Related papers: Non-Additive Axiologies in Large Worlds
Recent advances in string theory and inflationary cosmology have led to a surge of interest in the possible existence of an ensemble of cosmic regions, or universes, among the members of which key physical parameters, such as the masses of…
Even when completely and consistently formulated, a fundamental theory of physics and cosmological boundary conditions may not give unambiguous and unique predictions for the universe we observe; indeed inflation, string/M theory, and…
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…
Cosmological models that invoke a multiverse - a collection of unobservable regions of space where conditions are very different from the region around us - are controversial, on the grounds that unobservable phenomena shouldn't play a…
Valid ideas that physical reality is vastly larger than human perception of it, and that the perceived part may not be representative of the whole, exist on many levels and have a long history. After a brief general inventory of those ideas…
In a consideration set model, an individual maximizes utility among the considered alternatives. I relate a consideration set additive random utility model to classic discrete choice and the extended additive random utility model, in which…
We introduce several axioms which may or may not hold for any given subgraph of the directed graph of all organisms (past, present and future) where edges represent biological parenthood, with the simplifying background assumption that life…
Models of computation operating over the real numbers and computing a larger class of functions compared to the class of general recursive functions invariably introduce a non-finite element of infinite information encoded in an arbitrary…
The observable universe is necessarily hospitable for life. There are indications, however, that the laws of physics and cosmological parameters need not take the form and values observed, and if they were slightly different life could not…
I present a novel mathematical technique for dealing with the infinities arising from divergent sums and integrals. It assigns them fine-grained infinite values from the set of hyperreal numbers in a manner that refines the standard…
The article demonstrates that logic is not necessarily singleton and does not always have the standard interpretation of negation. Appropriate generalizations of logic are suggested. Positive logic and multivalued negation operations are…
We consider a model where a subset of candidates must be selected based on voter preferences, subject to general constraints that specify which subsets are feasible. This model generalizes committee elections with diversity constraints,…
Categorization axioms have been proposed to axiomatizing clustering results, which offers a hint of bridging the difference between human recognition system and machine learning through an intuitive observation: an object should be assigned…
The place of an anthropic argument in the discrimination between various cosmological models is to be reconsidered following the classic criticisms of Paul C. W. Davies and Frank J. Tipler. Different versions of the anthropic argument…
We point out that spacetime singularities play a useful role in gravitational theories by eliminating unphysical solutions. In particular, we argue that any modification of general relativity which is completely nonsingular cannot have a…
The purpose of this paper is to elucidate, by means of concepts and theorems drawn from mathematical logic, the conditions under which the existence of a multiverse is a logical necessity in mathematical physics, and the implications of…
I review the basis and limitations of plausible inference in cosmology, in particular the limitation that it can only provide fundamentally true inferences when the hypotheses under consideration form a set that is exhaustive. They never…
The principle of mass additivity states that the mass of a composite object is the sum of the masses of its elementary components. Mass additivity is true in Newtonian mechanics but false in special relativity. Physicists have explained why…
A brief explanation of the meaning of the anthropic principle - as a prescription for the attribution of a priori probability weighting - is illustrated by various cosmological and local applications, in which the relevant conclusions are…
Many cosmological models assume or imply that the total size of the universe is very large, perhaps even infinite. Here we argue instead that the universe might be comparatively small, in fact not much larger than the currently observed…