That is, there are Boltzmann Brains that represent my current mental state, and there are also ‘normal’ universes containing ‘normal’ brains doing the same thing, and there are probably a bunch of other things too.
Even if the vast majority of entities with your current mental state are Boltzmann brains, you can only expect the mental operations to carry out the conclusion “and therefore I am likely a Boltzmann brain” to validly operate in the entities in which you are not, in fact, a Boltzmann brain. That operation, therefore, would only harm the accuracy of your beliefs.
Agreed, I think that’s a good reason. It’s related to the reason I don’t think I am a Boltzmann brain—most Boltzmann brains don’t have the memory that they exist due to evolutionary processes, since brains with that memory are an extremely small sector of all possible Boltzmann brains. And so it seems like the simplest explanation for me having that memory is that evolution actually happened (since the B-brain explanation is kind of wild). Though I haven’t thought super carefully about this and would like to hear other’s thoughts.
If there are no real worlds, but only BBs all along, this argument doesn’t work.
However, it is still not a big problem, as Dust theory still works, and for any BB there will be another BB which represent its next mental state. So from inside it will look like normal world. Mueller wrote a mathematical formalism for this.
Oh yes, ‘real’ is a fuzzy concept once you allow Boltzmann/Dust approaches. Things just… are, and can be represented by other things that also just are...
There’s probably only one kind of fundamental abstraction: can A represent B if you squint real hard? Can ‘nothing’ represent ‘something’*? If so, perhaps that’s all you need to get ‘everything’.
Yes, and also no.
That is, there are Boltzmann Brains that represent my current mental state, and there are also ‘normal’ universes containing ‘normal’ brains doing the same thing, and there are probably a bunch of other things too.
All of them are me.
Even if the vast majority of entities with your current mental state are Boltzmann brains, you can only expect the mental operations to carry out the conclusion “and therefore I am likely a Boltzmann brain” to validly operate in the entities in which you are not, in fact, a Boltzmann brain. That operation, therefore, would only harm the accuracy of your beliefs.
Why can’t you have Boltzmann brains-that-carry-out-that-operation?
Because most Boltzmann brains are so ephemeral they would instantaneously collapse.
Agreed, I think that’s a good reason. It’s related to the reason I don’t think I am a Boltzmann brain—most Boltzmann brains don’t have the memory that they exist due to evolutionary processes, since brains with that memory are an extremely small sector of all possible Boltzmann brains. And so it seems like the simplest explanation for me having that memory is that evolution actually happened (since the B-brain explanation is kind of wild). Though I haven’t thought super carefully about this and would like to hear other’s thoughts.
If you’re a Boltzmann brain, that chain of reasoning becomes suspect, since you may not have actually made it at all and only believe you’ve made it.
If there are no real worlds, but only BBs all along, this argument doesn’t work.
However, it is still not a big problem, as Dust theory still works, and for any BB there will be another BB which represent its next mental state. So from inside it will look like normal world. Mueller wrote a mathematical formalism for this.
Oh yes, ‘real’ is a fuzzy concept once you allow Boltzmann/Dust approaches. Things just… are, and can be represented by other things that also just are...
In his article Mueller says that no physics exists at all. Only math world exists, and dust minds are just random strings of digits.
And strings/digits themselves are just a bunch of bits in fancy clothes.
At some point, years ago, I decided that reality was basically just ‘nothing’, endlessly abstracted, and what can you do? :_D
Do you think that “most” of you are Boltzmann brains?
I’m not sure we’re dealing with quantifiable abstractions here
I also had this thought, though I’m not sure—what kind of abstractions are we talking about?
There’s probably only one kind of fundamental abstraction: can A represent B if you squint real hard? Can ‘nothing’ represent ‘something’*? If so, perhaps that’s all you need to get ‘everything’.
* Like how you can build numbers up from the empty set: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set-theoretic_definition_of_natural_numbers