Why you do not need to worry about the standard argument that you are a Boltzmann brain
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2024
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| _version_ | 1866911960621121536 |
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| author | Rovelli, Carlo Wolpert, David |
| author_facet | Rovelli, Carlo Wolpert, David |
| contents | Are you, with your perceptions, memories and observational data, a Boltzmann brain, namely a fleeting statistical fluctuation out of the thermal equilibrium of the universe? Arguments are given in the literature claiming that this bizarre hypothesis needs to be considered seriously, that all of our data about the past is actually a mirage. We point to a difficulty in these arguments. They are based on the dynamical laws and on statistical arguments, but they disregard the fact that we infer the dynamical laws presupposing the reliability of our data records about the past. Hence the reasoning in favor of the Boltzmann brain hypothesis contradicts itself, relying on the reliability of our data about the past to conclude that that data is wrong. More broadly, it is based on incomplete evidence. Incomplete evidence notoriously leads to false conclusions. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_13197 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Why you do not need to worry about the standard argument that you are a Boltzmann brain Rovelli, Carlo Wolpert, David History and Philosophy of Physics Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability Are you, with your perceptions, memories and observational data, a Boltzmann brain, namely a fleeting statistical fluctuation out of the thermal equilibrium of the universe? Arguments are given in the literature claiming that this bizarre hypothesis needs to be considered seriously, that all of our data about the past is actually a mirage. We point to a difficulty in these arguments. They are based on the dynamical laws and on statistical arguments, but they disregard the fact that we infer the dynamical laws presupposing the reliability of our data records about the past. Hence the reasoning in favor of the Boltzmann brain hypothesis contradicts itself, relying on the reliability of our data about the past to conclude that that data is wrong. More broadly, it is based on incomplete evidence. Incomplete evidence notoriously leads to false conclusions. |
| title | Why you do not need to worry about the standard argument that you are a Boltzmann brain |
| topic | History and Philosophy of Physics Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.13197 |