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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Production of coherent short wavelength electromagnetic radiation in $`X`$-ray and gamma-ray bands attracts great attention during last decades . Different physical mechanisms have been considered as candidates for practical implementation of this process: generation in free-electron lasers \[3-5\], $`X`$-ray and $`\gamma `$-ray lasing \[1,2,6-8\], high optical harmonics generation in gases  and solids \[11-13\], and others. Most of the schemes imply the use of the powerful lasers as part of the system so the investigations received large impetus last years due to experimental realization of ultraintense femtosecond laser pulses . In this paper we consider the Dopler up-conversion of laser light into the $`X`$-ray or $`\gamma `$-ray bands with the help of relativistic electron mirror produced during interaction of high intensity ultrashort optical pulse with thin solid target in vacuum.

The idea for generation of high frequency coherent electromagnetic radiation by Dopler transformation of the incident wave was proposed by Landecker . Actually when the light reflects from relativistic mirror its frequency and amplitude increase by the factor $`(1+v/c)/(1v/c)`$, where $`v`$ is the velocity of the mirror and $`c`$ is the light velocity. So for $`v/c1`$ the frequency increase can be very large. Additional benefit of such scheme is its tunability because the frequency of resulting radiation depends on the velocity of the mirror which can be simply adjusted. The only problem is how to produce such a relativistic mirror. Obviously it have to be pure electronic because ordinary neutral matter cannot be accelerated to ultrarelativistic velocities in laboratory. The breakthrough in this problem became possible due to experimental realization of femtosecond laser pulses of very high intensity. During interaction of this pulse with thin foil the electrons of the latter can be accelerated to ultrarelativistic velocities keeping the initial geometrical form of the foil and constituting the required relativistic mirror.

Acceleration of electron bunch produced by ionization of thin solid target with femtosecond laser pulse was considered in details in . Here in section 1 we reproduce only the results which are important for the problem of light up-conversion, in section 2 the process of light reflection from relativistic electron mirror will be considered.

## 2 Formation of relativistic electron mirror

Let the medium is uniform in directions perpendicular to $`Oz`$ axis. Then it can be modeled by a set of parallel planes (electron sheets) with constant surface density of electrons. Each plane is supposed to have infinite dimensions in $`x`$ and $`y`$ directions. If the movement of each plane is without rotations and deformations then all variables depend only on coordinate $`z`$ and time $`t`$ and the 1D3V model can be used for the system: the movement of the planes can be described by three components of velocity $`\beta _x=V_x/c,\beta _y=V_y/c,\beta _z=V_z/c`$ and one coordinate $`Z`$ . In present paper the analytical - numerical variant of 1D3V model is used which reduces to the system of ordinary differential equations with delay.

Charge density and current are described by the following formulas for the electron sheet ($`\sigma `$ is a surface charge density)

$$\rho (z,t)=\sigma \delta (zZ(t))𝐣(z,t)=\sigma 𝐯(t)\delta (zZ(t))$$
(1)
where $`Z(t)`$ is $`z`$ coordinate of a sheet. Then the solutions of Maxwell equations for the radiation fields of the medium at coordinate $`z`$ and time $`t`$ can be obtained with the help of Green function and have the form

$`E_z(z,t)`$ $`=`$ $`2\pi \sigma \mathrm{s}ign(zZ(t^{}))`$
$`𝐄_{}(z,t)`$ $`=`$ $`2\pi \sigma {\displaystyle \frac{\beta _{}(t^{})}{1\beta _z(t^{})\mathrm{s}ign(zZ(t^{}))}}`$ (2)
$`𝐇(z,t)`$ $`=`$ $`2\pi \sigma \mathrm{s}ign(zZ(t^{})){\displaystyle \frac{[\beta _{}(t^{}),𝐞_z]}{1\beta _z(t^{})\mathrm{s}ign(zZ(t^{}))}}`$
where $`𝐄_e=E_{xe}𝐞_x+E_{ye}𝐞_y`$, $`𝐯_{}=v_x𝐞_x+v_y𝐞_y`$, $`\beta =𝐯/c`$ and $`t^{}`$ \- is a retarded time: $`c(tt^{})=\left|zZ(t^{})\right|`$. The resulting radiation field $`𝐄_𝐬`$, $`𝐇_𝐬`$ for the thin charged layer is the sum of radiation fields of all electron sheets (note that the retarded time $`t^{}`$ is different for different sheets). Interaction of each electron sheet with the radiation field of the layer results in appearance of self-action viscous force $`𝐅_s=e𝐄_s+e[\beta ,𝐇_s]`$, which modifies the dynamics of the sheet. This force is analogous to the Dirac force acting on the moving electron.

The equations of motion for the electrons in the sheets have now the following form

$$\frac{d𝐩}{dt}=e𝐄+e[\beta ,𝐇]+𝐅_s,$$
(3)
where $`e`$ is the charge of the electron, $`𝐩`$ is relativistic momentum of electrons, $`𝐄`$ and $`𝐇`$ are the external fields (it is supposed that these fields support the geometry of electron medium). It is worth to mention that the radiation reaction force $`𝐅_𝐬`$ have not only the transverse component but the longitudinal component as well the last having essentially nonlinear character. For infinitely thin electron sheet the self action force is

$$𝐅_s=2\pi \sigma e\beta _{},F_{sz}=2\pi \sigma e\beta _{}^2\beta _z/(1\beta _z^2),$$
(4)
Let now consider the ultraintense plane electromagnetic wave with frequency $`\omega `$ falling normally at the layer (wave vector $`k`$ is parallel to the $`Oz`$ axis) so that an acceleration parameter of the wave $`\alpha _0=eE_0/(m\omega c)>>1`$, where $`m`$ is the mass of an electron, $`E_0`$ is the amplitude of the wave field. Then the electrons of the layer will accelerate in the $`z`$ direction to ultrarelativistic velocities just by the first half wave keeping initial geometry of the bunch .

Account for the layer radiation friction force give some interesting features to the motion of the electrons inside the layer. First of all an additional accelerating force emerges which constitutes the mean value of the Lorentz force. Actually in this situation the mean Lorentz force is nonzero due to the extra phase shift between the electromagnetic wave and the electrons’ velocities arising from the action of radiation friction force (scattering of incident wave). At fig. 1 the light pressure force acting on the electron layer is presented for the motion in the given field (fig. 1a, $`\alpha =0`$) and with account of the radiation losses (fig. 1b, $`\alpha =0.1`$), where the parameter $`\alpha =2\pi \sigma e/(m\omega c)`$ characterizes the electron density of the bunch. The amplitude of the external wave is not large $`\alpha _0=2`$ besides the coulomb interaction of the electrons is omitted. Fig. 1 demonstrates that the mean Lorents force is not equal to zero: the deviation of the line to the up is larger than to the down. Besides the increasing period of the force corresponds to the increasing longitudinal velocity of the electron layer so that the effective interaction time of the layer with each half wave is also increasing. For the motion in the given field the frequency of Lorentz force and the mean velocity of electron layer are constants.

