Will Minds Appear In The Cosmos? Quantum Randomness Is So Strange

One of the interesting consequences of quantum theory is that particles can randomly appear in the cosmos, and if you wait long enough, conscious minds and maybe even whole new Universes. Welcome to the baffling concept of Boltzmann brains.
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Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain
Jason Harmer - @jasoncharmer
Susie Murph - @susiemmurph
Brian Koberlein - @briankoberlein
Kevin Gill - @kevinmgill

Created by: Fraser Cain and Jason Harmer

Edited by: Chad Weber

Music: Left Spine Down - “X-Ray”
We blow minds here on Guide to Space.

All we want is for you to start watching, especially on a topic that you knew something about. And then you say “whoa…” when you realize the cosmic scope of an idea, like black holes, gamma ray bursts, or the Fermi Paradox.

Today, I think some kind of warning is in order. We’re going to blow your mind so thoroughly, that you’re going to be a hollowed out shell for the next few days. You’ll going to stumble around, glassy-eyed, in an almost catatonic state as you contemplate the humbling awesomeness of the Universe.

Let’s start with a familiar landscape, the implications of infinite time and space. The Universe might be infinite in space. Once you’re talking about infinity, a lot of strange ideas join the party over at Prismo’s.

Even if the Universe isn’t infinite in space it’ll most likely be infinite in time, expanding at an accelerating pace thanks to the leftover momentum from the Big Bang and dark energy. One way or another, there’s infinity in play. Thanks to quantum mechanics, the Universe is all about probabilities.

The air inside your living room is most likely going to remain evenly spaced, so you can breathe it and stay conscious. But there’s a teeny, tiny chance. A chance so small, that it’s not worth considering, that all the atoms of air in the room will spontaneously shift their position into one tiny corner, or maybe to the Andromeda Galaxy. The chances are small, it’ll practically never happen.

Once you’re dealing with forever, however, almost never, means sometimes always. You can imagine a situation, in an incomprehensible amount of time where quantum fluctuations spontaneously generate a hydrogen atom, floating in space, or perhaps a sperm whale or potted petunias.

We’re talking a seriously long amount of time. Long after all the stars have used up their hydrogen and died. Long after even the most supermassive black holes have evaporated away. If you could wait long enough, these quantum fluctuations would just pop things into existence.

One of the most compelling ideas is the concept of a Boltzmann Brain, named after the physicist Ludwig Boltzmann. It’s possible that entire, fully conscious minds could appear randomly in the cosmos. Keep rolling the dice for an infinite amount of time, and eventually, you’re going to get that Paladin with 18 charisma, 18 strength and a dreamy voice like Patrick Stewart.

The chances of this are 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 50. That’s a huge huge number. Trust me, you’re going to need more pencils to even write it out. Actually, you could turn every atom of the Universe into a pencil and it wouldn’t be enough.

Just imagine what it would be like to be that self-aware conscious entity that suddenly appeared floating in a completely empty cosmos, contemplating the mystery and wonder of all that vast nothingness. Perhaps it’s just a bunch of telepathic screaming because one thing this particular brain was missing was the ability to survive in a vacuum.

Now, then imagine an entire planet, orbiting a sun-like star, filled with human beings and other life. Again, that number is even more incomprehensibly small, but it’s not zero. And so, in a Universe of infinite space, those things are popping up an infinite number of times, and in infinite time, it’ll happen an infinite number of times.

And now, I shall deliver the final mind bending blow. Imagine you took all the particles and energy in the entire Universe. All the protons, photons, neutrons and hadrons. There’s a tiny, tiny chance that all those particles could suddenly appear in an infinitely dense region of space, and undergo a rapid expansion.

In other words, it’s possible that another Big Bang could spontaneously appear in an infinite amount of time. How long? Physicist Sean Carroll has done the math. You’d just need to wait 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 56 years for it to happen.

[SPL-]

Maybe in an infinite time, quantum fluctuations will eventually create a politician who is not a complete sociopath!

[Sebanoe]

The brain sounds like something out of a comic book to explain the birth of a cosmic entity.

