Anthropic Bias: Observation Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy

Cover......Page 1
Title Page......Page 5
Contents......Page 9
Acknowledgments......Page 13
Preface......Page 15
Observation selection effects......Page 19
A brief history of anthropic reasoning......Page 23
Synopsis of this book......Page 25
2. Fine-Tuning in Cosmology......Page 29
Does fine-tuning need explaining?......Page 31
No “Inverse Gambler's Fallacy”......Page 34
Roger White and Phil Dowe's analysis......Page 36
Surprising vs. unsurprising improbable events......Page 41
Modeling observation selection effects: the angel parable......Page 50
Preliminary conclusions......Page 57
The anthropic principle as expressing an observation selection effect......Page 61
Anthropic hodgepodge......Page 64
Freak observers and why earlier formulations are inadequate......Page 69
The Self-Sampling Assumption......Page 75
The Dungeon gedanken......Page 77
Two thought experiments by John Leslie......Page 80
The Incubator gedanken......Page 82
The reference class problem......Page 87
SSA in cosmology......Page 91
SSA in thermodynamics......Page 94
SSA in evolutionary biology......Page 96
SSA in traffic analysis......Page 100
SSA in quantum physics......Page 102
Summary of the case for SSA......Page 104
Background......Page 107
Doomsayer Gott......Page 108
The incorrectness of Gott's argument......Page 110
Doomsayer Leslie......Page 112
The premisses of DA, and the Old evidence problem......Page 114
Leslie's views on the reference class problem......Page 122
Alternative conclusions of DA......Page 125
Doesn't the Doomsday argument fail to “target the truth”?......Page 127
The “baby-paradox”......Page 129
Isn't a sample size of one too small?......Page 133
We can make the effect go away simply by considering a larger hypothesis space......Page 134
Aren't we necessarily alive now?......Page 136
How could I have been a 16th century human?......Page 137
But we know so much more about ourselves than our birth ranks!......Page 138
The Self-Indication Assumption—Is there safety in numbers?......Page 140
Leslie's argument and why it fails......Page 145
Observer-relative chances: another go......Page 148
Discussion: indexical facts—no conflict with physicalism......Page 150
In conclusion......Page 154
Appendix: the no-betting results......Page 155
9. Paradoxes of the Self-Sampling Assumption......Page 159
The Adam & Eve experiments......Page 160
Analysis of Lazy Adam: predictions and counterfactuals......Page 162
The UN⁺⁺ gedanken: reasons and abilities......Page 168
Quantum Joe: SSA and the Principal Principle......Page 172
Upshot......Page 174
Appendix: The Meta-Newcomb problem......Page 175
Building blocks, theory constraints and desiderata......Page 177
The outline of a solution......Page 179
SSSA: Taking account of indexical information of observer-moments......Page 180
Reassessing Incubator......Page 183
How the reference class may be observer-moment relative......Page 186
Formalizing the theory: the Observation Equation......Page 190
A quantum generalization of OE......Page 192
Non-triviality of the reference class: why ℛ⁰ must be rejected......Page 193
A subjective factor in the choice of reference class?......Page 199
Cosmological theorizing: fine-tuning and freak observers......Page 203
The freak-observer problem places only lax demands on the reference class......Page 211
The Sleeping Beauty problem: modeling imperfect recall......Page 212
The case of no outsiders......Page 213
The case with outsiders......Page 214
Observation selection theory applied to other scientific problems......Page 216
Robustness of reference class and scientific solidity......Page 220
Wrap-up......Page 222
Bibliography......Page 225
Index......Page 237