Another peculiarity due to account of the radiation friction force is the emergence of the bunching forces which compress the layer in the $`z`$ direction and support its initial geometry . These forces slow down the electron sheets with velocities larger than the mean velocity of the layer and accelerate the delaying sheets (fig. 2). At fig. 2a the bunching effect of the radiation friction force is not taken into account and the coulomb forces tear the layer during very short time. At fig. 2b the coulomb forces and the bunching forces are taken into account simultaneously so the layer is stable for considerably longer time. The stability of the layer geometry depends on the value of accelerating parameter $`\alpha _0`$, initial thickness of the layer and a value of electron density inside the bunch. Such bunching forces can compensate partially the coulomb spread of the layer along the $`z`$ direction (increase of the bunch thickness) and appear to be in a sense analogous to the magnetic attraction forces between two parallel currents formed by the moving charges.

One has to account for an action of an ion background of the target for proper simulation of the process of interaction between electromagnetic wave and dense plasma layer in the 1D3V model . Actually this model is adequate in case when the distance between the electron and ion layers is considerably smaller than the transverse dimensions of the layers. In our simulations below the ion background is supposed to be motionless producing only the Coulomb force acting on the electron layer.

The initial thickness of the target used in simulations is $`l=10^2\mu `$ and considerably smaller than the wavelength of the incident radiation which is $`\lambda =1\mu `$. The targets with such thickness can be easily obtained experimentally  besides the front of ultraintense laser pulse squeezes the electron layer in the $`z`$ direction making it thickness considerably smaller than initial thickness of the target .

At fig. 3 the results of computer simulations for the process of electron layer acceleration are presented (the parameter $`\alpha =1`$ in the fig. 3a and $`\alpha =0.001`$ in the fig. 3b). At the upper plots the dependence of transverse momenta $`p_y`$ for some electron sheets of the bunch on dimensionless laboratory time $`\omega t`$ are presented and at the lower plots the longitudinal momenta $`p_z`$ are shown. The acceleration parameter $`\alpha _0=100`$. So all electron sheets of the layer can in principle move synchronously during acceleration by the first half cycle of electromagnetic wave constituting the relativistic electron mirror. For other half cycles of the incident laser pulse the bunch can be destroyed for large parameter $`\alpha `$ by the coulomb forces however for small $`\alpha `$ values the bunch can be stable during several half cycles that in laboratory frame can correspond to the time of several hundreds of femtosecond. So in the process of interaction of ultraintense femtosecond laser pulse with thin solid target the relativistic electron mirror can be formed allowing to realize the up-conversion of light into $`X`$-ray and gamma-ray bands.

## 3 Up-conversion of counter propagating wave

Let now consider the simulation of the wave transformation for weak counter-propagating wave with an amplitude $`E_1`$ ($`\alpha _1=eE_1/(m\omega c)`$) and frequency $`\omega _0`$ (for simplicity we suppose that the frequencies of accelerating and counter-propagating waves are equal). At fig. 4a the frequency transformation factor $`f_v=(1+\beta _z)/(1\beta _z)`$ is presented. The plot of $`p_y`$ in the presence of counter propagating wave is shown at fig. 4b. The parameter $`\alpha _1=1`$, the front of this pulse have a delay with respect to accelerating pulse for the electrons can achieve high energy and become ultra relativistic. The zoom of electron oscillations at the top of fig. 4b is presented at fig. 4c. It is worth to mention that all electron sheets move practically along one trajectory so the dependencies of $`p_y`$ on time for different sheets are coincide.

At fig. 5a the reflected radiation of the counter-propagating wave is presented for $`\alpha =0.1`$, $`\alpha _0=100`$ and $`\alpha _1=1`$. Due to the time dependence of transformation factor $`f_v`$ the frequency of reflected wave have to be altering being small at the beginning of the acceleration process then largest at the top of the first half wave and small again at the end of the first half wave.

At fig. 5b the zoom of the reflected field is shown (sample 2). The deviation of the radiation field from sinusoidal form results from high harmonics generating during the reflection of the counter-propagating wave from relativistic electron bunch and partially from the simulation numerical errors.

At fig. 5c the spectra of the samples of equal length at the slope (1) and at the top (2) of the first half wave of accelerating pulse are presented (the amplitude and the frequency of the reflected wave are normalized to the amplitude and the frequency of the incident accelerating wave). The carrying frequencies in two cases are different due to the different transformation factor $`f_v`$ (cf. fig. 4a), besides the spectral bandwidth for sample 1 is larger than for sample 2 because of the faster change of frequency at the slope.

The amplitude of the reflected wave depends on the values of parameters $`\alpha `$ and $`\alpha _0`$. For smaller value of parameter $`\alpha `$ the amplitude of the reflected wave is smaller because of the lower electron density in the bunch and correspondingly low value of reflection coefficient. On the other hand the frequency transformation coefficient is larger for small $`\alpha `$ value the parameter $`\alpha _0`$ being constant because of smaller radiation friction (cf. fig. 3).

For $`\alpha _0=30`$ that can be realized in modern experiments the maximum frequency transformation factor $`f_v`$ can be about $`4\alpha _0^22000`$ so the reflection of incident wave with wavelength $`\lambda =200nm`$ can give the coherent radiation from the $`X`$-ray band. For petawatt lasers the acceleration parameter $`\alpha _0`$ can be about $`100÷200`$ so the reflected coherent radiation can be already in the $`\gamma `$-ray band.

## References

1. R. C. Elton. $`X`$-ray lasers, Academic Press, New York, 1990.

2. V. I. Vysotski, R. N. Kuzmin. Gamma lasers. Moscow University Press, Moscow, 1989 (in russian).

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12. A. Tarasevitch et. al. Phys. Rev. A, 62, 023816 (2000).

13. S. V. Bulanov, F. Califano, G. I. Dudnikova et. al., Problems of Plasma Theory, ed. V. D. Shafranov, Kluwer Ac. Press (2001).

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15. K. Landecker. Phys. Rev. 86, 852 (1952).

16. V. A. Cherepenin, A. S. Il’in, V. V. Kulagin. Submitted to Plasma Physics (in russian).

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18. A. S. Il’in, V. V. Kulagin, V. A. Cherepenin. Journ. of Communications Technology and Electronics, 44, 389 (1999).

