Related papers: Why Boltzmann Brains Are Bad
The emergence of opinion polarization within human communities -- the phenomenon that individuals within a society tend to develop conflicting attitudes related to the greatest diversity of topics -- has been a focus of interest for…
Cosmologists will soon be in a unique position. Observational noise will gradually be replaced by cosmic variance as the dominant source of uncertainty in an increasing number of observations. We reflect on the ramifications for the…
An unstable field theory is what we obtain when we linearise the equations of an interacting field theory near an unstable state. Theories of this kind are adopted to model the onset of spontaneous symmetry breakings, when the fields are…
We develop a rigorous theory of hard-sphere dynamics in the kinetic regime, away from thermal equilibrium. In the low density limit, the empirical density obeys a law of large numbers and the dynamics is governed by the Boltzmann equation.…
The Bell experiment is discussed in the light of a new approach to the foundation of quantum mechanics. It is concluded from the basic model that the mind of any observer must be limited in some way: In certain contexts, he is simply not…
The cosmic string theory for cosmological fluctuations is a good example of healthy scientific progress in cosmology. It is a well defined physically motivated model that has been tested by cosmological observations and has been ruled out…
It is argued that some of the recent claims for cosmology are grossly overblown. Cosmology rests on a very small database: it suffers from many fundamental difficulties as a science (if it is a science at all) whilst observations of distant…
The measure problem of cosmology is how to obtain normalized probabilities of observations from the quantum state of the universe. This is particularly a problem when eternal inflation leads to a universe of unbounded size so that there are…
We examine how the consequences which follow from a recent model, both in cosmology and at the elementary particle level have since been observationally and experimentally confirmed. Some of the considerations of the model are also…
In cosmology, we would like to explain our observations and predict future observations from theories of the entire universe. Such cosmological theories make ontological assumptions of what entities exist and what their properties and…
We address the emerging discrepancy between the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis data and standard cosmology, which asks for a bit longer evolution time. If this effect is real, one possible implication (in a framework of brane cosmology model) is…
Quantum theory has been proved as an outstanding mystery in modern science. The predictions of science have turned out to be probabilistic. The principle of determinism has failed. For systems like weather, earthquakes, rolling dices etc...…
The theory of cosmological perturbations has become a cornerstone of modern quantitative cosmology since it is the framework which provides the link between the models of the very early Universe such as the inflationary Universe scenario…
We review the status of bouncing cosmologies as alternatives to cosmological inflation for providing a description of the very early universe, and a source for the cosmological perturbations which are observed today. We focus on the…
An equilibrium statistical system is known to be stable if the fluctuations of global observables are normal, when their dispersions are proportional to the number of particles, or to the system volume. A general theorem is rigorously…
The brain is a non-equilibrium system whose dynamics change in different brain states, such as wakefulness and deep sleep. Thermodynamics provides the tools for revealing these non-equilibrium dynamics. We used violations of the…
This paper is a response to some recent discussions of many-minds interpretations in the philosophical literature. After an introduction to the many-minds idea, the complexity of quantum states for macroscopic objects is stressed. Then it…
Neural theories of consciousness face three difficulties: (1) The selection problem: how are those neurons which cause consciousness selected, from all the other neurons which do not? (2) the precision problem: how do neurons hold a…
Cosmology is operating now on a well established and tightly constraining empirical basis. The relativistic LambdaCDM hot big bang theory is consistent with all the present tests; it has become the benchmark. But the many open issues in…
The common attribute of all Big Bang cosmologies is that they are based on the assumption that the universe is expanding. However examination of the evidence for this expansion clearly favours a static universe. The major topics considered…