The Universe is Watching You

[flaviomatani]

"Then, though, there are the BB’s in the universe: Boltzmann Brains. Random fluctuations of the fabric of spacetime itself which, most of the time, are rather insignificant puffs which evaporate immediately. But sometimes they stick around. More rarely, they are complex. Sometimes (very very rarely) they are really quite as complex as us human types. (Actually, “very very rarely” does not quite convey just how rare we are talking now.) And sometimes these vacuum quantum fluctuations attain the status of actual observers in the world. But, the rarest of them all, the BB’s, are able to (however briefly) make actual observations in the universe which are, in fact, “not erroneous” as Don Page put it."

I need coffee in the mornings and a pint in the evenings. But I'm only a guitarist and a music teacher. What, exactly, do theoretical physicists take, in order to help themselves along? I think I may need some....

Comments

[blu-matt.livejournal.com]

Coffee. Expensive exotic coffee. Dispensed by a £15k machine.

At least that's how it is in our staff common room.

[flavius-m.livejournal.com]

Was there a cat inside the machine? How do you know? Was it dead or alive?

[blu-matt.livejournal.com]

I don't believe there's a cat inside, as there's a mirrored top to the bean containers which might give it away, but there's always the possibility of a cat inside. Perhaps the machine is merely a cat's wave function in a different configuration...

[strangepixel.livejournal.com]

I had a house mate study cosmology whilst we were both at Manchester University. He routinely fried his poor tangled synapses...

[spikylau.livejournal.com]

Maths & Physics, between them, are extremely good at brain scrambling.

That and lots of caffeine.

[flavius-m.livejournal.com]

Either will do, my brain is easily scrambled!:P

[mister-ed.livejournal.com]

Whilst I can see the logic of the argument.. I think that article was a bit alarmist and over-blown.. I think the New Scientist people were on the special green pills that day :)

I suspect terrorism is probably a greater threat at present ;)

(although who knows what those fiendish Boltzmann Brains could be plotting...)

[flavius-m.livejournal.com]

I don't think they were putting BB as 'threats' that one had to be alarmed by; it rather srtuck me as the opposite, a sort of naively optimistic view of the universe -but then I do not have access to (nor would i have any understanding of) the calculations that these people have based those conclusions on.

It does make for nice science-fiction plots, though.