Related papers: Anthropic Reasoning and Quantum Cosmology
The ideas of aleatoric and epistemic uncertainty are widely used to reason about the probabilistic predictions of machine-learning models. We identify incoherence in existing discussions of these ideas and suggest this stems from the…
The uncertainty associated with probing the quantum state is expressed as the effective abundance (measure) of possibilities for its collapse. New kinds of uncertainty limits entailed by quantum description of the physical system arise in…
As observers of the universe we are quantum physical systems within it. If the universe is very large in space and/or time, the probability becomes significant that the data on which we base predictions is replicated at other locations in…
Quantum theory describes our universe incredibly successfully. To our classically-inclined brains, however, it is a bizarre description that requires a re-imagining of what fundamental reality, or "ontology", could look like. This thesis…
According to a standard view, quantum mechanics (QM) is a contextual theory and quantum probability does not satisfy Kolmogorov's axioms. We show, by considering the macroscopic contexts associated with measurement procedures and the…
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…
Quantum mechanics---the theory describing the fundamental workings of nature---is famously counterintuitive: it predicts that a particle can be in two places at the same time, and that two remote particles can be inextricably and…
In quantum mechanics, not everything that can be observed can be observed simultaneously. Observational data exhibits \emph{contextuality} -- a generalisation of nonlocality -- if the result of an observation is necessarily dependent on…
Modal interpretations have the ambition to construe quantum mechanics as an objective, man-independent description of physical reality. Their second leading idea is probabilism: quantum mechanics does not completely fix physical reality but…
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…
I argue that various derivations of the Born probability rule within strictly unitary quantum mechanics implicitly use anthropic constraints on the properties of the probabilities, but without proposing an ensemble from which those…
We suggest to combine the Anthropic Principle with Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Theory. Realizing the multiplicity of worlds it provides an opportunity of explanation of some important events which are assumed to be extremely…
Applications of quantum mechanics have led to many successful predictions and explanations of puzzling phenomena, and we now apply quantum mechanics to gain, process, and communicate information in novel ways. We can understand quantum…
In the {\em Many Worlds Interpretation} of quantum mechanics, the range of possible worlds (or histories) provides variation, and the Anthropic Principle is a selective principle analogous to natural selection. When looked on in this way,…
Analogies between quantum mechanics and sociology lead to the hypothesis that quantum objects are complex products of evolution. Like biological objects they are able to receive, to work on, and to spread semantic information. In general…
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…
More than a speculative technology, quantum computing seems to challenge our most basic intuitions about how the physical world should behave. In this thesis I show that, while some intuitions from classical computer science must be…
This paper presents a plausible reasoning system to illustrate some broad issues in knowledge representation: dualities between different reasoning forms, the difficulty of unifying complementary reasoning styles, and the approximate nature…
Reasoning is key to many decision making processes. It requires consolidating a set of rule-like premises that are often associated with degrees of uncertainty and observations to draw conclusions. In this work, we address both the case…
If the parameters defining the physics of our universe departed from their present values, the observed rich structure and complexity would not be supported. This article considers whether similar fine-tuning of parameters applies to…