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Captions for the figures

Fig. 1. Force acting on the electron sheet for $`\alpha _0=2`$ in the given field (a, $`\alpha =0`$) and in account of radiation losses (b, $`\alpha =0.1`$).

Fig. 2. Longitudinal momenta $`p_z`$ for several electron sheets ($`\alpha _0=100`$, $`\alpha =1`$) with accounting of the coulomb forces only (a) and the radiation friction forces and the coulomb forces (b).

Fig. 3. Transverse $`p_y`$ and longitudinal $`p_z`$ momenta for several electron sheets for acceleration of the electron layer in vacuum by the intense electromagnetic wave ($`\alpha _0=100`$): $`\alpha =1`$ for fig. 3a and $`\alpha =0.001`$ for fig. 3b. The thickness of the layer in the $`z`$ direction is considerably smaller than $`\lambda `$ for both cases.

Fig. 4. Frequency transformation factor (a), transverse momentum (b) and the zoom of electron momentum oscillations (c) for the small counter-propagating wave falling at the electron mirror. The trajectories of all electron sheets practically coincide. The counter-propagating wave strikes the electron mirror at $`\omega t=1570`$.

Fig. 5. The reflected field (a), zoom of the field (b) and the spectra (c) of two samples 1 and 2 from different regions of the accelerating curve.


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# Gas in the central region of AGNs: ISM and supermassive gaseous objects

## 1. Introduction

Several theoretical models have been proposed in order to explain the properties of quasars and other types of active galactic nuclei (AGN). In the 60’s and 70’s supermassive central objects (SMOs) were thought to be the main source of their characteristics (luminosities of $`L10^{12}\mathrm{L}_{}`$ produced on very small scales, jets etc). The release of gravitational binding energy by the accretion of material onto an SMO in the range of $`10^710^9\mathrm{M}_{}`$ has been suggested to be the primary powerhouse (Lynden-Bell, 1969). Supermassive stars (SMSs) and supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are two possibilities to explain the nature of these SMOs, and the first may be an intermediate step towards the formation of the former type (Rees 1984). Large amounts of gas lost by stars during their evolution will stock in galactic centres, as have shown numerical studies of the evolution of gas in the bulge of spiral galaxies (Loose et al. 1982) and in elliptical (Loose and Fricke 1980, Kunze et al. 1987).

In previous work we addressed a semi-analytical study, revisiting and expanding classical paper’s work, the classical problem of star accretion onto a supermassive central gaseous object in a galactic nucleus (Amaro-Seoane & Spurzem 2001). The resulting supermassive central gas-star object was assumed to be located at the centre of a dense stellar system for which we used a simplified model consisting of a Plummer model with an embedded density cusp using stellar point masses. From the number of stars belonging to the loss-cone, which plunge onto the central object on elongated orbits from outside, we estimated the accretion rate taking into account a possible anisotropy of the surrounding stellar distribution.

This initial approximation to the real physical configuration was just a first probe of the complexity of the problem. We envisaged the problem from a static point of view. This allowed us to treat it in a semi-analytical way. Such a treatment is (of course) not realistic, but just a useful approach, for it gives us a nice and simple basic idea of what could be going on in such a particular scenario. In this paper we put into port the evolution of the static situation thanks to an anisotropic gaseous model. A next step will include the implementation of the small-scale fluctuations on the large-scale motion of the gas in order to study the transfer of momentum between the interstellar medium (ISM) and the system of stars. Just et al. (1986) derived an equation for the large-scale motion of the interstellar medium in the presence of small-scale fluctuations. Of particular interest is the study of the dynamical friction between the ISM and the system of stars, which includes the development of a friction term describing the momentum transfer between the interstellar gas and the stellar component.

## 2. The gaseous model

To go from stationary to dynamical models we use a gaseous model of star clusters (Lynden-Bell & Eggleton 1980, Bettwieser 1983, Heggie 1984) in its anisotropic version (Louis & Spurzem 1991, Spurzem 1994, Giersz & Spurzem 1994). It is based on the following basic assumptions:

* The system can be described by a one particle distribution function.
* The secular evolution is dominated by the cumulative effect of small angle deflections with small impact parameters (Fokker-Planck approximation, good for large $`N`$-particle systems).
* The effect of the two-body relaxation can be modelled by a local heat flux equation with an appropriately tailored conductivity.

The first assumption justifies a kinetic equation of the Boltzmann type with the inclusion of a collisional term of the Fokker-Planck (FP) type:

$$\frac{f}{t}+v_r\frac{f}{r}+\dot{v_r}\frac{f}{v_r}+\dot{v_\theta }\frac{f}{v_\theta }+\dot{v_\phi }\frac{f}{v_\phi }=\left(\frac{\delta f}{\delta t}\right)_{FP}$$
(1)
In spherical symmetry polar coordinates $`r`$, $`\theta `$, $`\varphi `$ are used and $`t`$ denotes the time. The vector $`𝐯=(v_i),i=r,\theta ,\varphi `$ denotes the velocity in a local Cartesian coordinate system at the spatial point $`r,\theta ,\varphi `$. The distribution function $`f`$ is a function of, $`r`$, $`t`$, $`v_r`$, $`v_\theta ^2+v_\varphi ^2`$ only due to spherical symmetry. By multiplication of the Fokker-Planck equation (1) with various powers of the velocity components we get up to second order a set of moment equations which is equivalent to gas-dynamical equations coupled with Poisson’s equation: A mass equation, a continuity equation, an Euler equation (force), radial and tangential energy equations. The system of equations is closed by a phenomenological heat flux equation for the flux of radial and tangential r.m.s. kinetic energy, both in radial direction. The concept is physically very similar to the original one of Lynden-Bell & Eggleton (1980). As a consequence we derive a set of dynamical evolution equations in spherical symmetry for our system which resemble very much standard gas dynamical equations. The reader interested in more details is referred to the above cited papers. A simple diffusion model is then used to describe the diffusion of stars into the loss cone and their subsequent accretion onto the black hole, which will be published soon (Amaro-Seoane & Spurzem, in preparation).

To solve our equations we discretise them on a logarithmic radial mesh with typically 200 mesh points, covering radial scales over eight orders of magnitude (e.g. from 100 pc down to $`10^6`$ pc, which is enough to resolve the system down to the vicinity of a massive black hole’s tidal disruption radius for stars. An implicit Newton-Raphson-Henyey iterative method is used to solve for the time evolution of our system. As a sample, in Fig. 1 we follow the evolution of the mass of a black hole (BH) in an isolated star cluster of $`10^5\mathrm{M}_{}`$ undergoing core collapse. We start with two initial masses for the BH’s of 50 and 500 (normalised to the total cluster mass), the time unit in the figure is $`1.0410^{12}`$ sec. The central density increases until a maximum value at which the energy provided by the star accretion onto the black hole stops the collapse; the subsequent reexpansion of the cluster core halts the black hole growth. Independent of the initial seed black hole mass the final mass is very similar, which we consider as an effect of self-regulation due to the feedback of black hole growth to the cluster evolution.

