你怎么知道你是一個過著你生活的人，而不是一個剛剛形成的充滿人工記憶的大腦，一時幻覺一個實際上并不存在的現(xiàn)實？這聽起來可能很荒謬，但它讓幾代頂級宇宙學(xué)家徹夜難眠。他們稱之為：玻爾茲曼大腦悖論。Fabio Pacucci 探索了這個令人麻木的思想實驗。[由 Skirmanta Jakait? 執(zhí)導(dǎo)，Art Shot，Addison Anderson 旁白，Salil Bhayani 音樂，cAMP Studio]。

How do you know you’re a person who has lived your life,?rather than a just-formed brain full of artificial memories,?momentarily hallucinating a reality that doesn't actually exist??That may sound absurd,?but it’s kept several generations of top cosmologists up at night.?They call it the Boltzmann brain paradox.

你怎么知道你是一個過著你生活的人，?而不是一個剛剛形成的充滿人工記憶的大腦，?暫時幻想著一個實際上并不存在的現(xiàn)實？?這聽起來可能很荒謬，?但它讓幾代頂級宇宙學(xué)家徹夜難眠。?他們稱之為玻爾茲曼大腦悖論。

Its namesake, Ludwig Boltzmann, was a 19th century physicistoperating in a period when scientists were passionately debatingwhether the universe had existed for an infinite or finite time.Boltzmann’s main claim to fame was revolutionizing thermodynamics,?the branch of physics that studies energy.?He put forward a new interpretation of entropy,?which is a measure of the disorder of a system.?A glass is an ordered system, whereas a shattered glass is disordered.?The second law of thermodynamics states that closed systems tend towards disorder:?you won’t see a shattered glass return to its pristine state.

與它同名的路德維?！げ柶澛?(Ludwig Boltzmann) 是 19 世紀(jì)的物理學(xué)家?，當(dāng)時科學(xué)家們正在激烈地爭論?宇宙是否存在了無限或有限的時間。?玻爾茲曼的主要聲名是徹底改變熱力學(xué)，?這是研究能量的物理學(xué)分支。?他提出了對熵的新解釋，熵?是系統(tǒng)無序程度的度量。玻璃是有序的系統(tǒng)，而破碎的玻璃是無序的。?熱力學(xué)第二定律指出，封閉系統(tǒng)傾向于無序：?你不會看到破碎的玻璃恢復(fù)到原始狀態(tài)。

Boltzmann’s insight was applying statistical reasoning to this behavior.?He found that a system evolves to a more disordered state because it’s more likely.?However, the opposite direction isn’t impossible,?just so unlikely that we’ll never witness things like scrambled eggs turning raw.

玻爾茲曼的見解是將統(tǒng)計推理應(yīng)用于這種行為。?他發(fā)現(xiàn)一個系統(tǒng)進(jìn)化到更無序的狀態(tài)是因為它更有可能。?然而，相反的方向并非不可能，?只是不太可能，以至于我們永遠(yuǎn)不會看到像炒雞蛋這樣的東西變成生的。

But if the universe exists over an infinitely long time,?extremely unlikely events will happen,?including complex things forming out of random combinations of particles.?So what does that look like in a hypothetical infinitely old universe??In this unremarkable stretch of near-nothingness,?about eight octillion atoms randomly come together to form a replica?of the Thinker made of pasta.?It instantly dissolves.?Over here, these particles suddenly form something like a brain.?It’s filled with false memories of a lifetime up to the present moment,?when it perceives a video saying these very words,?before decaying.?And finally, by random fluctuations, all the particles in the cosmos?concentrate in a single point,?and an entire new universe spontaneously bursts into existence.?Of those last two, which is more likely??The brain, by far—?despite all its complexity, it’s a blip compared to an entire universe.?Every one universe produced by random fluctuations has equivalent odds?to heaps upon heaps of insta-brains.?So by this reasoning, it seems extremely more likely?that everything you believe to exist is actually a brief illusion,?soon to be extinguished.

