Past Longevity as Evidence for the Future.
Gott (1993) has used the 'Copernican principle' to derive a probability distribution for the total longevity of any phenomenon, based solely on the phenomenon's past longevity. Leslie (1996) and others have used an apparently similar probabilistic argument, the 'Doomsday Argument', to claim that con...
| Publicado en: | Philosophy of Science Vol. 76; no. 1; pp. 73 - 101 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Cambridge University Press
Jan2009
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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=43158027&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 43158027 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00318248 PSC jtl: Philosophy of Science issn: 00318248 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jan2009 vid: 76 iid: 1 pid: 15979 pub: Cambridge University Press artinfo: ui: 43158027 10.1086/599273 ppf: 73 ppct: 28 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 1.6MB tig: atl: Past Longevity as Evidence for the Future. aug: au: Pisaturo, Ronald su: Longevity Evidence Future (Logic) Logical prediction Bayesian analysis sug: subj: Longevity Evidence Future (Logic) Logical prediction Bayesian analysis ab: Gott (1993) has used the 'Copernican principle' to derive a probability distribution for the total longevity of any phenomenon, based solely on the phenomenon's past longevity. Leslie (1996) and others have used an apparently similar probabilistic argument, the 'Doomsday Argument', to claim that conventional predictions of longevity must be adjusted, based on Bayes's Theorem, in favor of shorter longevities. Here I show that Gott's arguments are flawed and contradictory, but that one of his conclusions is plausible and mathematically equivalent to Laplace's famous--and notorious--'rule of succession'. On the other hand, the Doomsday Argument, though it appears consistent with some common-sense grains of truth, is fallacious; the argument's key error is to conflate future longevity and total longevity. Applying the work of Hill (1968) and Coolen (1998, 2006) in the field of nonparametric predictive inference, I propose an alternative argument for quantifying how past longevity of a phenomenon does provide evidence for future longevity. In so doing, I identify an objective standard by which to choose among counting time intervals, counting population, or counting any other measure of past longevity in predicting future longevity. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Philosophy of Science is the property of Cambridge University Press 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: Philosophy of Science holder: Cambridge University Press dt: @attributes: year: 2009 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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