Our results compare well with other studies using direct solutions of the Fokker-Planck equation or Monte Carlo models (Lightman & Shapiro 1977, Marchant & Shapiro 1980). Note that the Monte Carlo approach has been recently revisited and improved by Freitag & Benz (2001). In contrast to the other models the gaseous model is much more versatile to include all kinds of important other physical effects, such as the dynamics of gas liberated in nuclei by stellar evolution and collisions and its interaction with the stellar component (see for a preliminary study Langbein et al. 1990).

## References

Amaro-Seoane, P.; Spurzem, R.: 2001, The loss cone problem in dense nuclei, MNRAS, in press, astro-ph/0105251.

Bettwieser, E.: 1983, MNRAS, 203, 811

Bisnovatyi-Kogan, G.S., S’un’aev, R.A.: 1972, Soviet Astron., 16, 201.

Da Costa, L.: 1981, MNRAS, 195, 869.

Frank, J., Rees, M. J.: 1976, MNRAS, 176, 633.

Freitag, M., Benz, W., 2001, A&A, in press, astro-ph/0102139

Giersz, M., Spurzem, R.: 1994, MNRAS, 269, 241

Hara, T.: 1978, Progress of Theoretical Physics, 60.

Heggie, D.C.: 1984, MNRAS, 206, 179

Just, A., Kegel, W. H., Deiss, B. M.: 1986, A&A, 164, 337

Kunze, R., Loose, H.H., Yorke, H.W.: 1987, A&A, 182, 1

Langbein, T., Spurzem, R., Fricke, K.J, Yorke, H.W.: 1990, A&A, 227, 333

Lightman, A.P., Shapiro, S.L.: 1977, ApJ, 211, 244

Loose, H.H., Fricke, K.J.: 1981, Proc. of ESO Workshop “The most massive stars”, S.D. Odorico, D. Baade, K. Kjär (eds.), p. 269

Loose, H.H., Krügel, E., Tutukov, A.V.: 1982, A&A, 105, 342

Louis, P.D., Spurzem, R.: 1991, MNRAS, 244, 478

Lynden-Bell, D.:1969, Nature, 223, 690

Lynden-Bell, D., Eggleton, P.P.: 1980, MNRAS, 191, 483

Marchant, A.B., Shapiro, S.L.: 1980, ApJ, 239, 685

Rees, M.J.: 1984, ARA&A, 22, 471

Spurzem, R.: 1988, Thesis (PH.D.), University of Göttingen.

Spurzem, R.: 1994, in “Ergodic Concepts in Stellar Dynamics”, eds. D.Pfenniger, V.G. Gurzadyan, Springer-Vlg., Berlin, Heidelberg, p. 170

Spurzem, R.: 2000, preprint “Model calculations for star cluster with massive central object”.


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# REFERENCES

IS THE UNIVERSE REALLY SO SIMPLE?

Milan M. Ćirković

Astronomical Observatory Belgrade

Volgina 7, 11160 Belgrade

Serbia, YUGOSLAVIA

arioch@eunet.yu

Received August 13, 2001; revised September 02, 2001

The intriguing recent suggestion of Tegmark that the universe—contrary to all our experiences and expectations—contains only a small amount of information due to an extremely high degree of internal symmetry is critically examined. It is shown that there are several physical processes, notably Hawking evaporation of black holes and non-zero decoherence time effects described by Plaga, as well as thought experiments of Deutsch and Tegmark himself, which can be construed as arguments against the low-information universe hypothesis. Some ramifications for both quantum mechanics and cosmology are briefly discussed.

Key words: complexity, decoherence, nonunitarity, philosophy of cosmology

1. INTRODUCTION: LIU HYPOTHESIS

1.1. The quantity of information present in our universe and its transfer has been an intriguing issue in theoretical cosmology ever since pioneering studies of Rindler(1) and Metzner and Morrison.(2) In 1970-ies and early 1980-ies it has gained a new momentum after seminal results of Bekenstein(3) and Hawking(4) on the intricate relationship between information, thermodynamics and gravitation. Finally, during the last decade several new moments and motivations have been put forward. Treumann has explicated the usage of information-theoretical methods in cosmology and demonstrated the crucial role of inflation in bringing about observed information richness of the present universe.(5) The great advances in the nascent discipline of physical eschatology(6) motivated investigations into possibilities of future information processing, tightly connected with the issue of future survival of intelligent observers.(7) In addition, from the point of view of both classical and quantum information theory, as well as general computer science, this link between quantum mechanics and cosmology is highly interesting.(8,9,10) Therefore, it seems that applications of information theory and theory of complexity in cosmology has gradually reached mature methodological state. In addition, the explosive growth of computer science and industry in recent years has stimulated many interesting discussions on the possibility of large-scale simulations of human sensory inputs and natural surroundings.(11)

1.2. In this vein, by far the most far-reaching and provocative hypothesis has been put forward by Tegmark,(12) which we shall call the low-information universe (henceforth LIU) picture. Tegmark’s paper is rich and fascinating reading, many ideas of which are rather difficult to convey in a review manner. In brief, the main idea relies on conjuction of the Everett’s ”no-collapse” quantum theory and properties of temporal evolution of nonlinear systems. According to the ”no-collapse” theory, all components of the linear superposition of the universal wave function exist simultaneously.(13) This view, coupled with our understanding of the structure formation in the universe and non-linear amplification of small perturbations, gives rise to the following thought-provoking picture. Initially very simple (= of low information content) universe evolves in such way that the quantity of algorithmic information present in it is constant throughout the cosmological evolution. Therefore, the total amount of algorithmic information remains at the same low level as it was at the beginning of structure formation processes. However, due to the constant symmetry breaking realized through branching of Everett’s wavefunction components, apparent complexity increases without limits, since only one component of the ”grand superposition” is accessible to any inside observer (the latter fact is explained by quantum mechanical decoherence). In Tegmark’s words, ”The net result is that although the wavefunction of the universe contains almost no algorithmic information (we can specify it by simply giving the initial wave function and the Hamiltonian), and will retain for instance translational and rotational symmetry from the initial data, we will experience an asymmetric universe that appears extremely complex.”

