Related papers: Anthropic reasoning in multiverse cosmology and st…
We discuss how, in a Universe restricted to the causal region connected to the observer, General Relativity implies the quantum nature of physical phenomena and directly leads to a string theory scenario, whose dynamics is ruled by a…
The anthropic principle is based on the observation that, within narrow bounds, the laws of physics are such as to have allowed the evolution of life. The string theoretic approach to understanding this observation is based on the…
We propose an approach to explaining why naive large quantum fluctuations are not the right estimate for the cosmological constant. We argue that the universe is in a superposition of many vacua, in such a way that the resulting…
Human language defines the most complex outcomes of evolution. The emergence of such an elaborated form of communication allowed humans to create extremely structured societies and manage symbols at different levels including, among others,…
Although ultimately motivated by quantum theoretical considerations, Everett's many-world idea remains valid, as an approximation, in the classical limit. However to be applicable it must in any case be applied in conjunction with an…
Motivated by recent work of Bousso and Polchinski (BP), we study theories which explain the small value of the cosmological constant using the anthropic principle. We argue that simultaneous solution of the gauge hierarchy problem is a…
Probably not, because there are lots of manifestly unanthropic ways of producing entropy. We demonstrate that the Causal Entropic Principle (CEP), as a replacement for the anthropic principle to explain the properties of the observed…
In the context of models where the dark energy density $\rD$ is a random variable, anthropic selection effects may explain both the "old" cosmological constant problem and the "time coincidence". We argue that this type of solution to both…
I cast doubt upon the desired consistency between the anthropic principle and modern cosmology.
String theory is accused by some of its critics to be a purely abstract mathematical discipline, having lost the contact to the simple yet deeply rooted questions which physics provided until the beginning of this century. We argue that, in…
The Doomsday argument and anthropic reasoning are two puzzling examples of probabilistic confirmation. In both cases, a lack of knowledge apparently yields surprising conclusions. Since they are formulated within a Bayesian framework, they…
The existence of multiple regions of space beyond the observable Universe (within the so-called "multiverse") where the vacuum energy density takes different values, has been postulated as an explanation for the low non-zero value observed…
Are some cosmologists trying to return human beings to the centre of the cosmos? In the view of some critics, the so-called "anthropic principle" is a desperate attempt to salvage a scrap of dignity for our species after a few centuries of…
The weak axiom of revealed preference (WARP) ensures that the revealed preference (i) is a preference relation (i.e., it is complete and transitive) and (ii) rationalizes the choices. However, when WARP fails, either one of these two…
This paper uses anthropic reasoning to argue for a reduced likelihood that superintelligent AI will come into existence in the future. To make this argument, a new principle is introduced: the Super-Strong Self-Sampling Assumption (SSSSA),…
A general cosmological principle -- Aleph -- is proposed as a substitute to the Anthropic principle. Furthermore, the universe, conceived as a world ensemble, is characterized by many (possibly infinite) X-Life world principles. The only…
It can be argued that the ordinary description of the reversible quantum process between two one-to-one correlated measurement outcomes is incomplete because, by not specifying the direction of causality, it allows causal structures that…
Humans are black boxes -- we cannot observe their neural processes, yet society functions by evaluating verifiable arguments. AI explainability should follow this principle: stakeholders need verifiable reasoning chains, not mechanistic…
It has been claimed that the observed magnitude of the vacuum energy density is consistent with the distribution predicted in anthropic models, in which an ensemble of universes is assumed. This calculation is revisited, without making the…
In what has become a standard eternal inflation picture of the string landscape there are many problematic consequences and a difficulty defining probabilities for the occurrence of each type of universe. One feature in particular that…