The Boltzmann Brains Puzzle.
Leading cosmological theories engender a controversial puzzle which has prompted philosophers to propose competing epistemological solutions and physicists to propose methodological changes to cosmology. The puzzle arises from the prediction that every brain on Earth will eventually be vastly outnum...
| Publicado en: | Nous (0029-4624) Vol. 57; no. 4; pp. 958 - 973 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Wiley-Blackwell
Dec2023
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=174031950&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 174031950 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00294624 D97 jtl: Nous (0029-4624) issn: 00294624 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Dec2023 vid: 57 iid: 4 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell artinfo: ui: 174031950 10.1111/nous.12439 ppf: 958 ppct: 15 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 195KB tig: atl: The Boltzmann Brains Puzzle. aug: au: Avni, Ron affil: The University of Texas at Austin su: Outer space Puzzles Collisions (Nuclear physics) Extraterrestrial beings Prediction theory sug: subj: Outer space Puzzles Collisions (Nuclear physics) Extraterrestrial beings Prediction theory ab: Leading cosmological theories engender a controversial puzzle which has prompted philosophers to propose competing epistemological solutions and physicists to propose methodological changes to cosmology. The puzzle arises from the prediction that every brain on Earth will eventually be vastly outnumbered by physical duplicates formed by random collisions of particles in outer space. Supposing that this prediction is correct, shouldn't you believe that your brain is probably one of these vastly more typical extraterrestrial brains, since you cannot infer your brain's origin from your experiential state? But supposing that your brain is one of these extraterrestrial brains, why be confident in the cosmological theories, since you never actually received testimony supporting these theories? Proposals in the literature either deny the rationality of believing theories that make the prediction or deny the typicality of your brain among its duplicates. This paper argues that these proposals are not entirely satisfactory. Instead, one should be confident in theories making the prediction on the supposition that your brain is one of the extraterrestrial brains. The upshots include that it may be rational to believe that your brain is probably an extraterrestrial brain and that cosmologists should not alter their methodology in response to the puzzle. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Nous (0029-4624) is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Nous (0029-4624) holder: Wiley-Blackwell dt: @attributes: year: 2023 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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