{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,4]],"date-time":"2026-04-04T08:50:11Z","timestamp":1775292611437,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":32,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2012,2,23]],"date-time":"2012-02-23T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1329955200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/3.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Entropy"],"abstract":"<jats:p>In his recent book, From Eternity to Here, and in other more technical papers, Sean Carroll (partly in collaboration with Jennifer Chen) has put forward an intriguing new way to think about the origin of the Universe. His approach, in a nutshell, is to raise certain worries about a standard Boltzmannian picture of statistical mechanics, and to present certain commitments that he thinks we ought to hold\u2014commitments that the standard picture doesn\u2019t share. He then proposes a cosmological model\u2014one that purports to give us insight into what sort of process brought about the \u201cinitial state\u201d of the universe\u2014that can uniquely accommodate those commitments. The conclusion of Carroll\u2019s argument is that statistical mechanical reasoning provides grounds for provisionally accepting that cosmological model. My goal in this paper is to reconstruct and critically assess this proposal. I argue that \u201cstatistical cosmology\u201d requires a careful balance of philosophical intuitions and commitments against technical, scientific considerations; how much stock we ought to place in these intuitions and commitments should depend on where they lead us\u2014those that lead us astray scientifically might well be in need of philosophical re\u2011examination.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/e14030390","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2012,2,23]],"date-time":"2012-02-23T11:22:02Z","timestamp":1329996122000},"page":"390-406","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":11,"title":["Bumps on the Road to Here (from Eternity)"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"14","author":[{"given":"Eric","family":"Winsberg","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Philosophy, The University of South Florida, 4202 E. Fowler Avenue, FAO226, Tampa, FL 33620, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2012,2,23]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"Carroll, S. (2010). From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time, Dutton."},{"key":"ref_2","unstructured":"Carroll, S., and Chen, J. (arXiv, 2004). Spontaneous inflation and the origin of the arrow of time, arXiv."},{"key":"ref_3","unstructured":"Carroll, S. (arXiv, 2008). What if time really exists?, arXiv."},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"48","DOI":"10.1038\/scientificamerican0608-48","article-title":"Does time run backward in other universes?","volume":"298","author":"Carroll","year":"2008","journal-title":"Sci. Am."},{"key":"ref_5","unstructured":"Giving a formal definition of a time-reversal operator that works for any kind of dynamical system is notoriously difficult, but it is usually relatively uncontroversial whether we have one when we see it."},{"key":"ref_6","unstructured":"In our discussion, the entire dynamical system is the universe as a whole, but we want the apparatus to underwrite the macroscopic predictions we might make about any isolated, or relatively isolated, thermodynamic sub-system."},{"key":"ref_7","unstructured":"Whether or not it is plausible to suppose that the actual dynamics of our universe is, and has been for all time, \u201cfriendly\u201d enough is a matter of some controversy. The idea has been criticized in [27,28]. Alternative pictures are presented in [29,30]. I ignore those issues here and assume, for the purpose of evaluating the prospects of statistical-mechanical cosmology, that they will be resolved in favor of the standard picture."},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"392","DOI":"10.1002\/andp.18972960216","article-title":"Zu Hrn Zermelo\u2019s Abhandlung \u201c\u00dcber die mechanische Erkl\u00e4rung irreversibler Vorg\u00e4nge\u201d","volume":"60","author":"Boltzmann","year":"1897","journal-title":"Annalen der Physik"},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"392","DOI":"10.1002\/andp.18972960216","article-title":"Zu Hrn Zermelo\u2019s Abhandlung \u201c\u00dcber die mechanische Erkl\u00e4rung irreversibler Vorg\u00e4nge\u201d","volume":"60","author":"Boltzmann","year":"1897","journal-title":"Annalen der Physik"},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Albert, D.Z. (2000). Time and Chance, Harvard University Press.","DOI":"10.4159\/9780674020139"},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"392","DOI":"10.1002\/andp.18972960216","article-title":"Zu Hrn Zermelo\u2019s Abhandlung \u201c\u00dcber die mechanische Erkl\u00e4rung irreversibler Vorg\u00e4nge\u201d","volume":"60","author":"Boltzmann","year":"1897","journal-title":"Annalen der Physik"},{"key":"ref_12","unstructured":"Gibbon, E. (1776). The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, W. Strahan and T. Cadell."},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Dyson, L., Kleban, M., and Susskind, L. (2002). Disturbing implications of a cosmological constant. J. High Energ. Phys.","DOI":"10.1088\/1126-6708\/2002\/10\/011"},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Linde, A. (2007). Sinks in the landscape, Boltzmann brains, and the cosmological constant problem. J. Cosmol. Astropart. P.","DOI":"10.1088\/1475-7516\/2007\/01\/022"},{"key":"ref_15","unstructured":"Hitchcock, C. (2004). Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Science, Wiley."},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Penrose, R. (1989). The Emperor\u2019s New Mind, Oxford University Press.","DOI":"10.1093\/oso\/9780198519737.001.0001"},{"key":"ref_17","unstructured":"Price, H. (1996). Time\u2019s Arrow and Archimedes\u2019 Point: New Directions for the Physics of Time, Oxford University Press."},{"key":"ref_18","unstructured":"In general relativity, de Sitter space is the maximally symmetric, vacuum solution of Einstein\u2019s field equations with a positive vacuum energy density and negative pressure."},{"key":"ref_19","unstructured":"Carroll, S. (2010). From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time, Dutton."},{"key":"ref_20","unstructured":"Carroll, S. (2010). From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time, Dutton."},{"key":"ref_21","unstructured":"I should note that while, most of the time, Carroll makes it sound like he thinks the PBB scenario is empirically refuted, there is one passage late in the book that sounds a slightly different tone. \u201cMost observers will find themselves alone in the universe, having arisen as random arrangements of molecules out of the surrounding high-entropy gas of particles\u2026 You could potentially fluctuate into something that looks just like the history of our Big Bang cosmology; but the number of observers within such a fluctuation is much smaller than the number of observers who are otherwise alone\u201d [31]. This statement is correct. But that is not the PBB scenario. It is true that fluctuations into creatures like me, who observe themselves to be alone, are much more likely than fluctuations into creatures like me who think they see a big-bangy universe around them (or who actually do see such a universe.) And the former possibility is indeed empirically refuted. But this was not the problem that was on the table\u2014PBB scenarios are ones in which we calculate probabilities based on what we observe and based on our cosmological model. The real PBB problem was, given what I take myself to be observing: what is the most likely state of affairs if Poincare recurrence (or an equivalent de Sitter state with fluctuations) is a reality. And here the answer was that it is much more likely that I have fluctuated into a being who merely thinks he observes a big-bangy universe than that the universe has actually fluctuated into a big-bangy state. And the problem with that dilemma is not that either one of those scenarios is empirically falsified (how could it be?) but that the former scenario is epistemologically unstable, and leads to a skeptical paradox. Carroll seems to be confusing the first prediction (that I should be a creature that doesn\u2019t observe a big-bangy universe around me\u2014which is not entailed by anything anyone has ever proposed) with the second one: that I should be a creature who thinks he sees a big-bangy universe but really doesn\u2019t."},{"key":"ref_22","unstructured":"It is worth noting that making a move like this might have implications for the metaphysical status of some elements of the standard picture package. I explore these issues in [32]."},{"key":"ref_23","unstructured":"As opposed to requiring a radical cosmological model."},{"key":"ref_24","unstructured":"Carroll, S. (2010). From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time, Dutton."},{"key":"ref_25","unstructured":"Carroll, S. (2010). From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time, Dutton."},{"key":"ref_26","unstructured":"Carroll, S. (2010). From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time, Dutton."},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"489","DOI":"10.1086\/423749","article-title":"Can conditioning on the \u201cpast hypothesis\u201d militate against the reversibility objections?","volume":"71","author":"Winsberg","year":"2004","journal-title":"Philos. Sci."},{"key":"ref_28","first-page":"399","article-title":"The \u201cpast hypothesis\u201d: Not even false","volume":"37","author":"Earman","year":"2006","journal-title":"Stud. Hist. Philos. Sci."},{"key":"ref_29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"708","DOI":"10.1086\/425234","article-title":"Laws and statistical mechanics","volume":"71","author":"Winsberg","year":"2004","journal-title":"Philos. Sci."},{"key":"ref_30","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Beisbart, C., and Hartmann, S. (2011). Probabilities in Physics, Oxford University Press.","DOI":"10.1093\/acprof:oso\/9780199577439.001.0001"},{"key":"ref_31","unstructured":"Carroll, S. (2010). From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time, Dutton."},{"key":"ref_32","unstructured":"Winsberg, E. (2012). The University of South Florida. Unpublished work."}],"container-title":["Entropy"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1099-4300\/14\/3\/390\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T21:49:03Z","timestamp":1760219343000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1099-4300\/14\/3\/390"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2012,2,23]]},"references-count":32,"journal-issue":{"issue":"3","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2012,3]]}},"alternative-id":["e14030390"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/e14030390","relation":{},"ISSN":["1099-4300"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1099-4300","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2012,2,23]]}}}