Related papers: Anthropic Selection for a Low-Entropy Past
The anthropic principle is one of the possible explanations for the cosmological constant ($\Lambda$) problem. In previous studies, a dark halo mass threshold comparable with our Galaxy must be assumed in galaxy formation to get a…
I study the physical nature of traces (or memories). Surprisingly, (i) systems separation with (ii) temperature differences and (iii) long thermalization times, are sufficient conditions to produce macroscopic traces. Traces of the past are…
In the modern quantum mechanics of cosmology observers are physical systems within the universe. They have no preferred role in the formulation of the theory nor in its predictions of third person probabilities of what occurs. However,…
In statistical mechanics, measuring the number of available states and their probabilities, and thus the system's entropy, enables the prediction of the macroscopic properties of a physical system at equilibrium. This predictive capacity…
I discuss the Boltzmann-Penrose question of why the initial conditions for cosmology have low entropy. The modern version of Boltzmann's answer to this question, due to Dyson, Kleban and Susskind, seems to imply that the typical intelligent…
The second law of thermodynamics is asymmetric with respect to time as it says that the entropy of the universe must have been lower in the past and will be higher in the future. How this time-asymmetric law arises from the time-symmetric…
The concept of entropy connects the number of possible configurations with the number of variables in large stochastic systems. Independent or weakly interacting variables render the number of configurations scale exponentially with the…
The causal entropic principle has been proposed as a superior alternative to the anthropic principle for understanding the magnitude of the cosmological constant. In this approach, the probability to create observers is assumed to be…
We compute the expected value of the cosmological constant in our universe from the Causal Entropic Principle. Since observers must obey the laws of thermodynamics and causality, the principle asserts that physical parameters are most…
Even when completely and consistently formulated, a fundamental theory of physics and cosmological boundary conditions may not give unambiguous and unique predictions for the universe we observe; indeed inflation, string/M theory, and…
In stochastic thermodynamics, the entropy production of a thermodynamic system is defined by the irreversibility measured by the logarithm of the ratio of the path probabilities in the forward and reverse processes. We derive the relation…
In the context of models where the dark energy density $\rD$ is a random variable, anthropic selection effects may explain both the "old" cosmological constant problem and the "time coincidence". We argue that this type of solution to both…
Anthropic reasoning often begins with the premise that we should expect to find ourselves typical among all intelligent observers. However, in the infinite universe predicted by inflation, there are some civilizations which have spread…
Far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics underpins the emergence of life, but how has been a long-outstanding puzzle. Best candidate theories based on the maximum entropy production principle could not be unequivocally proven, in part due to…
The assumption that a complete description of an early state of the universe does not privilege any position or direction in space leads to a unified account of probability in cosmology, macroscopic physics, and quantum mechanics. Such a…
The postulates of thermodynamics were originally formulated for macroscopic systems. They lead to the definition of the entropy, which, for a homogeneous system, is a homogeneous function of order one in the extensive variables and is…
Entropy is a central concept in physics, but can be challenging to calculate even for systems that are easily simulated. This is exacerbated out of equilibrium, where generally little is known about the distribution characterizing simulated…
Several results of black holes thermodynamics can be considered as firmly founded and formulated in a very general manner. From this starting point we analyse in which way these results may give us the opportunity to gain a better…
Using results from neurobiology on perceptual decision making and value-based decision making, the problem of decision making between lotteries is reformulated in an abstract space where uncertain prospects are mapped to corresponding…
Entropy is the distinguishing and most important concept of our efforts to understand and regularize our observations of a very large class of natural phenomena, and yet, it is one of the most contentious concepts of physics. In this…