[Molly-vnhf]

WE MUST PREPARE FOR THE COMING OF THE SECOND FRASER

[jerwilliamsmith]

You have one of the best shows on YouTube. The topics are always intriguing, and your writing is consistent. Another great video!

[ericpa]

This episode was like really freaking mind blowing.

It remembered me from a tv cartoon called "Rick And Morty", and the show is basically about this boy and his grandpa, that is a genius mad scientist, per se, and they travel by the universe and among universes.

And in a episode they basically destroy the whole earth, accidentally. Transforming every on earth, except them, into bizarre monsters.

So, they simply travel to another universe almost identically to the universe that they have come from, but in which the earth was not destroyed, and most important of all: in is this universe they ended up dying in explosion a few hours later.

So they travel to this universe, and take the place from their dead versions

[ajayramanathan]

Out of all your videos, this one blew my mind.

[RPKGameVids]

If it's possible for a mind/entity to be so powerful that it can actually end the universe/reality itself, and it decides to do this, then given enough time that will happen, which will mean that time isn't infinite after all. Unless a mind/entity which is so powerful to stop this from ever happening is generated first.

[VannMunson]

My general way of thinking about the origins of the universe, thanks to this video and some others.

So if it's possible that an infinite amount of big bangs could occur in infinite time or space, that means that there's an infinite amount of universes. And eventually, you'll get infinite universes that are identical to our own, down to the exact location of every molecule. There will also be infinite universes with extremely small or extremely large changes, henceforth an alternate version of multiverse theory. This means our universe was made the same way, out of a cosmological fluctuation.
This also explains away the major problem with the big bang theory, the idea that something that transcends space, time, energy and matter somehow created all of those four things. Simply put, all matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, henceforth it has always existed and has simply been relocated by big bangs. You could say that space is just a place that matter and energy can exist in, so there is no running out of it, it is infinite. Time, having no physical representation, is relative to matter, so it too has always existed.

Sorry if that didn't make any sense at all but I like to think of this as the origin of the universe.

[richards]

If this is true does that mean that Star Wars really did happen a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away?

[fajamm]

This is only valid if the universe doesn't end in a Big Rip. If the elementary particles eventually rip themselves to shreds, there won't be anything with which to form anything else. That said, if the universe ends in a Big Chill, this is possible...and raises some very interesting consequences about immortality and an afterlife. There would theoretically be a chance that a Boltzmann Brain perfectly matching yours upon death will form, with all of your memories intact. From your own point of you, you will live through your death and become that brain. If time is infinite, the this is guaranteed to happen. Trippy.

[Fabiofobia]

"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die"

[-dimar-]

How cool would it be if the universe was actually a huge brain, and we and everything else are just being imagined by it.

Topics:
How to create a universe?
How to destroy a universe?

[karath]

so your saying that for everything in are solar system to happen is smaller then the chance of a boltzmann brain? so does that mean that im more rarer then a boltzmann brain?

[MarcoFantin]

We have a minimum packet of energy and a (possible) minimum length, Planck constant and Planck length, respectively. What if there is also a "Planck minimum probability" that cuts off the craziness? That wouldn't be as fun though.

[AliHSyed]

Sperm whale and a pot of petunias... ahaha Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

[Thisispow]

We humans may have been made this way....

[kostasmetal]

When you were saying "...a better version of me..." i was already laughing...then you added the :P
Nice video!! ;-)

[sebastianviruzab]

What about the measurment problem? And wave function colapse, how does that come into play ?

[SamuelFaict.Filmmaker]

Sean Carroll writes in his book The Big Picture that everything that has ever been will vanish forever in approx 1 Googol year. That means that space and time will vanish too. So no quantum fluctuation is possible to bring random stuff in existence since the universe itself is not infinite in time and space. Stuff appearing randomly due to quantum fluctuation could only occur outside of space and time. But then you get a paradox, since nothing can appear randomly outside of space and time than space and time itself.

[Veve]

Boltzmann brains are exactly why I'm inclined to believe the universe has a shelf-life.