English

Blurring Out Cosmic Puzzles

Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability 2023-06-22 v1 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics History and Philosophy of Physics

Abstract

The Doomsday argument and anthropic reasoning are two puzzling examples of probabilistic confirmation. In both cases, a lack of knowledge apparently yields surprising conclusions. Since they are formulated within a Bayesian framework, they constitute a challenge to Bayesianism. Several attempts, some successful, have been made to avoid these conclusions, but some versions of these arguments cannot be dissolved within the framework of orthodox Bayesianism. I show that adopting an imprecise framework of probabilistic reasoning allows for a more adequate representation of ignorance in Bayesian reasoning and explains away these puzzles.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1412.4382,
  title  = {Blurring Out Cosmic Puzzles},
  author = {Yann Benétreau-Dupin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1412.4382},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

15 pages, 1 figure. To appear in Philosophy of Science (PSA 2014)

R2 v1 2026-06-22T07:30:45.936Z