Related papers: Probabilistic inference in very large universes
We discuss scientific realism from the perspective of modern cosmology, especially primordial cosmology: i.e. the cosmological investigation of the very early universe. We first (Section 2) state our allegiance to scientific realism, and…
The aim of cosmological simulations is to reproduce the properties of the observed Universe, serving as tools to test structure and galaxy formation models. Constrained simulations of our local cosmological region up to a few hundred Mpc/h…
Existing physical theories do not predict every feature of our experience but only certain regularities of that experience. That difference between what could be observed and what can be predicted is one kind of limit on scientific…
This thesis concerns the compatibility of inhomogeneous cosmologies with our present understanding of the universe. It is a problem of some interest to find the class of all relativistic cosmological models which are capable of providing a…
A type of mechanics will be presented that possesses some distinctive properties. On the one hand, its physical description & rules of operation are readily comprehensible & intuitively clear. On the other, it fully satisfies all observable…
The absence of an identified consequence at solar system scale of the cosmological space expansion is usually explained considering that space expansion does not affect local anysotropies in matter distribution. This can also be explained…
Cosmology contributes a good deal to the investigation of variation of fundamental physical constants. High resolution data is available and allows for detailed analysis over cosmological distances and a multitude of methods were developed.…
Although cosmology is usually considered an observational science, where there is little or no space for experimentation, other approaches can (and have been) also considered. In particular, we can change rather drastically the above, more…
Physical theories that depend on many parameters or are tested against data from many different experiments pose unique challenges to statistical inference. Many models in particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology fall into one or both…
A simple proof is given that the probabilities of observations in a large universe are not given directly by Born's rule as the expectation values of projection operators in a global quantum state of the entire universe. An alternative…
We analyze how the thermal history of the universe is influenced by the statistical description, assuming a deviation from the usual Bose-Einstein, Fermi-Dirac and Boltzmann-Gibbs distribution functions. These deviations represent the…
Cosmological inflation is not the only early universe scenario consistent with current observational data. I will discuss the criteria for a successful early universe cosmology, compare a couple of the proposed scenarios (inflation,…
Cosmology is operating now on a well established and tightly constraining empirical basis. The relativistic LambdaCDM hot big bang theory is consistent with all the present tests; it has become the benchmark. But the many open issues in…
Three observational tests of cosmological natural selection, a theory that follows from some hypotheses about quantum gravity, are described. If true, this theory explains the choices of the parameters of the standard model of particle…
The development of science and technology has progressively demonstrated the ability of humankind to understand and manipulate the physical world, and it has also shown some fundamental limitations to predictability of physical events. This…
One of quantum theory's salient features is its apparent indeterminism, i.e. measurement outcomes are typically probabilistic. We formally define and address whether this uncertainty is unavoidable or whether post-quantum theories can offer…
In extracting predictions from theories that describe a multiverse, we face the difficulty that we must assess probability distributions over possible observations, prescribed not just by an underlying theory, but by a theory together with…
The purpose of this paper is to propose an extension to Lee Smolin's hypothesis that our own universe belongs to a population of universes evolving by natural selection. Smolin's hypothesis explains why the parameters of physics possess the…
Bayesian inference is often used in cosmology and astrophysics to derive constraints on model parameters from observations. This approach relies on the ability to compute the likelihood of the data given a choice of model parameters. In…
We attempt to dissolve the measurement problem using an anthropic principle which allows us to invoke rational observers. We argue that the key feature of such observers is that they are rational (we need not care whether they are…