Related papers: Anthropic reasoning in multiverse cosmology and st…
In some cosmological theories with varying constants there are anthropic reasons why the expansion of the universe must not be too {\it close} to flatness or the cosmological constant too close to zero. Using exact theories which…
Our laws of nature and our cosmos appear to be delicately fine-tuned for life to emerge, in a way that seems hard to attribute to chance. In view of this, some have taken the opportunity to revive the scholastic Argument from Design,…
We find ourselves in an extended era of entropy production. Unlike most other observations, the arrow of time is usually regarded as a constraint on initial conditions. I argue, however, that it primarily constrains the vacuum structure of…
Our current best guess for a unified theory of gravitation and quantum field theory (string theory) generically predicts a set of requirements for a consistently quantized theory, the Swampland criteria. Refined versions of these criteria…
Abstract argumentation offers an appealing way of representing and evaluating arguments and counterarguments. This approach can be enhanced by a probability assignment to each argument. There are various interpretations that can be ascribed…
The basic mathematical structure, QM-A, of the many worlds interpretation consists solely of the linear mathematics plus the Hilbert space properties of the state vectors. There is no collapse and there are no particles or hidden variables.…
Current cosmological observations indicate a preference for a cosmological constant that is drastically smaller than what can be explained by conventional particle physics. The Causal Entropic Principle (Bousso, {\it et al}.) provides an…
The probability distribution P from which the history of our universe is sampled represents a theory of everything or TOE. We assume P is formally describable. Since most (uncountably many) distributions are not, this imposes a strong…
AI explanation methods often assume a static user model, producing non-adaptive explanations regardless of expert goals, reasoning strategies, or decision contexts. Knowledge graph-based explanations, despite their capacity for grounded,…
Bayesian probability theory is used as a framework to develop a formalism for the scientific method based on principles of inductive reasoning. The formalism allows for precise definitions of the key concepts in theories of physics and also…
Qualitative and quantitative approaches to reasoning about uncertainty can lead to different logical systems for formalizing such reasoning, even when the language for expressing uncertainty is the same. In the case of reasoning about…
In this paper we investigate the links between instantiated argumentation systems and the axioms for non-monotonic reasoning described in [9] with the aim of characterising the nature of argument based reasoning. In doing so, we consider…
This is a short account, based on a talk given at the 2024 Moriond Cosmology Conference, of where and why string theory matters in early universe cosmology. It is written for a cosmology audience predisposed to be at best sceptical, and at…
We show monistic realism consistent with quantum theory may be restored by extending the essential idea of relativity in such a way that every physical system is eligible, in principle, for an observing system. As a result, a common logical…
Popular multiverse models such as the one based on the string theory landscape require an underlying set of unexplained laws containing many specific features and highly restrictive prerequisites. I explore the consequences of relaxing some…
The definition of thermodynamic entropy is dependent on one's assignment of physical microstates to observed macrostates. As a result, low entropy in the distant past could be equivalently explained by selection of a particular observer. In…
The dominant theories of rational choice assume logical omniscience. That is, they assume that when facing a decision problem, an agent can perform all relevant computations and determine the truth value of all relevant logical/mathematical…
When the topology of the universe is non trivial, it has been shown that there are constraints on the network of domain walls, cosmic strings and monopoles. I generalize these results to textures and study the cosmological implications of…
Research in cognitive psychology has established that whether people prefer simpler explanations to complex ones is context dependent, but the question of `simple vs. complex' becomes critical when an artificial agent seeks to explain its…
We study the cosmological implications of the one-loop terms in the string expansion. In particular, we find non-singular solutions which interpolate between a contracting universe and an expanding universe, and show that these solutions…