an infinitely long-lasting universe, unless there’s something that makes them get continually less likely, rather than approaching a certain probability as entropy maxes out.
This isn’t some fringe interest of Page’s though. Other cosmologists who have written and spoken about the issue are Hawking, Hartle, Guth, Susskind, Linde, Carroll, Vilenkin and Bousso (I could go on). Hardly crackpots. Doesn’t the fact that a number of eminent scientists consider this an issue worth talking about shift your opinion about it being nonsense a little bit?
Do you mean, they have written about Boltzmann brains, or that they actually raise concerns similar to those you raise in this post? A string of names does not actually assert the latter.
All of the physicists I named, except Hartle, have raised concerns about the Boltzmann brain problem threatening observational cosmology. Hartle has argued against the SSA, so he thinks Boltzmann brains aren’t problematic. I probably shouldn’t have included his name in the list. Still, the fact that he has published on the issue suggests that he regards it as more than just nonsense.
Not everyone shares your extreme positivism, I guess.
ETA: Re-reading this comment, I see that it might come across as flippant or hostile. It’s not intended to be either. I just think that you have a perspective on what questions are worth addressing (and how they should be addressed) that is unusual. Whether it is the right perspective (I don’t think it is) is the subject of another discussion, one that I don’t wish to have here.
Thank you. I suppose I did not state my point well, just expressed my frustration. What I meant to comment on is that the odds of a Boltzmann brain are so minuscule, they are way down in the noise level, somewhere way below Jesus being an actual son of God or the Galaxy being on the Orion’s (the cat) belt. Thus, what is the reason to prefer this particular pseudo-scientific model over others? Every time I hear Don Page talk about it with a straight face, I get a twilight-zone feeling.
Depends on what odds you’re talking about. If you’re talking about the odds of a Boltzmann brain popping into existence at any particular instant, then yes, the probability is absurdly low. If you’re talking about a Boltzmann brain existing at some point in the universe, then I don’t think the odds are all that small. It’s the latter probability that’s relevant to the kinds of issues Page cares about.
Why do you think that? That’s precisely the point of discussion.
Please start by explaining whether you think BBs are very unlikely to exist over the history of the universe, or whether (reading your wording carefully) many BBs (will) exist but you think being one is unlikely for some reason.
I don’t see why they’d be unlikely a priori. You’d expect them to pop up in an infinitely long-lasting universe, unless there’s something that makes them get continually less likely, rather than approaching a certain probability as entropy maxes out.
This isn’t some fringe interest of Page’s though. Other cosmologists who have written and spoken about the issue are Hawking, Hartle, Guth, Susskind, Linde, Carroll, Vilenkin and Bousso (I could go on). Hardly crackpots. Doesn’t the fact that a number of eminent scientists consider this an issue worth talking about shift your opinion about it being nonsense a little bit?
Do you mean, they have written about Boltzmann brains, or that they actually raise concerns similar to those you raise in this post? A string of names does not actually assert the latter.
All of the physicists I named, except Hartle, have raised concerns about the Boltzmann brain problem threatening observational cosmology. Hartle has argued against the SSA, so he thinks Boltzmann brains aren’t problematic. I probably shouldn’t have included his name in the list. Still, the fact that he has published on the issue suggests that he regards it as more than just nonsense.