Bostrom, N: Anthropic Bias (el. knyga) (skaityta knyga) | knygos.lt

Aprašymas

Anthropic Bias explores how to reason when you suspect that your evidence is biased by &quote;observation selection effects&quote;--that is, evidence that has been filtered by the precondition that there be some suitably positioned observer to &quote;have&quote; the evidence. This conundrum--sometimes alluded to as &quote;the anthropic principle,&quote; &quote;self-locating belief,&quote; or &quote;indexical information&quote;--turns out to be a surprisingly perplexing and intellectually stimulating challenge, one abounding with important implications for many areas in science and philosophy. There are the philosophical thought experiments and paradoxes: the Doomsday Argument; Sleeping Beauty; the Presumptuous Philosopher; Adam & Eve; the Absent-Minded Driver; the Shooting Room.And there are the applications in contemporary science: cosmology (&quote;How many universes are there?&quote;, &quote;Why does the universe appear fine-tuned for life?&quote;); evolutionary theory (&quote;How improbable was the evolution of intelligent life on our planet?&quote;); the problem of time's arrow (&quote;Can it be given a thermodynamic explanation?&quote;); quantum physics (&quote;How can the many-worlds theory be tested?&quote;); game-theory problems with imperfect recall (&quote;How to model them?&quote;); even traffic analysis (&quote;Why is the 'next lane' faster?&quote;).Anthropic Bias argues that the same principles are at work across all these domains. And it offers a synthesis: a mathematically explicit theory of observation selection effects that attempts to meet scientific needs while steering clear of philosophical paradox.