On 7/31/2012 10:48 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
"The problem is to explain also why the entropy of the early universe was so low. If you
just accept that this is the case and also don't bother about the very distant future,
there is no problem. But if you assume that time goes on from the infinite distant past
and/or to the infinite distant future, you have a problem, because smaller local low
entropy states are then more likely than the whole observable universe being in some low
entropy state."
That make me think about the people that try to discover the whys of the arrow of time
by taking concepts like "beginning of the universe". That presuposses the arrow of time
that he is trying to demonstrate how it arises in the first place. this is a circular
reasoning.
No, it's not circular. Beginning is just the low entropy state.
All that he can demonstrate empirically is that it follows entropy, an then, he is
puzzled by the fact that entropy was so low at the "beginning"
The interesting question is why there is there uniformity in the different 'arrows of
time'. Why does the local increase in thermodynamic entropy match the expansion of the
universe? Why does the radiation AoT match the quantum branching of MWI?
but if we take the idea of a block universe shaped as a four dimensional bell with a
singularity in the left ( see the figure that I linked), there is no arrow of time here.
is our life that goes along very short segments from left to right in the middle of
this figure. what we do is to extrapolate this sort segment to the whole figure. But
this is not right. first, time is local, according with general relativity. How we
extrapolate it? by assuming that time progress in the universe in the direction that we
perceive causality, that is, in the direction of entropy increase.
but even so, there is not a single arrow of time where entropy increases. there are
infinite lines of entropy increase/arrows of time departin from the singularity,
which diverge radially trough the bell and extend to the right in the figure.
If i´m right, the existence of a gradient of entropy and, thus the existence of a
singularity with maximum entropy somewhere, at a point which we consider "origin of the
universe", is a pre-requisite for natural selection and life. Natural selection (as I
said before) select "good correlations" which deal with macroscopical events, to design
life and observers. That is why we see this universe with such unavoidable notion of
beginning and not other in other ways.
A boltzman brain is just a curiosity, unless the bolzman fluctionation create not a
single brain but a local portion of the universe that develop in a way that maintain
intellgent beings. In this case, it is indistinguishable if the universe is or not the
product of a boltzman fluctuation.
The problem is that statistical mechanical estimates of probabilities favor the random
occurrence of the curiosity over the universe.
Brent
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected].
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
