Related papers: Why anthropic reasoning cannot predict Lambda
In ordinary situations involving a small part of the universe, Born's rule seems to work well for calculating probabilities of observations in quantum theory. However, there are a number of reasons for believing that it is not adequate for…
A variety of observations indicate that the universe is dominated by dark energy with negative pressure, one possibility for which is a cosmological constant. If the dark energy is a cosmological constant, a fundamental question is: Why has…
This paper offers a synthesis of the positions in the literature regarding controversies about the multiverse. After reviewing some simple elements of modern cosmology and its observational limitations, we will present the history of the…
The idea of a variable dark energy has been entertained many times in the literature and from many different points of view. Quintessence is just a popular way to implement this idea in recent times, but so far with little success. Another…
We study constraints that anticipated DEEP survey galaxy counts versus redshift data will place on cosmological model parameters in models with and without a constant or time-variable cosmological constant $\Lambda$. This data will result…
The linear mathematics of quantum mechanics gives many versions of reality instead of the single version we perceive, with the perceived version chosen at random according to a probability law. Because of these peculiarities, the theory…
The best mathematical arguments against a realistic interpretation of quantum mechanics - that gives definite but partially unknown values to all observables - are analysed and shown to be based on reasoning that is not compelling. This…
Ideas from causal set theory lead to a fluctuating, time dependent cosmological-constant of the right order of magnitude to match currently quoted "dark energy" values. Although such a term was predicted some time ago, a more detailed…
We show that the causal set approach to creating an ever-present cosmological 'constant' in the expanding universe is strongly constrained by the isotropy of the microwave background. Fluctuations generated by stochastic lambda generation…
In models where the constants of Nature can take more than one set of values, the cosmological wave function $\psi$ describes an ensemble of universes with different values of the constants. The probability distribution for the constants…
Recent years have seen a boom in interest in machine learning systems that can provide a human-understandable rationale for their predictions or decisions. However, exactly what kinds of explanation are truly human-interpretable remains…
A general sketch of how the problem of space dimensionality depends on Anthropic arguments is presented. A new argument in favor of a stable scenario for space dimensionality for a time scale longer than that required for the existence of…
Many policies allocate harms or benefits that are uncertain in nature: they produce distributions over the population in which individuals have different probabilities of incurring harm or benefit. Comparing different policies thus involves…
Cosmology seems extremely remote from everyday human practice and experience. It is usually taken for granted that cosmological data cannot rationally influence our beliefs about the fate of humanity -- and possible other intelligent…
Using results from neurobiology on perceptual decision making and value-based decision making, the problem of decision making between lotteries is reformulated in an abstract space where uncertain prospects are mapped to corresponding…
In this lecture I make some educated guesses, about the landscape of string theory vacua. Based on the recent work of a number of authors, it seems plausible that the lanscape is unimaginably large and diverse. Whether we like it or not,…
Given a knowledge base KB containing first-order and statistical facts, we consider a principled method, called the random-worlds method, for computing a degree of belief that some formula Phi holds given KB. If we are reasoning about a…
We explicitly calculate the value of the cosmological constant, based on the recently developed theory connecting entropic gravity with quantum-events, induced by transactions, called transactional gravity. We suggest a novel interpretation…
Current observations do not rule out the possibility that the Universe might end up in an abrupt event. Different such scenarios may be explored through suitable parameterizations of the dark energy and then confronted to cosmological…
In the context of open inflation, we calculate the probability distribution for the density parameter $\Omega$. A large class of two field models of open inflation do not lead to infinite open universes, but to an ensemble of inflating…