Reddit reply in r/PhilosophyMemes: move over solipsism new fear unlocked — December 2, 2025 · nrxbznn | Ali Shukri Amin

1. According to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, the entropy of a closed system cannot decrease over time.

2. Boltzmann described entropy, insofar as statistical mechanics are concerned, as a thermodynamic property that predicts that certain spontaneous processes are irreversible or impossible.

The statistical mechanical definition of entropy is a measure of the number of possible microstates of a system in thermodynamic equilibrium, consistent with its macroscopic thermodynamic properties (macrostate).

3. The universe is observably moving from lower entropy to higher entropy (a macrostate in equilibrium)

4. Local or microstate fluctuations in entropy are subject to the rules of probability and statistics. The greater the microstate fluctuation or deviance, the greater the improbability of its occurrence.

5. In any mechanical naturalistic system, we would expect the spontaneous evolution of entropy in such a system to have less and less radical microstate fluctuations than more. These microstate fluctuations would, given enough time, almost completely be aligned with the macrostate (heat death of the universe)

6. A single minimally viable Boltzmann brain is a rather large microstate fluctuation and represents incredibly low entropy. It is, therefore, highly improbable.

7. 4 billion of years of successful evolution resulting in trillions of consciousness minds without interruption is an infinitely larger microstate fluctuation than a single Boltzmann brain. It is, essentially, the unlikelihood of a Boltzmann brain taken to some exponent with many zeroes after it.

You seem not to grasp points 6 & 7. The probability of one minimally viable observer in the "ether" is astronomically higher than trillions of observers coming out of that same ether, regardless of the processes we currently observe that explain to us how it happened today.

The trillions of humans that have been born are produced from the same "ether" as the Boltzmann brain. The problem is: is it possible for a simpler mechanism than billions of years of evolution produce a simpler viable observer and is that more statistically probable?

The answer is yes.