1.3. It is important to understand that Tegmark’s hypothesis is a new physical theory, and not just an ”interpretation” or a ”view”. Not only does it tell us something new (and very unorthodox) about the nature of the physical reality, but it makes several distinct and well-defined predictions which could ultimately be falsified. We shall consider some of these physical predictions below. Although it is not possible to falsify any of them at the present moment, we claim that simultaneous satisfaction of different empirical constraints makes the theory less probable. In any case, we ought to avoid the trap (partially of semantic nature) which is easy to fall into, as testified by the example of Everett’s multiverse theory, to claim that LIU is just another ”interpretation” of the same underlying theory, which can not be meaningfully discriminated from other such ”interpretations”.111There is a slowly building consensus that the Everett’s ”no-collapse” view is a separate theory, not just an interpretation of the quantum mechanical formalism.(14,15,16,17) Some of the (still thought) experiments discriminating between Everett’s theory and the orthodox quantum mechanics are described by Deutsch(18) and Plaga.(19) More on this in Section 3.2. below.

1.4. Having this in mind, in the further course of this essay we shall try to elaborate and defend the following four theses:

(A) LIU does not preclude the existence of definite quantity of the apparent information in our universe. The latter is still interesting quantity for physics.

(B) LIU relies on the idealization of complete separation of multiverse branches, or zero decoherence time. However, the effect recently proposed for experimental verification by Plaga may obviate this assumption. Even more remote verification proposals, like those of Deutsch, Page and Tegmark conceptually jeopardize the theory.

(C) The well-known possibility of solving the information loss paradox in black hole evaporation by fundamental non-unitarity (Hawking’s idea) is incompatible with LIU.

(D) Intelligent observers can not create any new information beyond the pre-existent linear superposition. Therefore, LIU entails an extreme version of physical reductionism.

1.5. One thing should be kept in mind: LIU hypothesis cannot be brought down by ”frontal assault”, i.e. through finding some empirical phenomena whose complexity is so high that they cannot be incorporated in LIU scheme. The reason is obvious enough, as Tegmark points out: any such phenomenon would be a local one, and its complicated description is subsumed in the overall symmetry. (In the same manner as any one particular book in Borges’ ”Library of Babel”—having a very long description—is subsumed by a simple general rule, like ”All combinations of letters of the specified (book) length actually exist in the Library.”(37)) Thus we shall concentrate upon those aspects of the physical mechanism envisaged by Tegmark, like linearity or unitarity, on which the process of subsuming depends. In addition, we shall reflect upon issues, like epistemic status of the apparent information or reductionism, which may not have cosmological relevance, but may impact our manner of doing physics if the LIU hypothesis is a correct description of reality.

1.6. Our discussion intends to show that, with no further empirical information available, the probability of LIU being the true description of reality is significantly diminished by these additional considerations.

2. SPEAKABLE AND UNSPEAKABLE IN THE COSMOLOGICAL EVOLUTION

2.1. One of the main merits of Tegmark’s paper is its conceptual clarity. The author emphasizes: ”We have argued that although the universe appears to contain an enormous, perhaps even infinite, amount of information, this impression is nonetheless consistent with the assumption that its algorithmic information content is quite small, even if no new physics whatsoever is invoked. In short, reality could in fact be much simpler than it appears, with its apparent plethora or complex structures such as trees, fountains and rabbits Thus even if both the laws of physics and the initial conditions exhibit so much symmetry that they are easy to describe, we would not expect most of these symmetries to be manifested in what we see when we open our eyes.” (Ref. 12, p. 36). However, the true issue is whether science in general and physics in particular deals with algorithmic or only apparent information. (We shall call the information actually perceived in any single slice of the Everett’s multiverse the apparent information, in accordance with Tegmark’s terminology. It is obviously a complementary concept to the algorithmic information, as used by Tegmark and other authors.) It is, unfortunately, well known that there is a recognized vagueness regarding the exact meaning and proper usage of the concept of information, resulting in some authors even calling the usage of this term ”vulgar”.(20) In the present study, we claim that only apparent information is physically relevant quantity (although this does not warrant that it is well defined in all conceivable physical contexts!). In other words, it is the only ”speakable” issue in the physical world, in contradistinction to the Platonic world of mathematical objects (to borrow a picture from Penrose, Ref. 21). One of the difficulties with the LIU concept is that it subtly shifts grounds between the physical world and the abstract mathematical description; this is partly responsible for shocking effect of its main idea.

2.2. When we talk about apparent informational content of any one particular slice in the universal superposition, we should note that it is not a completely exact physical concept, since no empirical data really pertain to a single well-defined slice, due to the continuous branching of the universal wavefunction. Thus, any set of data describes not a single slice, but a family of what we can call close slices, i.e. those produced by ”recent” and ”local” measurement-like interactions. In spite of this rather technical difficulty, one may argue that empirical data and theoretical models pertaining to the informational content of the apparent universe (such as the results of Treumann(5)) are good approximations to the informational content of a single component of the universal superposition. Since natural laws are valid in any one single branch of the multiverse, its informational content evolves according to the expectations for the complex systems dominated by long-range forces, mainly gravity.

2.3. One may conclude that even on the face of LIU hypothesis, cosmological evolution (a single history or small set of close histories) is an entirely tractable problem of interest for cosmologists. Methods, such as those used by Treumann,(5) and general application of approximations such as Bekenstein-Hawking formula for entropy of gravitating systems (e.g. Ref. 21), are part of the ”speakable” reality even if the totality of everything that exists is trivially simple.

2.4. In a sense, this issue has been recognized by Tegmark, as may be inferred from his locutions, such as ”that only macroscopically ’classical’ states could be perceived by self-aware subsets of the universe (such as us)” in which he talks about observers. It has been left unsaid, but it is an obvious consequence of LIU that out of all branches of the universal wavefunction we may expect most of them to be empty as far as observers (”self-aware elements”) are concerned. In particular, the process of nonlinear structure formation is essentially fine-tuned in order to produce galaxies (and consequently stars, planets, etc.) since the spectrum of primordial perturbations might as well produce conditions in which either there is no decoupling of initial overdensities from the Hubble flow, or the amplitude of perturbations is so high that matter ends up predominantly in supermassive black holes. In all these cases, there would be no conditions for development of life and subsequently, self-awareness. This anthropic selection effect related to the degree of symmetry in initial conditions for structure formation has been considered long ago by many authors.(15,21,22,23) Thus, even the complete preservation of the grand symmetry with nonlinear evolution apparently violates the principle of sufficient reason by introducing an epistemological asymmetry through emergence of only a small subset of the universal wavefunction components containing observers. In other words, the distribution of the apparent complexity will nevertheless be wildly non-uniform (in spite of what could be prima facie expected in case of such an extreme symmetry). This tendency is unidirectional in cosmic time.222The same circumstance goes some steps toward mitigating Tegmark’s (pseudo)Copernican suggestion that the LIU hypothesis is somehow further diminishing humanity’s place in the universe; more on this below.

