= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
wadavis comments on On immortality - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (46)
Well, it is necessarily true that anything that can happen, will happen in an infinite, probabilistic world. Of course, there are some issues with this. One, if the mass of the higgs boson falls in a certain area, then the universe will undergo a shift. From what I remember, it is something to do with the vacuum energy/state of the universe, and the laws of physics may well end up changing. Its been a few years since I read that article, so I may not have it completely right. And events that have a probability of an infinitesimal...well, I'm not sure what would happen. I don't know what infinity over infinity is, but I suspect that it will be undefined. Anyway, the expectation of a value is its probability, multiplied by the quantity of cards drawn, or whatever it is you're trying to determine. In this case, how many events with probability P are going to happen in an infinite amount of time? Well, an infinite number. That's just how it works.
If I've been obtuse in some way, don't hesitate to call me out on it. And thanks for reading!
Edit: I just re-read your comment. I don't think that's how the probabilities work in this reality, though I may be wrong... I mean, what sort of probability would this event have in a finite universe? Is it some infinite universe only event? Do those even exist? It should be irrelevant though, because our universe has existed for some time T, and we had some probability P of occurring, and so that would mean we will reoccur in an infinite universe. Same for the other versions of us, though you could provide me with an argument for why that isn't so.
This. This matters.
This is more that metaphor. A exponentially larger infinity divided by a small infinity will be infinity. A exponentially small infinity divided by a large infinity will be zero. A division of proportional infinities will be a real number.
So if the chances of a Boltzamann Brain becomes increasingly less likely as enthropy increases. and enthropy increases as time approaches infinity, you have a division of infinities which can equal infinity, a real number, or zero. You won't know which without actually crunching the numbers.
As an aside, arguments that use infinite time come up enough that I'm trying to find a brief graphic or write up that teaches ∞/(2*∞)=1/2 and the ∞/(∞^2)=0. Any pointers?