但如果宇宙存在無限長的時間，?極不可能發(fā)生的事件就會發(fā)生，?包括由粒子隨機(jī)組合形成的復(fù)雜事物。?那么在一個假設(shè)的無限古老的宇宙中，這是什么樣的呢？?在這片不起眼的近乎虛無中，?大約 8 個 octillion 原子隨機(jī)聚集在一起，形成了?由意大利面制成的 Thinker 的復(fù)制品。?它立即溶解。?在這里，這些粒子突然形成了類似大腦的東西。?它充滿了一生的虛假記憶，直到現(xiàn)在，?當(dāng)它感知到一段視頻說這些話，?然后才腐爛。?最后，通過隨機(jī)波動，宇宙中的所有粒子?集中在一個點上，?一個全新的宇宙自發(fā)地爆發(fā)出來。?在最后兩個中，哪個更有可能？?到目前為止，大腦——?盡管它很復(fù)雜，但與整個宇宙相比，它只是一個曇花一現(xiàn)。?由隨機(jī)波動產(chǎn)生的每一個宇宙都有與?成堆的即時大腦相當(dāng)?shù)膸茁省?所以根據(jù)這個推理，你認(rèn)為存在的一切似乎極有可能實際上是一個短暫的幻覺，?很快就會消失。

Boltzmann didn’t get quite that far in his thinking;?the brains themselves were introduced by later cosmologists building on his work.?But they, like just about everyone else,?were pretty sure that they themselves weren't just ephemeral brains.?So the paradox was: how could they be correct and the universe be eternal??The resolution is something most take for granted today:that our universe has not existed forever,?but rather time and space started with a Big Bang.

玻爾茲曼的想法并沒有走得那么遠(yuǎn)。?后來的宇宙學(xué)家在他的工作基礎(chǔ)上介紹了大腦本身。?但他們和其他所有人一樣，?非常確定他們自己不僅僅是短暫的大腦。?所以悖論是：它們怎么可能是正確的，而宇宙是永恒的？?這個決議在今天是大多數(shù)人認(rèn)為理所當(dāng)然的事情：我們的宇宙并不是永遠(yuǎn)存在的，?而是時間和空間始于大爆炸。

So that’s the paradox over and done with, right??Well, maybe not.In the last century, scientists have found evidence supporting the theory?of the Big Bang everywhere we look.?Yet while we know that the Big Bang happened,?no one knows what, if anything, preceded and caused it.?Why did the universe begin in such an extremely ordered, and unlikely, state??Is our universe in an unending cycle of creation and collapse??Or might we be in one of many universes expanding within a multiverse?

所以這就是悖論了，對吧？?好吧，也許不是。?在上個世紀(jì)，科學(xué)家們在我們所看到的任何地方都發(fā)現(xiàn)了支持?大爆炸理論的證據(jù)。?然而，雖然我們知道大爆炸發(fā)生了，?但沒有人知道是什么（如果有的話）先于并導(dǎo)致了它。?為什么宇宙會以如此極其有序且不太可能的狀態(tài)開始？?我們的宇宙是否處于創(chuàng)造和崩潰的無休止循環(huán)中？?或者我們可能處于在多元宇宙中擴(kuò)展的眾多宇宙之一？

In this context, Boltzmann’s paradox has found renewed interestby contemporary cosmologists.?Some argue that leading models for where the universe came from?still imply that Boltzmann brains are more likely than human brains,?suggesting something’s amiss.?Others counter that slight modifications of the cosmological models?would avoid the problem,?or that Boltzmann’s brains can’t actually physically form.?Some researchers even attempted to calculate the probability?of a brain popping out of random quantum fluctuations?long enough to think a single thought.?They got this incredible number?whose denominator is 10 to a number about a septillion times largerthan the number of stars in the universe.?The Boltzmann brain paradox, despite its absurdity,?is useful because it creates a bar that models have to rise to.?If, compared to numbers like this one,the current state of the universe is exceedingly unlikely,something in the model is almost certainly wrong.?Unless you’re the one who is wrong...

在這種情況下，玻爾茲曼悖論重新引起?了當(dāng)代宇宙學(xué)家的興趣。?一些人認(rèn)為，宇宙起源的主要模型?仍然暗示玻爾茲曼大腦比人類大腦更有可能，?這表明有些不對勁。?其他人則反駁說，對宇宙模型的輕微修改?可以避免這個問題，?或者說玻爾茲曼的大腦實際上無法形成物理形式。?一些研究人員甚至試圖計算?大腦從隨機(jī)量子波動中彈出足夠長的時間來思考一個想法的概率。?他們得到了這個令人難以置信的數(shù)字?，其分母是 10 到大約 septillion 倍的數(shù)字?比宇宙中恒星的數(shù)量還要多。?玻爾茲曼大腦悖論盡管很荒謬，但?很有用，因為它創(chuàng)造了模型必須達(dá)到的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。?如果與這樣的數(shù)字相比，?宇宙的當(dāng)前狀態(tài)極不可能，?那么模型中的某些東西幾乎肯定是錯誤的。?除非你是錯的人...