Blurring Out Cosmic Puzzles
Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
2023-06-22 v1 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
History and Philosophy of Physics
Abstract
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 constitute a challenge to Bayesianism. Several attempts, some successful, have been made to avoid these conclusions, but some versions of these arguments cannot be dissolved within the framework of orthodox Bayesianism. I show that adopting an imprecise framework of probabilistic reasoning allows for a more adequate representation of ignorance in Bayesian reasoning and explains away these puzzles.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1412.4382,
title = {Blurring Out Cosmic Puzzles},
author = {Yann Benétreau-Dupin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1412.4382},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
15 pages, 1 figure. To appear in Philosophy of Science (PSA 2014)