Wei Dai wrote (six weeks ago!): >I don't know why Nick hasn't told us about his new book. I just found out >about it on his web site:
Obviously, the lesson is that one must check my website at least twice daily just in case some world-changing event is being announced ;-) >Anthropic Bias: Observation Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy >Nick Bostrom, Routledge, New York, July 2002 Sorry about the sluggish response time - in fact it suggests the answer to Wei's question: because of time pressures, I've been able to read this list only very sporadically and partially and am sure that I have missed out on many great discussions. The book can be ordered from amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0415938589/103-4781209-8504658 It has a webpage, containing five free sample chapters at: http://www.anthropic-principle.com/book/ ... Here follows, if you forgive me eating up some list space, the abstract and the table of contents: This book explores how to reason when you suspect that your evidence is biased by observation selection effects. An explanation of what observation selection effects are has to await chapter 1. Suffice it to say here that the topic is intellectually fun, difficult, and important. We will be discussing many interesting applications: philosophical thought experiments and paradoxes aside, we will use our results to address several juicy bits of contemporary science: cosmology (how many universes are there?), evolution theory (how improbable was the evolution of intelligent life on our planet?), the problem of time's arrow (can it be given a thermodynamic explanation?), game theoretic problems with imperfect recall (how to model them?), traffic analysis (why is the "next lane" faster?) and a lot more - the sort of stuff that intellectually active people like to think about� Contents 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 Modeling 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 rejecte..........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 the 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 INDEX.......... 219 Nick Bostrom Department of Philosophy, Yale University New Haven, CT 06520 | Phone: (203) 500-0021 | Fax: (203) 432-7950 Homepage: http://www.nickbostrom.com
