The Origin of the Universe and the Arrow of Time Sean Carroll part 3/4

Sean Carroll gave a similar talk at Perimeter Institute Quantum to Cosmos Science Festival:

http://q2cfestival.com/play.php?lecture_id=7731

Speaking at the University of Sydney, acclaimed physicist and cosmologist Sean Carroll gives an entertaining and thought-provoking talk about the nature of time, the origin of entropy and how what happened before the Big Bang might be responsible for the arrow of time we observe today. Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. in 1993 from Harvard University and has previously worked at MIT. He is the author several acclaimed books. CHAST 2009 Templeton Lecture, University of Sydney

Source:

University of Sydney

Category:

Education

Tags:

• distant
• future
• of
• the
• universe
• big
• bang
• god
• physics
• cosmology
• general
• relativity
• entropy
• cosmos
• ludwig
• boltzmann
• second
• law
• thermodynamics
• singularity
• last
• question
• evolution

[Jacnas]

@Crashboy1024 And if brains were fluctuating out of thermal equilibrium than they would be such an absurdly abundant type of conscious observer that our non-Boltzmann brain consciousnesses would be absolutely dwarfed by them. I'm talking many, many orders of magnitude more abundant than us.

[Jacnas]

@Crashboy1024 When you run through the math, it's just much easier to fluctuate a brain from thermal equilibrium than the universe. At no point in the past, no matter how early you go, did the universe have a higher entropy than it has now. And yet the current universe's entropy is still much lower than that of a single brain. It has to be, for our numerous brains are a subset of it.

[Crashboy1024]

What if the minimal fluctuation needed for us to be here is big enough to create this whole Universe we're living in? If there is a possibility in Boltzmann's theory that a large enough fluctuation to create this Universe could occur, what makes you think this isn't it? What if there have been many brains appearing into empty space thinking "Hmmm... thermal equilibrium" and then poof into non-existence?

I'd say that there is no reason for Boltzmann's theory not to work. It's just unlikely.