Anthropic Bias explores how to reason when you suspect that your
evidence is biased by "observation selection effects"--that is,
evidence that has been filtered by the precondition that there be
some suitably positioned observer to "have" the evidence. This
conundrum--sometimes alluded to as "the anthropic principle,"
"self-locating belief," or "indexical information"--turns out to be
a surprisingly perplexing and intellectually stimulating challenge,
one abounding with important implications for many areas in science
and philosophy. There are the philosophical thought experiments and
paradoxes: the Doomsday Argument; Sleeping Beauty; the Presumptuous
Philosopher; Adam & Eve; the Absent-Minded Driver; the Shooting
Room. And there are the applications in contemporary science:
cosmology ("How many universes are there?", "Why does the universe
appear fine-tuned for life?"); evolutionary theory ("How improbable
was the evolution of intelligent life on our planet?"); the problem
of time's arrow ("Can it be given a thermodynamic explanation?");
quantum physics ("How can the many-worlds theory be tested?");
game-theory problems with imperfect recall ("How to model them?");
even traffic analysis ("Why is the 'next lane' faster?"). Anthropic
Bias argues that the same principles are at work across all these
domains. And it offers a synthesis: a mathematically explicit
theory of observation selection effects that attempts to meet
scientific needs while steering clear of philosophical paradox.
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