The more I think about anthropics the more I realize there is no rational theory for anthropic binding. For the question “what is the probability that I am the heavy brain?” there really isn’t a rational answer.
I agree that there doesn’t seem to be a theory, and there are many things about the problem that makes reaching any level of certainty about it impossible (the we can only have one sample thing). I do not agree that there’s a principled argument for giving up looking for a coherent theory.
I suspect it’s going to turn out to be like it was with priors about the way the world is: Lacking information, we have just fall back on solomonoff induction. It works well enough, and it’s all we have, and it’s better than nothing.
So… oh… we can define priors about our location in the in terms of the complexity of a description of their locations. This feels like most of the solution, but I can’t tell, there are gaps left, and I can’t tell how difficult it will be to complete the bridges.
The more I think about anthropics the more I realize there is no rational theory for anthropic binding. For the question “what is the probability that I am the heavy brain?” there really isn’t a rational answer.
I agree that there doesn’t seem to be a theory, and there are many things about the problem that makes reaching any level of certainty about it impossible (the we can only have one sample thing). I do not agree that there’s a principled argument for giving up looking for a coherent theory.
I suspect it’s going to turn out to be like it was with priors about the way the world is: Lacking information, we have just fall back on solomonoff induction. It works well enough, and it’s all we have, and it’s better than nothing.
So… oh… we can define priors about our location in the in terms of the complexity of a description of their locations. This feels like most of the solution, but I can’t tell, there are gaps left, and I can’t tell how difficult it will be to complete the bridges.