Related papers: Why Boltzmann Brains Are Bad
It is only human nature to be reluctant to accept something new and different. This feeling is exacerbated given the success of the Big Bang model. However, there are cogent reasons for considering this new model. Some of the advantages of…
Often it is assumed that a quantum state or a phase-space distribution must be normalizable. Here it is shown that even if it is not normalizable, one may be able to extract normalized observational probabilities from it.
I will review some results of observational cosmology which critically cast doubt upon the foundations of the standard cosmology: 1) The redshifts of the galaxies are due to the expansion of the Universe; 2) The cosmic microwave background…
We consider bulk fields coupled to the graviton in a Lorentz violating fashion. We expect that the overly tested Lorentz symmetry might set constraints on the induced Lorentz violation in the brane, and hence on the dynamics of the…
If conscious observers are to be included in the quantum mechanical universe, we need to find the rules that engage observers with quantum mechanical systems. The author has proposed five rules that are discovered by insisting on empirical…
Humans display a tendency to pay more attention to bad outcomes, often in a disproportionate way relative to their statistical occurrence. They also display euphorism, as well as a preference for the current state of affairs (status quo…
The presence of dark energy in the Universe is inferred directly and indirectly from a large body of observational evidence. The simplest and most theoretically appealing possibility is the vacuum energy density (cosmological constant).…
Following the discovery of the CMB, the hot big-bang model has become the standard cosmological model. In this theory, small primordial fluctuations are subsequently amplified by gravity to form the large-scale structure seen today.…
Increasingly encompassing models have been suggested for our world. Theories range from generally accepted to increasingly speculative to apparently bogus. The progression of theories from ego- to geo- to helio-centric models to universe…
Schizophrenic patients suffer from hallucination which its causality is not yet fully understood. This paper attempts to approach this mystery from the perspective of quantum mechanical theories. A novel approach has been adopted to…
Probabilities in quantum theory are traditionally given by Born's rule as the expectation values of projection operators. Here it is shown that Born's rule is insufficient in universes so large that they contain identical multiple copies of…
I review some theoretical ideas in cosmology different from the standard "Big Bang": the quasi-steady state model, the plasma cosmology model, non-cosmological redshifts, alternatives to non-baryonic dark matter and/or dark energy, and…
Advances in statistical learning theory have resulted in a multitude of different designs of learning machines. But which ones are implemented by brains and other biological information processors? We analyze how various abstract Bayesian…
Eternal inflation is a seemingly generic consequence of theories that give rise to accelerated expansion of the universe and possess multiple vacuum states. Making predictions in an eternally inflating universe is notoriously difficult…
There appears to be no natural explanation for the cosmological constant's small size within the framework of local relativistic field theories. We argue that the recently-discussed framework for which the observable universe is identified…
Inflation produces super-horizon sized perturbations that ultimately return within the horizon and are thought to form the seeds of all observed large scale structure in the Universe. But inflationary predictions can only be compared with…
The measure problem of cosmology is how to assign normalized probabilities to observations in a universe so large that it may have many observations occurring at many different spacetime locations. I have previously shown how the Boltzmann…
The very notion of a current fluctuation is problematic in the quantum context. We study that problem in the context of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, both in a microscopic setup and in a Markovian model. Our answer is based on a…
Models of human behavior for prediction and collaboration tend to fall into two categories: ones that learn from large amounts of data via imitation learning, and ones that assume human behavior to be noisily-optimal for some reward…
The Boltzmann distribution describes a single parameter (temperature) family of probability distributions over a state space; at any given temperature, the ratio of probabilities of two states depends on their difference in energy. The same…