Anthropic Bias Observation Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy Nick Bostrom



Download 9.31 Mb.
Page45/94
Date09.06.2018
Size9.31 Mb.
#54134
1   ...   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   ...   94

Non-triviality of the reference class: why must be rejected


We thus see how making use of the more fine-grained indexical information represented by observer-moments (rather than observers as wholes) makes it possible to move to a relativized definition of the reference class, and how this enables us to avoid the counterintuitive consequences that flow from applying SSA with a universal reference class in DA, Adam-and-Eve, Quantum Joe, and UN++.

It was noted that the Incubator observer-moments that were on this approach placed in different reference classes were different in ways that are not small or arbitrary but importantly relevant to the problem at hand. Is possible to say something more definite about the criteria for membership in an observer-moment’s reference class? This section establishes one important constraint on how the reference class can rationally be defined.



What we shall call , the minimal reference class definition, is the beguilingly simple idea that the reference class for a given observer-moment consists of those and only those observer-moments from which it is subjectively indistinguishable:

()

Two observer-moments are subjectively indistinguishable iff they can’t tell which of them they are. (Being able to say “I am this observer-moment, not that one” does not count as being able to tell which observer-moment you are.) For example, if one observer-moment has a pain in his toe and another has a pain in his finger then they are not subjectively indistinguishable; for they can identify themselves as “this is the observer-moment with the pain in his toe” and “this is the observer-moment with the pain in his finger”, respectively. By contrast, if two brains are in the precisely the same state, then (assuming epistemic states supervene on brain states) the two corresponding observer-moments will be subjectively indistinguishable. The same holds if the brains are in slightly different states but the differences are imperceptible to the subjects.



Download 9.31 Mb.

Share with your friends:
1   ...   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   ...   94




The database is protected by copyright ©ininet.org 2024
send message

    Main page