Related papers: Doomsday: A Response to Simpson's Second Question
We show that the probability distribution function that best fits the distribution of return times between two consecutive visits of a chaotic trajectory to finite size regions in phase space deviates from the exponential statistics by a…
The probabilistic bisection algorithm (PBA) solves a class of stochastic root-finding problems in one dimension by successively updating a prior belief on the location of the root based on noisy responses to queries at chosen points. The…
Populations are made up of an integer number of individuals and are subject to stochastic birth-death processes whose rates may vary in time. Useful quantities, like the chance of ultimate fixation, satisfy an appropriate difference…
Cosmological inference becomes increasingly difficult when complex data-generating processes cannot be modeled by simple probability distributions. With the ever-increasing size of data sets in cosmology, there is increasing burden placed…
Tree-based priors for probability distributions are usually specified using a predetermined, data-independent collection of candidate recursive partitions of the sample space. To characterize an unknown target density in detail over the…
The algorithmic theory of randomness is well developed when the underlying space is the set of finite or infinite sequences and the underlying probability distribution is the uniform distribution or a computable distribution. These…
In this paper we investigate possible solutions to the coincidence problem in flat phantom dark energy models with a constant dark energy equation of state and quintessence models with a linear scalar field potential. These models are…
Prediction is the making of statements, usually probabilistic, about future events based on current information. Retrodiction is the making of statements about past events based on current information. We present the foundations of quantum…
This paper relates both to the metaphysics of probability and to the physics of time asymmetry. Using the formalism of decoherent histories, it investigates whether intuitions about intrinsic time directedness that are often associated with…
Recently it was found that dark energy in the form of phantom generalized Chaplygin gas may lead to a new form of the cosmic doomsday, the big freeze singularity. Like the big rip singularity, the big freeze singularity would also take…
The statistical inverse problem of estimating the probability distribution of an infinite-dimensional unknown given its noisy indirect observation is studied in the Bayesian framework. In practice, one often considers only…
Recently it was found, in a broad class of models, that the dark energy density may change its sign during the evolution of the universe. This may lead to a global collapse of the universe within the time t_c ~ 10^{10}-10^{11} years. Our…
The Simulation Argument posed by Bostrom (2003) suggests that we may be living inside a sophisticated computer simulation. If post-human civilizations eventually have both the capability and desire to generate such Bostrom-like simulations,…
I argue that nonlocal decision of the outcomes at detection excludes any alternative theory to quantum mechanics: Not all that matters for the results of physical experiments is content in space-time, but all that is in space-time is…
We investigate the asymptotical behaviour of the transition probabilities of the simple random walk on the 2-comb. In particular we obtain space-time uniform asymptotical estimates which show the lack of symmetry of this walk better than…
In this paper, using a significantly improved version of the model-independent, cosmographic approach to cosmology (John, M. V. 2004, ApJ, 614, 1), we address an important question: Was there a decelerating past for the universe? To answer…
Recent developments in cosmology indicate that every history having a nonzero probability is realized in infinitely many distinct regions of spacetime. Thus, it appears that the universe contains infinitely many civilizations exactly like…
The difficulty of explaining non-local correlations in a fixed causal structure sheds new light on the old debate on whether space and time are to be seen as fundamental. Refraining from assuming space-time as given a priori has a number of…
Realist, no-collapse interpretations of quantum mechanics, such as Everett's, face the probability problem: how to justify the norm-squared (Born) rule from the wavefunction alone. While any basis-independent measure can only be…
Physicists are increasingly beginning to take seriously the possibility of laws outside the traditional time-evolution paradigm; yet our understanding of determinism is still predicated on a forwards time-evolution picture, making it…