The paradox of the Boltzmann Brain can really pull the rug from under you if you follow it to all of its logical and illogical extents. This mind-churning idea proposes that the world is quite possibly just an effect of your disembodied consciousness and doesn’t really exist. And your sense of self is just a statistical fluctuation. It’s something that is more likely to come into existence by chance than the Universe that would have had to produce it.
So are you really a Boltzmann Brain? Let’s look at the underlying thinking.
…
[Physicist Ludwig Boltzmann believed] it would be more likely for random quantum fluctuations in nature to create something simpler than our astounding Universe – for example, a self-aware entity that believes it is a person in a world full of people, history, and particular physics. But such a person – let’s say you – is only full of all the knowledge and experiences because you are made that way by the fluctuation that created you. There is nothing really there but your self-awareness.…
Debates of the idea persist, however, especially as it is hard to disprove. After all, if you were a Boltzmann Brain, everything that you could come up with to prove or disprove it would likely be because of the hallucinations your consciousness is having.
Read full, original post: Are you a Boltzmann Brain? Why nothing in the Universe may be real