2.5. Finally, some would argue that this issue is mainly a semantical one. This is false, since the question ”Which type of information is data X-Y-Z that some observer perceives?” is substantially different from-and in a sense subordinate to-the question ”Which type of information the observer may sensibly talk about (as perceived or not)?” The latter question is only implicitly treated in Tegmark’s paper, but it is an important complement to the issues raised in that study.

3. ISOLATION OR DESOLATION?

3.1. Tegmark’s idea crucially depends on separate Everett’s branches being completely and absolutely sealed off at all times.333For the sake of definiteness, we may take a single branch as the referent one, and state that at any instant of time measured by the ideal clock in that particular branch, off-diagonal terms in the density matrix are zero. It is easy to understand qualitatively why this is so: an enormous amount of algorithmic information could be encoded in cross-correlation terms (expressing post-interaction correlations between different components in the global superposition). It is much more difficult to give a quantitative estimate of the magnitude of this effect, especially since it strongly depends on the chosen theory of measurement. Thus, one of the predictions of LIU hypothesis is that-within what one may call the many-world paradigm-any theories of dynamical state reduction, similar to the ones developed by Ghirardi, Rimini and Weber(24) or Diòsi(25) within the single-world context, which include nonlinear terms in the Schrödinger’s equation, will be unavoidably falsified by experiments. This may apply, for instance, to the toy model of nonlinear quantum theory suggested by Weinberg(26) in order to test validity of the EPR-type experiments. As explained by Polchinski,(27) Weinberg’s model leads to what he has dubbed ”Everett phone,” i.e. the possibility of inter-world communication (see other instances below). Any such theory, however, would be rather contrived by definition, since, as Tegmark himself explains, the mechanism of environmental decoherence is sufficient for ”simulation” of any measurement-like effects observed so far. Potentially, one may expect that in the course of further development of such theories, the extra amount of information coded in these non-linear terms could be exactly calculated, which will show whether there are any versions of such theories compatible with the LIU hypothesis. In absence of such calculations, the LIU requirement does seem a stringent constraint. This occurs notwithstanding the somewhat strange nature of the argument, reminscent of Hoyle-Narlikar cosmological model of 1960-ies and 1970-ies, arguing the necessity of changes in local microphysics on the basis of special cosmological boundary conditions required.(28) On the other hand, this prediction demonstrates again that the LIU hypothesis is not an arbitrary ”interpretation”, but a legitimate and testable physical theory.

3.2. Similarly, any conceivable situation in which communication with other branches can be established is detrimental to the LIU hypothesis. This applies, among other instances, to the experiment recently suggested by Plaga,(19) as well as the older thought-experiment of Deutsch.(18) In the first case, Plaga introduces a ”gateway state” between the two hypothetical worlds created as the outcome of a conventional photon polarization measurement. The gateway is a microscopic part of the apparatus which is isolated sufficiently, so that its decoherence timescale is long, and thus it ”sees” the global superposition long enough to be influenced by it. In a detailed technical account, Plaga suggests that sufficiently isolated ions in electromagnetic traps can be used as indicators of such influences, if the experimental setup is ingenious enough, and the instruction given to experimenters can be carried out with sufficient precision. In the Deutsch’s Gedankenexperiment, after two histories decohere in a conventional manner, they are re-cohered by a convenient and ingenious manipulation of the relevant Hamiltonians in post-measurement time. In Deutsch’s own words, the net result of the experiment is an anomalous lack of correlation (if Everett is right and there is no wavefunction collapse): ”The interference phenomenon seen by our observer at the end of the experiment requires the presence of the both spin values, though he accurately remembers having known at a previous time that only one of them was present. He must infer that there was more than one copy of himself (and the atom) in existence at that time, and that these copies merged to form his present self.” (Ref. 18, p. 37) The difference between these two examples is that, while Plaga’s experiment considers immediate post-measurement interaction of the two wavefunction branches through a gateway state (in fact, it is crucial for the claimed feasibility of this experiment to have an extremely fast measurement procedure), the one of Deutsch deals with post-measurement interaction after an arbitrarily long time. The price payed for the latter advantage is ”only” the necessity of having an operational quantum computer capable of simulating human-level intelligence.444As far as the no-collapse view is concerned, the nature of the computer is in fact irrelevant, since it presupposes quantum mechanics as ”the universal theory” (the very title of Deutsch’s article), and therefore any working computer is already part of the quantum world. If we stick to somewhat more cautious epistemological stance, we should emphasize that the observer in this thought experiment must be quantum in nature, and it is crucial that the Hamiltonian expressing his/her internal ”self-interaction(s)” is known. In principle, the advances in biophysics might bring about the complete knowledge of microscopic processes within a biological observer (like human brain), as well as the relevant technology to modify such processes in order to intentionally induce necessary changes in the internal Hamiltonian. (Among various other features, this thought experiment thus clearly demonstrates ontological realism inherent in Everett’s theory.) However, it seems more realistic that this degree of knowledge and manipulative powers will be reached by a human-made quantum computer. Thus, the Deutsch experiment belongs to not-so-near future as far as technology is concerned, but it is conceptually important, since it shows demonstrable difference between ”collapse” and ”no-collapse” versions of quantum mechanics. A fortiori, LIU is a testable scientific hypothesis, as already argued above. In addition, it enables us to-at least in principle-experimentally test the very nature of information science is dealing with, no mean achievement by any set of standards.

3.3. If one feels, with Polchinski,(27) that ”communication between branches of the wave function seems even more bizarre than faster-than-light communication and consequent loss of Lorentz invariance”,555”…but it is not clear that it represents an actual inconsistency.” (Ref. 27, p. 399). one may invoke the quantum suicide (thought?) experiment proposed by Tegmark.(16) In this scenario, a quantum measurement results in firing of the gun pointed to the head of the experimenter if one particular value of, for instance, spin z-projection of a fermion is measured, and in harmless ”click” of the gun at the other outcome. Notice that only physical collapse—as in the ”orthodox” Copenhagen interpretation or the dynamical reduction theories—is actually harmful from the experimenter’s point of view. Since in the ”no-collapse” view there is no actual collapse, just fast decoherence between the branches, experimenter will find herself in the strange situation of impossibility of committing suicide, although the gun is loaded and fully functional! This is different from the ”outsider” view of, say, assistant in the experiment, who will perceive the bloody deed after at most several repetitions of the experiment (being in one of the decohered branches). This experiment may indirectly support the LIU hypothesis by showing that the quantum mechanical collapse does not happen. However, it remains an open and difficult epistemological issue whether this ”I-know-but-cannot-tell” type of experiment may discriminate between various theories. A contrary opinion may be heard, based on the statement that the question ”what will you perceive” is not a well-defined question in a quantum mechanical context (Prof. Ken Olum, private communication). We cannot enter into discussion of this issue here.

