Are Boltzmann Brains running Hilbert\'s Hotel? by William T. Parsons

Dear Bill,

Thank you ever so much for leaving such a positive comment about my essay.

One real Universe can only be occurring in one real infinite dimension. Unfortunately, scientists insist on attempting to measure the three abstract dimensions of height, width and depth, with completely unrealistic results. The real Universe must be infinite in scope and eternal in duration.

Gratefully,

Joe Fisher

Bill,

Your Hilbert Hotel is an esoteric location steeped in meaning. Do Boltzmann Brains have physical baggage of a type 0 civilization that restrict a Hilbert Hotel in a type 2 civilization?

My connections of mind, math, and physics are quite pedestrian in producing advances in quantum biology, DNA mapping and simulation of the BB: http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2345.

Thanks for sharing your imaginative hotel.

Jim

Bill,

You are very kind, not only in being engaged in my essay but also engaging in your interest.

Quick question: Is the equation involving Gt on page 3 your work? If so, how did you derive it? Having such a meager math background, I thought it somewhat primitive but applicable, starting with a compound interest formula, the principal of dynamic growth.

On a more personal note, as a pilot, I've always respected Boeing aircraft. Did you ever work on the Triple7? A truly fantastic airplane. I worked on the military side mostly, only occasionally doing cost-benefit on the commercial side, including the 777.

Jim

I disagree with it.

Since I believe "It Takes Two Hands Clapping to Make a Noise"

-Best regards

Miss. Sujatha Jagannathan

Dear William,

Great essay! It is well-argued and well-written. You explained the difference between mathematical and physical infinity. You also gave strong arguments for how to deal with physical infinity, and I strongly agree with them and give you highest rating. I would be glad to take your opinion in my essay.

All the best,

Mohammed

Dear Bill,

What a delightful essay! You should consider moonlighting as a science writer (what is a physicist-in-residence, anyway?)

"..I reject physical infinity, for three reasons. First, mathematically, it

makes computations intractable. Second, operationally, I do not know how--even in principle--how

to observe, measure or manipulate physically infinite objects or systems. Third, conceptually, it

embodies a viciously unphysical ontology, namely, that physical constituent parts can equal each

other and the physical whole from which they derive."

These are all good reasons, but may I suggest that infinities in physical theories may have a useful role to play that is in my opinion still greatly under-appreciated: I think that at least in some (perhaps, with enough imagination, in all meaningful) cases in which they occur, they may be telling us that we are not looking at the physical situation at hand in "the right way".

The paradigm example to me is the Lorentz factor. For v=c it is infinite, and so presumably one of the unfortunate victims of your effort to eradicate its kin from physics. But what if we look at its inverse: The inverse of the Lorentz Factor tells us how much the proper time changes with respect to coordinate time. In fact, because of the mathematical form of gamma we can get it to tell us more: How much of the proper time is "projected" unto coordinate time (as I'm sure you know, one can easily see this by drawing the appropriate triangle that illustrates

[math] \tau\times(\gamma^{-2}=1- \beta^2)^{1/2}[/math]

In that case, if we take the triangle relationship seriously, gamma=1 tells us that all of the object's proper time is "projected" unto the observer's coordinate time and gamma=infinity tells us that none of it is "projected" unto the observer's coordinate time, or, in other words, that the object's proper time is orthogonal to the coordinate time if we were to assign unit vectors to the abstract plane spanned by the two time parameters . This is of course consistent with the fact that null vectors are orthogonal to time-like vectors.

Orthogonality is one of those situations which commonly involves zero and infinity, and seems to have been what lurked behind this infinity. Orthogonality is also a basic conceptual staple of physics, and so I suspect that there is something conceptually very clear and thoroughly physical behind many infinities in physics in a similar manner, but not very well recognized as such.

I'd be interested to know what you think of this argument, and whether it leads you to modify your categorical rejection of infinities in physics.

Best wishes,

Armin

Dear William,

I have read your essay quite a while ago, but only realized that I forgot to comment yesterday, when I wanted to post something in reply to Michel's question. My apologies for this; I realize the rating itself is the utmost expression of appreciation but I also know it's very satisfying when people interact with your work.

You're making an unexpected and original analysis for the infinite hotel and I admire your argumentation when drawing parallels to physics as you are taking into consideration possible objections. I think Fitzgerald was saying that "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function". Here I mean of course how you develop the point about the laws of physics and the operation of the hotel in finite time, two competing points brought together in short sequence. You are making a profound analysis about the placement of the rooms and in general about the topographical properties that may or may not impact how and iff the hotel works, thus developing your idea completely. Not a single thread is left out of place because you explain how Boltzmann brains come into picture. Thank you for a good read and wish you best of luck in your work and in the contest!

Warm regards,

Alma

Dear Bill,

Infinity, set theory and relativity are some of the most difficult concepts in math and physics. Not difficult per se, but difficult to grasp to the level where you can work with them properly. You are going at the heart of the problem when you are distinguishing infinity as the biggest plague of physics. It is both clever and brave to bring these together in your essay and also a strong proof of very original thinking. You are also making a strong point about the difference between physical and mathematical infinity. I particularly enjoyed your analysis of the FLRW metric and the cosmological implications and possibilities to measure physical infinity. This metric is an old friend of mine. I enjoyed reading your well written and well argued essay because you take a point and follow it to the end of the line, not unlike a mathematical proof.

