Anthropic Bias – Complete Text

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Anthropic Bias

• Acknowledgements xi
• Preface xiii
• Chapter 1: Introduction 1
  
  • Observation selection effects 1
  • A brief history of anthropic reasoning 5
  • Synopsis of this book 7
• Chapter 2: Fine-tuning in cosmology 11
  
  • Does fine-tuning need explaining? 13
  • No “Inverse Gambler’s Fallacy” 16
  • Roger White and Phil Dowe’s analysis 18
  • Surprising vs. Unsurprising improbable events 23
  • Modelling observation selection effects: the angel parable 32
  • Preliminary conclusions 39
• Chapter 3: Anthropic principles: the motley family 43
  
  • The anthropic principle as expressing an observation selection effect 43
  • Anthropic hodgepodge 46
  • Freak observers and why earlier formulations are inadequate 51
  • The Self-Sampling Assumption 57
• Chapter 4: Thought experiments supporting the self-sampling assumption 59
  
  • The Dungeon gedanken 59
  • Two thought experiments by John Leslie 62
  • The Incubator gedanken 64
  • The reference class problem 69
• Chapter 5: The self-sampling assumption in science 73
  
  • SSA in cosmology 73
  • SSA in thermodynamics 76
  • SSA in evolutionary biology 78
  • SSA in traffic analysis 82
  • SSA in quantum physics 84
  • Summary of the case for SSA 86
• Chapter 6: The doomsday argument 89
  
  • Background 89
  • Doomsayer Gott 90
  • The incorrectness of Gott’s argument 92
  • Doomsayer Leslie 94
  • The premisses of DA, and the Old evidence problem 96
  • Leslie’s views on the reference class problem 104
  • Alternative conclusions of DA 107
• Chapter 7: Invalid objections against the doomsday argument 109
  
  • Doesn’t the Doomsday argument fail to “target the truth”? 109
  • The “baby-paradox” 111
  • Isn’t a sample size of one too small? 115
  • Couldn’t a Cro-Magnon man have used the Doomsday argument? 116
  • We can make the effect go away simply by considering a larger hypothesis space 116
  • Aren’t we necessarily alive now? 118
  • Sliding reference of “soon” and “late”? 119
  • How could I have been a 16th century human? 119
  • Doesn’t your theory presuppose that what happens in causally disconnected regions affects what happens here? 120
  • But we know so much more about ourselves than our birth ranks! 120
  • The Self-Indication Assumption — Is there safety in numbers? 122
• Chapter 8: Observer-relative chances in anthropic reasoning? 127
  
  • Leslie’s argument, and why it fails 127
  • Observer-relative chances: another go 130
  • Discussion: indexical facts — no conflict with physicalism 132
  • In conclusion 136
  • Appendix: the no-betting results 137
• Chapter 9: Paradoxes of the self-sampling assumption 141
  
  • The Adam & Eve experiments 142
  • Analysis of Lazy Adam: predictions and counterfactuals 144
  • The UN++ gedanken: reasons and abilities 150
  • Quantum Joe: SSA and the Principal Principle 154
  • Upshot 156
  • Appendix: The Meta-Newcomb problem 157
• Chapter 10: Observation selection theory: a methodology for anthropic reasoning 159
  
  • Building blocks, theory constraints and desiderata 159
  • The outline of a solution 161
  • SSSA: Taking account of indexical information of observer-moments 162
  • Reassessing Incubator 165
  • How the reference class may be observer-moment relative 168
  • Formalizing the theory: the Observation Equation 172
  • A quantum generalization of OE 174
  • Non-triviality of the reference class: why R0 must be rejected 175
  • A subjective factor in the choice of reference class? 181
• Chapter 11: Observation selection theory applied 185
  
  • Cosmological theorizing: fine-tuning and freak observers 185
  • The freak-observer problem places only lax demands on the reference class 193
  • The Sleeping Beauty problem: modeling imperfect recall 194
  • The case of no outsiders 195
  • The case with outsiders 196
  • Synthesis of the 1/2- and 1/3- views 198
  • Observation selection theory applied to other scientific problems 198
  • Robustness of reference class and scientific solidity 202
  • Wrap-up 204
• Bibliography 207