Its not about the objective randomness, to me its about the fact that the frequency is by necessity hypothetical. Yes their will only be one tomorrow, and rain might be pre-determined. But we can make arguments about “in a sample of days like tomorrow we know that some % will see rain.” But their can only be one universe, even in principle, so the idea of generalizing to a class of universes and taking our universe as a member of that class I think can cause problems.
While writing this posting, Max and I had several discussions about anthropic bias. It left me pretty uncomfortable with the application of it here as well, although I often took the position of defending it during our debates. I strongly relate to your use of the word “mysterious”.
A prior that “we are not exceptionally special” seems to work pretty good across lots of beliefs that have occurred throughout history. I feel like that prior works really well but is at odds with the anthropic bias argument.
I’m still haven’t resolved whether the anthropic argument is valid here in my own mind. But I share Ben’s discomfort.
Its not about the objective randomness, to me its about the fact that the frequency is by necessity hypothetical. Yes their will only be one tomorrow, and rain might be pre-determined. But we can make arguments about “in a sample of days like tomorrow we know that some % will see rain.” But their can only be one universe, even in principle, so the idea of generalizing to a class of universes and taking our universe as a member of that class I think can cause problems.
While writing this posting, Max and I had several discussions about anthropic bias. It left me pretty uncomfortable with the application of it here as well, although I often took the position of defending it during our debates. I strongly relate to your use of the word “mysterious”.
A prior that “we are not exceptionally special” seems to work pretty good across lots of beliefs that have occurred throughout history. I feel like that prior works really well but is at odds with the anthropic bias argument.
I’m still haven’t resolved whether the anthropic argument is valid here in my own mind. But I share Ben’s discomfort.