3.4. There may be a loophole left to Tegmark to defend the LIU theory in the following form. Even if the evolution of quantum mechanical systems is fundamentally nonlinear, one may expect the algorithmic information content of the multiverse density matrix today would be almost the same as for the initial one as long as the equation governing its evolution is deterministic. And determinism is invoked here in its ”strongest” form, i.e. similar to the Laplacian case: one neglects the apparent ”indeterminism” resulting from observer’s subjective incapacity of perceiving the entire picture. Whether we should expect possible nonlinear terms in the Schrödinger evolution to be deterministic or stochastic, remains a fully open question. The already mentioned Ghirardi et al. theory(24) has been argued to be intrinsically indeterministic.(29) However, one thing is clear: the determinism necessary for LIU to work is—in the field of philosophy of time—compatible only with B-theories of time (no temporal becoming). Whether B-theories are superior to A-theories (entailing reality of temporal becoming), or even tenable is an age-old problem not being solved to this day. Recently, however, Elitzur and Dolev(30) have forcefully argued—contrary to the prevailing opinion so far—that A-theories are actually closer to the physical ideas, as far as quantum gravitational effects are concerned. This leads us directly to the substance of the thesis (C).

4. LOSS OF INFORMATION = LOSS OF SIMPLICITY

4.1. The algorithmic information once present in the universe does not change during the amplification of small perturbations in the highly symmetric reality as envisaged by LIU. Conventionally, one tends to see this as a counterargument to the idea of information growth in the course of the cosmological evolution. However, the idea that the amount of algorithmic information may be irretrievably lost in the course of evolution of a physical system is equally antithetical to LIU. Any form of non-conservation of information cannot be accomodated in the LIU framework. Of course, the information loss must be fundamental, not just apparent from the human point of view; the stock example of waves erasing text written in sand on a beach does not suffice for the task, since the microscopic evolution of the entire (sea + beach) system is conventionally assumed to be unitary, i.e. the information contained in the text is preserved on microscopic level for all eternity.

4.2. It is well known that the Hawking process of black hole evaporation is claimed to violate this rule, for the following reason. Let us consider a pure quantum state corresponding to a distribution of matter of mass $`MM_{Pl}`$ (Planck mass), which collapses under its own weight. The density matrix of such state is given as $`\rho =|\psi \psi |`$, with vanishing entropy $`S=\mathrm{Tr}(\rho \mathrm{ln}\rho )`$. If $`M`$ is high enough, the matter will inevitably form a black hole. Subsequently, the black hole will slowly evaporate by Hawking process, emitting blackbody radiation (which by definition carries out no information). The semiclassical treatment used by Hawking in discovery of the black hole evaporation and in all subsequent discussions will certainly break down when the mass of black hole approaches MPl, but what will happen with the information from the initial state still locked in the black hole? This is the puzzle of black hole information loss.(20,31) As is well-known, the possibility Hawking himself proposed is that black hole simply evaporates completely and the information is irreversibly lost.(32) Although this idea remains the simplest and the least problematic answer to the puzzle, it has provoked a lot of controversy, since it implies that the evolution of the complete system (universe + black hole) is fundamentally non-unitary, and leads to evolution of pure into mixed quantum states. In contradistinction to the example above, we can quote the familiar example of the Encyclopaedia Britannica thrown into a black hole. Its informational content is lost forever, if Hawking’s idea about nonunutarity is correct.666Alternatively, it may be lost only from our universe, if the proposal Giddings ascribes to Freeman Dyson,(31) or the fascinating cosmological ideas of Smolin(33) are correct. In these views, there are one or more new universes created inside any black hole, to which the collapsed information is transmitted, without loss of unitarity on the global (”multiverse”) scale. The multiverse here is not the multiverse of quantum mechanics (”Everett’s multiverse” = the totality of wavefunction branches), but the multiverse of quantum cosmology (”Linde’s multiverse” = set of different cosmological domains, presumably causally and/or topologically disconnected from the domain of ours). Obviously, these proposals are highly speculative, to say at least.

4.3. Thus, the LIU predictions for the solution of the information-loss puzzle are that either information is actually radiated via the higher-order effects in the Hawking radiation (solution proposed, among others, by t’Hooft(34)), or that stable remnants of the order of Planck mass remain, encoding an arbitrarily high amount of information.(31) Of course, the information spoken of in both cases is just the apparent one. The two cases are different sensu stricto, since the first option (information transmitted to the universe) necessarily invokes further symmetry breaking and subsequent creation of an enormous number of ”new” histories, which is not necessarily so in the second option (sufficiently isolated black hole may leave a remnant without any measurement-like interaction). However, although the informational content is only apparent, the prediction is physical enough to be falsified. Apart from support it gives LIU as a scientific hypothesis, it should be mentioned that both these options (emission of information or its encoding in remnants; we can classify the possible creation of new universes as a highly special case of remnant solution) possess their own rather formidable internal problems.

4.4. The case of remnants as storage space for information becomes even lesser plausible if some predictions of the currently widely debated M-theories turn out to be correct. It has been proposed, in order to solve the infamous hierarchy problem in particle physics, that new extra dimensions enable significant lowering of the Planck mass scale, as compared to the convention 4-D case.(35,36) It is intuitively clear why lowering of the Planck mass is detrimental to the remnant proposal for explanation of the information loss puzzle: smaller the black hole remnants are, the ratio of information to mass which needs encoding becomes larger, and the entire picture less plausible. In the extreme versions of M-theory proposal, $`M_{Pl}1`$ TeV, and the encoding efficiency rises for an astounding factor of $`10^{16}`$. If these ideas receive further confirmation, they would make the case for information conservation even less palatable.

5. WERE YOUR FEELINGS IN THE INITIAL POWER SPECTRUM?

5.1. The conjecture (D) amounts to the idea that initial density perturbations contained, among other things, every single bit of information in a painting of Bruegel, sentence of Plato, a song of Beatles or the shape of any single printed letter in Tegmark’s paper. These things are not, however, contained in any ”extractable” manner, but are present by virtue of high symmetry and thus are similar to the contents of books in Borges’ ”The Library of Babel”, in which all conceivable combinations of letters do contain the entire fund of human (and any other expressible) knowledge, which is perfectly useless to any mortal user.(37) However, once a particular set of apparent information has been selected, its temporal evolution is completely determined for all times. In the same manner, the evolution of any particular piece of (apparent) information can be traced back to the spectrum of initial perturbations, and can be effectively reduced to it.