Cheers,

Cristi Stoica

Dear William T. Parsons,

I like the topic and the style of your essay and I agree with your main stance (mathematical infinity is fine, physical infinity is something else). However, I do think there are a few flaws as well.

One minor thing is that you state that the lemniscate is the common and correct symbol for mathematical infinity. You use it both for infinity in the sense of calculus (you mention limit and series) and set theory. However, I don't think the use of the lemniscate symbol is appropiate in the latter case, or in the section on Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel, which is about countably infinite sets. For infinite sets it is possible to rigorously define operations on the infinite cardinalities or ordinals. This is not "improper". (Later on, you mention lemniscate lemniscate among examples of meaningless use of infinity, but this seems fine, even within calculus; the example makes more sense with a minus sign, which does lead to an indeterminacy within the context of calculus.)

There are some sloppy phrasings: you write "subsets of infinity", rather than "subsets of infinite sets" and you state Dedekind's definition of infinity in terms of equality of a set with a subset, but this has to be equality _of size_ of those sets. I agree that the standard of rigour can be a bit lower in these kind of essays, but in these examples, it requires little effort (and no loss of accessibility) to make it more accurate.

You write yourself that "the mathematics of infinity is tricky". I would like to add: especially if you mix it with probabilities! Indeed, my main complaint is about the probabilistic argument on p. 7: as it is written here, you suggest that it is possible to use (infinite) cardinalities as a basis for a probability measure, but such a measure simply isn't defined. There are ways to define probability measures in such sitations, for instance using natural density. (Or using non-standard measures, something I work on, but which is not even needed for the case at hand.) On none of the approaches I known of, it will follow that all subsets of the same cardinality have the same probability measure. For instance, the natural density of the set of even natural number is 1/2, although it has the same cardinality as the entire set of natural numbers (namely, countably infinite): this is easy to interpret as the probability that a random natural number is even. And this better be the case, otherwise you come into conflict with the basic (finite) additivity axiom of probability theory. (Consider the subsets of even and odd numbers to see this point.) In other words, I don't buy your 50-50 argument for the Boltzmann brains vs Universe odds. ;-) (I can send you references if you would be interested in the details of mixing infinity and probability.)

I do like your use of the Bravo card (actually, this idea is quite close to that of a non-standard natural number, which is an alternative way of dealing with infinity in the context of calculus) and I do think most of this text would be enthusing for a lay audience, so my vote is a 7/10.

Best wishes,

Sylvia Wenmackers - Essay Children of the Cosmos

Dear Bill,

Thank you very much for your visit and for your words! I just dropped by to tell you that I answered your question.

My sincerest appreciation!

Alma

Dear Bill,

I am very grateful for your reply, which demonstrates that our opinions on these matters are even closer than I had realized initially!

You are right, getting these essays right is difficult: they are supposed to be for a general audience, but in these forums there are mainly people with highly specialized backgrounds and it remains impossible to please everyone. :) As I indicated before, I do think your piece is exciting for the intended audience.

So, you actually considered mentioning non-standard numbers? How cool. :)

I did notice that you were not really defending the 50-50 argument, but my response was that there are better options available for this. Whether the alternatives are applicable to physics is indeed a different matter. I would say that the natural numbers are a helpful concept for modelling physical situations, but not literally applicable to the physical world. Yet, currently, they are really entrenched in physics: the natural numbers occur in the construction of the real numbers, they occur in the definition of limit and series,... Similarly, also natural density and related probability measures are approximations at best.

So, I agree that "In the physical world, infinity has got nothing to offer." Yet, in physical reasoning, it is considered to be a helpful abstraction for unspecified large quanties. Trouble arises when we forget that we are working with an unphysical idealization. The Bravo card can be an alternative for the idealization step. Like you, I would prefer this option. So, indeed, we are on the same page here.

O, and I will send you some references by e-mail!

Best wishes,

Sylvia

Dear Bill,

I just wanted to let you know that I posted a relatively lengthy response to your comments on my blog and that it matters to me to know whether I was able to express my ideas intelligibly...if you did not understand it, that's OK, I won't attempt any additional explanations unless you want me to, but I would like to know if that is the case because it helps me find out which way of explaining my ideas is effective and which is not.

The problem that I seem to be facing is that I have much more comprehensive picture in mind in which different concepts from different areas interlock tightly, resulting in an overall picture that, to the extent I can tell, fits nicely together. But the whole picture adds up to a worldview that is in some ways substantially different from the current one, so that trying to explain individual parts of the puzzle (like in my response to your comments) which can only give a partial view, will, due to unfamiliarity, have a risk of failing to convey even just that limited part of the picture. Finding the "right" parts to explain first as well as the ways to do this may help make it more likely that eventually I can intelligibly convey the entire picture.

Best,

Armin