Interesting read, thank you for sharing. I think I would distinguish between two “optimization processes” that have molded the fates of living things on this planet (I don’t love the term “optimization process” but it will do).
1. Evolution by natural selection which selects for “fitness”
2. Human intentional selection, which selects for usefulness to humans.
As a general principle, I do think you are on to something with the idea of a “honeymoon phase”. The general pattern is, new niche opens up, one specie moves into this niche and dominates it (honeymoon phase), other species move into the niche making it much less comfortable and much more competitive than it used to be.
I do think though, that with the emergence of humans on the planet, the second optimization process is dominant. Like you mentioned with the example of the chickens, I do think it does make sense to translate the idea of a honeymoon phase to this optimization process as well, but we must account for the fact that unlike natural selection, what is driving the train now are human preferences. This makes me more optimistic than you are that barring major cataclysms or the emergence of superhuman AIs, humanity will have a bright future.
One last note, if AI development continues and we do enter a post human AI age, then the world might be molded by what the AIs want rather than what we want. In that world, humans might indeed enter a honeymoon phase where the AIs treat us well at first and then really poorly after (like the chicken).
Would be interested in hearing your thoughts on this, and thanks again for sharing!
I don’t think the idea of boltzmann brains and the ideas of a thermalized universe are related. The argument that you offer does effectively refute the boltzman brain problem but does not argue against that our universe is moving towards thermal equilibrium.
This whole idea of “choas” hides a lot of baggage. For every physical system you must define the states of maximal entropy. Those states are only relevant given your system constraints. When people talk of “choas” or maximal entropy I always think that they are in the back of their mind thinking of a homogeneous gas of particles bouncing around. That is the state of maximal entropy for an ideal gas but that does not transfer to other physical systems.
Bringing this back to the subject at hand, the reason that I and other physicists think the universe is handed towards a total thermalization is because of dark energy which is a physical and empirical effect that has been deduced from observations done by independent teams of astronomers. There is still an area where little is understood, and it is an ongoing area of study, but what would demonstrate that this is wrong are empirical results.
One point of clarification that might be useful, the “thermal equilibrium” that current cosmology suggests we are moving towards, bears no relation at all to the thermal equilibrium of an ideal gas where you have a well mixed box of particles bouncing around and occasionally fluctuating into complex objects. If dark energy dominates, then particles and structures will become increasingly causally isolated and all ordinary interactions will eventually die out (so it is the kind of thermal equilibrium that can never give rise to a conscious experience). The thermalized universe current theories of cosmology predict would not lead to the Boltzmann brain problem.