5.2. It is important to understand that LIU theory goes much further than the usual (”moderate”) reductionism in this respect. It is, for instance, substantially stronger requirement than that embodied in the usual working philosophy of computationalism,777A doctrine in the philosophy of mind and cognitive sciences stating (roughly) that cognition and consciousness are instances of the execution of sufficiently complex computational algorithms.(39) Of course, the complexity in this context is just a necessary condition: the search for the right kind of complexity continues. since it does not only postulate that all examples of mental phenomena and their consequences mentioned above are algorithmically describable, but also that such algorithms have been pre-existent even to the existence of humankind in the universe! Computationalism per se does not include any specific concept of time and temporal becoming. However, with LIU we loose any freedom in imagining various ways of functioning of human (and other) minds in time. It is unnecessary to emphasize that any arguments quoted against computationalism in the literature eo ipso count as arguments against the LIU hypothesis.(21,38)

5.3. Although this cannot as yet be argued against on purely physical grounds, we may notice that the history of scientific and philosophical thought gives more than one example of failure of such extremely reductionist ideas, the example of ether being probably the most investigated and the best-known one. Other relatively recent cases of failures of reductionist programmes in cosmology include Eddington’s numerological ”fundamental theory”, Bondi-Lyttleton electrical universe,(40) as well as the classical steady state theory of Bondi, Gold and Hoyle.(41) Of course, there have been cases of successful reductionist theories in the history of physics; however, in weighting this issue, one should keep in mind that cosmological theories (such as LIU) in particular should be heavily scrutinized, since it seems that in cosmology reductionistic approach is on a less stable ground than in the other physical disciplines. Furthermore, when judging LIU at the present state of relative ignorance as to the details of cosmological evidence as well as on the empirical merits of the ”no-collapse” versions of quantum mechanics, the circumstance that this theory goes much further in reductionism than the ether theory (or any other theory in the history of science!) has to be taken into account. It is important to bear in mind that LIU hypothesis is also antithetical to those versions of the ”no-collapse” theory—such as the ”many minds” theory(42)—which include some non-reductionist elements.

6. NOT SO SIMPLE AFTER ALL?

6.1. We have considered several additional issues stemming from Tegmark’s LIU theory. The good news for cosmologists interested in application of information and complexity theory to the observable slice of the quantum grand superposition is that dynamical laws will still offer a lot of interesting material to study. If we reject the extreme essentialist position that the goal of science is revealing the ”deep” and ”true” nature of reality, than the only quantity of true interest to sciences is the apparent information, which is not going to be exhausted in foreseeable future.888Admittedly bizarre, we may notice that if we do stick to this extreme view, then the LIU hypothesis—if not falsified—represents a true ”theory of everything”, since apart from those few bytes of information on the initial quantum state of the universe, there is nothing more to be learnt whatsoever. However uninspiring, this prospect may deserve consideration within the framework of epistemological discussions on the topic of status and power of possible ”theories of everything” currently under development. It offers rather novel look at the things: we may be able to reach this ”holy grail” of physics, but it may possibly be a complete anticlimax—a formally correct, but empirically shallow theory. In that respect, consequences of LIU for the astrophysical Weltanschaung are not so serious as it might look at first. The issue of quantity and evolution of apparent informational content of any particular slice or the close related slices remains a legitimate target of physical discourse. Moreover, the dynamics of entropy increase (that is, the manner of structure formation) remains fully meaningful and legitimate physical question. The same applies for sciences other than physical, since they are also, if the LIU theory is correct, just extensions of our knowledge of non-linear, apparent-information-creating processes. The same circumstance does go far toward mitigating Tegmark’s dramatic conclusion portraying LIU as ”arguing that even the intricate structures that are the subjects of our thoughts, dreams and efforts in life, everything from our loved ones to our parking tickets, are perhaps more aptly described as illusions, as manifestations of the fact that our minds experience the grandeur of reality merely from an extremely limited frog perspective In short, reality would be much more banal than it appears to be.” While it will certainly always remain at least partially a matter of personal taste, in the opinion of the present author, the fact that the (apparent) information content of each component of the superposition is well-defined warrants the label of ”good news”. The LIU theory, if confirmed, certainly will offer a great leap forward in our understanding of reality, and if falsified, will reveal a host of new insights in the process. This is partially recognized by Tegmark, when he writes: ”If we thus restrict our value judgments to empirical considerations, the picture put forward here would have quite positive implications for our ability to do science in the future.” However, the restriction to ”empirical considerations” seems unnecessary (at least because if restricted in such a manner we would have hardly been able to come up with a theory like LIU!). Perceiving the very deepest symmetry that may exist could as well invoke positive value judgements as to the achievements of science and our ability to do it well in the future.

6.2. Of course, a further note to be taken is that the narrowness can be construed as a virtue of LIU hypothesis. It is well-known that epistemological criteria favor theories with well-defined predictions over those with predictions based on any number of (more or less free) parameters. A paradigmatic example of this kind in cosmology is to be found in the great controversy between the classical steady-state theory and the relativistic (”Big Bang”) world models.(43) It is exactly because of this controversy and of the challenge posed by the rival steady-state paradigm, that the relativistic cosmology became a proper science, with well-defined methodological and epistemic apparatus, and a set of observational criteria for rejection or acceptance of cosmological conjectures. The challenge was crucial exactly because the steady-state was such a narrow, well-defined theory with clear-cut and obviously falsifiable predictions. A similar situation occurs with the LIU hypothesis: a conceptually simple observational falsification of it (say through an unambiguous observation of the final Hawking explosion of black holes together with the proof that extra information can not be hidden in higher orders of the emitted radiation, or a proof that transition of pure into mixed states is hidden somewhere else in nature, say in quantum gravity or in functioning of human brains) will enormously benefit our total cosmological understanding, and may even set a new paradigm on the informational content of everything that exists.

6.3. We conclude that additional requirements a posteriori diminish the probability of the low-information universe hypothesis—fascinating as it is—being the correct description of everything that exists.

Acknowledgements. It is a great pleasure to thank people with whom the author has had thoroughly enjoyable discussions of some of the ideas presented in this essay, especially Prof. Petar Grujić, Prof. Ken Olum, Ana Vlajković, Prof. Branislav K. Nikolić, Slobodan Popović and Ivana Dragićević. Invaluable technical help has been received from Dr. Aleksandar B. Nedeljković, Srdjan Samurović, Vesna Milošević-Zdjelar and Nikola Božinović. Three anonymous referees are acknowledged for suggestions useful in improving the overall quality of the manuscript.