The all possible experience generator

(written by Lawrence Krubner, however indented passages are often quotes)

Right now, physics seems to be leaning toward a view of the universe as one instance of a multiverse all possible experience generator. I am curious what comes next? How many years will this theory last, and what will replace it?

In contrast, suppose one more simple law of physics not presently understood, which forces the initial condition of the universe to be low-entropy. Then the exponentially vast majority of brains occur as the result of ordered processes in ordered regions, and it’s not at all surprising that we find ourselves having ordered experiences.

But wait! This is just the same sort of logic (is it?) that one would use to say, “Well, if the logical coin came up heads, then it’s very surprising to find myself in a red room, since the vast majority of people-like-me are in green rooms; but if the logical coin came up tails, then most of me are in red rooms, and it’s not surprising that I’m in a red room.”

If you reject that reasoning, saying, “There’s only one me, and that person seeing a red room does exist, even if the logical coin came up heads” then you should have no trouble saying, “There’s only one me, having a highly ordered experience, and that person exists even if all experiences are generated at random by a Boltzmann-brain process or something similar to it.” And furthermore, the Boltzmann-brain process is a much simpler process – it could occur with only the barest sort of causal structure, no need to postulate the full complexity of our own hallucinated universe. So if you’re not updating on the apparent conditional rarity of having a highly ordered experience of gravity, then you should just believe the very simple hypothesis of a high-volume random experience generator, which would necessarily create your current experiences – albeit with extreme relative infrequency, but you don’t care about that.

Now, doesn’t the Boltzmann-brain hypothesis also predict that reality will dissolve into chaos in the next moment? Well, it predicts that the vast majority of blobs who experience this moment, cease to exist after; and that among the few who don’t dissolve, the vast majority of those experience chaotic successors. But there would be an infinitesimal fraction of a fraction of successors, who experience ordered successor-states as well. And you’re not alarmed by the rarity of those successors, just as you’re not alarmed by the rarity of waking up in a red room if the logical coin came up 1 – right?