Originally published at: Are You a Boltzmann Brain? Unearth the Mind-Bending Theory
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The Boltzmann Brain forms, and is about to have its first thought, but then gets splattered in a collision with Russell’s Teapot.
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The spherical cow didn’t block the teapot?
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… though a brain with random incoherent memories would be slightly less unlikely to appear out of nothing and thus probably happen first 
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“… oh no, not again” 
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Ok…I’m dumb.
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I’m glad the monkeys typing thing was addressed - that always seemed ridiculous to me. But, think of this:
What about creating how ever many insane numbers of documents there would be of say, 100 pages, the first document would be entirely "A"s. The second document would be all "A"s, but with a “B” at the end, and so on. The last document would be all "Z"s.
The documents between those at the beginning and that last one would contain every 100 pages ever written, and every 100 pages that ever will be, or could be written. And, of course, an inconceivable number of documents that are just complete nonsense. Plus an inconceivable number of documents that are things that are things that have been written, but with one letter off, then two letters off, etc. There would be some of the most brilliant passages ever known. There would be truths of the universe revealed, and untruths of the universe revealed. There would be your life story, my life story, your life story, but you as a frog. This comment would be in there. And so on.
Of course it would take forever to generate these documents - but what if every computer in existence took a chunk of this work creating the documents, and AIs scanned them for interesting content? What kind of time frame are we looking at here? I say we start immediately…
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We have started. You’re looking for a collection of texts containing the most beautiful poetry and sublime truths imaginable, just mixed in among countless pages of garbage, right? And you’re ok with crappy AI trying to separate them out for you? Well, then, this is the place.
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I feel like I’m missing so much here. If a brain were to randomly form out of particles in a vacuum, wouldn’t it be, you know, DEAD, without a body to support it? Heck, if an entire body formed, wouldn’t it also be dead since it’s floating in outer space? The Boltzmann Brain idea makes a lot of hay out of the idea that we could all be Boltzmann brains with fake memories of the past, but what about the present that we are actively experiencing right now? Sure, I could have false memories of being a person, but why am I feeling and seeing anything NOW if I’m a (inexplicably not dead) disembodied space-brain?
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I believe that you might be interested in Borges’ The Library of Babel - Wikipedia
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You’ve got a point. We are the monkeys.
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That looks amazing, thanks for the tip.
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Improbability level 2 to the power of 267,709 against, and falling.
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I asked my dog if my memories are a fabrication impelling me to an existence where I am happy to provide him with snacks and he did not deny it.
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Given our lived experience, I think we should be hoping for something better than a cosmos-sized human brain.
Maybe it’s the dog’s brain that is floating in the abyss of space and we’re just his memories.
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I’ve made my peace with that possibility. I’m grateful that I get to spend so much time with the avatar of the dog brain. Makes me wonder what’s up with the vet that says he needs to go on a diet, though.
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Scientists as Johns Hopkins proved that if we put an infinite number of monkeys at typewriters…the smell would be unbearable.
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