Boltzmann Replicators

boltzmann-replicator

          - explain Boltzmann Brains and the typical Boltzmann universe
          - we don't need to care about what the Boltzmann universe from which ours sprouted is made
            from, an ur-chaotic primordial bit soup would likely do the trick.
            
            Explain how the ur-chaos is as close as it gets to a definition of nothing.
            
          - at some point a replicator must show up, and once it does you no longer have a Boltzmann
            universe
            
            Yet if every possible structural arrangement eventually takes place, it isn't just
            strange self-aware structures somewhat analogous to "brains" that will materialise.
            There will be whales and bowls of petunias, too. But joke aside, assuming those do have
            the time to happen, there is another kind of structure that is guaranteed to come into
            existence. It is far, far simpler than a self-aware entity with the illusion of living
            a human life — and by the same logic therefore far, far more likely to emerge.
            
            It is a structure with the simple, basic property that it is able to use its environment
            to make copies of itself. A /replicator/.
            
            And the fact is: once you start having a replicator, you are no longer in a Boltzmann
            universe. There is continuous non-random creation of further structure. There is a
            principle at work that /creates/ further structure.
            
            It is possible that a replicator will eventually fail due to interactions with a harsh
            environment. In fact a great number may fail to become perennial. But eventually, one
            will.
            
            It is also likely to make copying errors. Some of those copies will fail to replicate.
            But some will replicate differently. This introduces diversity. In turn, the replicators
            progressively become one another's environment — there is competition.
            
            Put differently, it is in fact certain that a Boltzmann universe will cause stable,
            evolutionary, complexity and diversity producing structures to emerge.
            
            There is something instead of nothing because there *has* to be something instead of
            nothing. Well I guess that's one major philosophical question that's not sorry to
            finally be put to bed.
            
          - it is therefore extremely unlikely that there would be enough time for a Boltzmann brain
            to form (even assuming that probabilities over infinity do make any sense)
          - point out that evolutionary processes reach local optima, which would explain why not
            everything is coherent
          - this ties to the notion that a lot of the world's inherent logical structure (including
            most of maths) would then contain random facts; notably due to the fact that evolution
            breed diversity by nature
          - finally, this also accounts for fine-tuning *if* we assume that the more stable forms of
            structures are fitter in an environment that naturally tends towards maximising entropy;
            over aeons of iterations that select for the sort of apparently miraculous stability
            that we notice.
          - also, this entails that the laws of physics, at our level, can evolve (but are
            restricted in doing so by the fact that a new law would need to be fitter than the
            existing equilibrium)
          - this also hints at the fact that it may not be possible to unify everything, at least
            not in the sense that is usually understood. It could well be that unifying GR and QM
            is like trying to unify cellular behaviour and sociology — the result would be at best
            extremely complex, contrived, and lacking in explanatory power.
            
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