The Rise of the Boltzmann Brains and Balls of Light

A recent article in New Scientist discussed the possible existence of a weird-type of entity: the Boltzmann Brain. This hypothetical entity is thought to exist in our future universe where the accelerating inflation of space has created near infinite amounts of cold, dark space. Physical matter is getting farther and farther apart as the universe expands. The cosmological constant or vacuum energy—the fundamental repulsive force of matter of empty space—causes this continuous universal expansion. In the distant future, physical matter, including us, would become increasingly rare. In such a universe, would there be any intelligent life? According to cosmologists, such a universe would eventually be filled with any number of non-material intelligences, brains without bodies, called Boltzmann Brains, named after the Austrian scientist who developed our modern idea of entropy and the topic we're discussing here. In fact, if the universe keeps expanding, eventually, in about twenty billion years, Boltzmann Brains will eventually appear and in trillions of years outnumber human or other physical brains in our universe. Non-physical intelligence will be omnipresent and physical brains rare.

What does this have to do with crop circles? Well, I've sometimes wondered whether the balls of light that we see around crop circles are a coming attraction for Boltzmann Brains of the future. Are these plasmas, if that's what the are, an example of non-physical intelligence? It's just speculation on my part, but they do seem to be under intelligence control and have a proclivity for crop formations. Perhaps they indicate an underlying order in the universe; one that transcends matter and connects both the physical and the non-physical universe. Or, are crop formations generating some sort of non-physical energy field that in turn generates these balls of light. Do crop formations create intelligence? The possibilities are endless.

Other new research in the form of computer simulations at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany suggests that spiral patterns can create organized life out of simple dust. These dust spirals look like DNA and have all the properties of life including reproduction and information exchange. From this perspective, some crop formations, to the extent that they organize space in a spiral form, could be seen as the precursors to life.