In this paper, I argue that some plausible principles concerning which credences are rationally permissible for agents given information about one another’s epistemic and credal states have some surprising consequences for which credences an agent ought to have in light of self-locating information. I provide a framework that allows us to state these constraints and draw out these consequences precisely. I then consider and assess the prospects for rejecting these prima facie plausible principles.

I argue that different views in the metaphysics of time make different observational predictions in both classical and relativistic cases. Because different views in the metaphysics of time differ over which facts are merely indexical facts, they make different observational predictions about certain self-locating propositions. I argue for this thesis by distinguishing the three main updating procedures that apply in cases of self-locating uncertainty, and I present a series of cases which cumulatively show that every one of these updating procedures (...) distinguishes eternalism and presentism in both classical and relativistic settings. (shrink)

The epistemology of self-locating belief concerns itself with how rational agents ought to respond to certain kinds of indexical information. I argue that those who endorse the thesis of Time-Slice Rationality ought to endorse a particular view about the epistemology of self-locating belief, according to which ‘essentially indexical’ information is never evidentially relevant to non-indexical matters. I close by offering some independent motivations for endorsing Time-Slice Rationality in the context of the epistemology of self-locating belief.

I argue that we can get evidence for the temporal ontology of the universe simply by looking at the time. The argument is an extension of the ‘epistemic objection’ towards Growing Block theories.

Many philosophers have been attracted to a restricted version of the principle of indifference in the case of self-locating belief. Roughly speaking, this principle states that, within any given possible world, one should be indifferent between different hypotheses concerning who one is within that possible world, so long as those hypotheses are compatible with one’s evidence. My first goal is to defend a more precise version of this principle. After responding to several existing criticisms of such a principle, I argue (...) that existing formulations of the principle are crucially ambiguous, and I go on to defend a particular disambiguation of the principle. According to the disambiguation I defend, how we should apply this restricted principle of indifference sensitively depends on our background metaphysical beliefs. My second goal is to apply this disambiguated principle to classical skeptical problems in epistemology. In particular, I argue that Eternalism threatens to lead us to external world skepticism, and Modal Realism threatens to lead us to inductive skepticism. (shrink)

How do temporal and eternal beliefs interact? I argue that acquiring a temporal belief should have no effect on eternal beliefs for an important range of cases. Thus, I oppose the popular view that new norms of belief change must be introduced for cases where the only change is the passing of time. I defend this position from the purported counter-examples of the Prisoner and Sleeping Beauty. I distinguish two importantly different ways in which temporal beliefs can be acquired and (...) draw some general conclusions about their impact on eternal beliefs. (shrink)

This article defends the Doomsday Argument, the Halfer Position in Sleeping Beauty, the Fine-Tuning Argument, and the applicability of Bayesian confirmation theory to the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics. It will argue that all four problems have the same structure, and it gives a unified treatment that uses simple models of the cases and no controversial assumptions about confirmation or self-locating evidence. The article will argue that the troublesome feature of all these cases is not self-location but selection effects.

In Bradley, I offered an analysis of Sleeping Beauty and the Everettian interpretation of quantum mechanics. I argued that one can avoid a kind of easy confirmation of EQM by paying attention to observation selection effects, that halfers are right about Sleeping Beauty, and that thirders cannot avoid easy confirmation for the truth of EQM. Wilson agrees with my analysis of observation selection effects in EQM, but goes on to, first, defend Elga’s thirder argument on Sleeping Beauty and, second, argue (...) that the analogy I draw between Sleeping Beauty and EQM fails. I will argue that neither point succeeds. 1 Introduction2 Background3 Wilson’s Argument for ⅓ in Sleeping Beauty4 Reply: Explaining Away the Crazy5 Wilson's Argument for the Breakdown of the Analogy6 Reply: The Irrelevance of Chance7 Conclusion. (shrink)

Sometimes we learn what the world is like, and sometimes we learn where in the world we are. Are there any interesting differences between the two kinds of cases? The main aim of this article is to argue that learning where we are in the world brings into view the same kind of observation selection effects that operate when sampling from a population. I will first explain what observation selection effects are ( Section 1 ) and how they are relevant (...) to learning where we are in the world ( Section 2 ). I will show how measurements in the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics can be understood as learning where you are in the world via some observation selection effect ( Section 3 ). I will apply a similar argument to the Sleeping Beauty Problem ( Section 4 ) and explain what I take the significance of the analogy to be ( Section 5 ). Finally, I will defend the Restricted Principle of Indifference on which some of my arguments depend ( Section 6 ). (shrink)

Colin Howson (1995 ) offers a counter-example to the rule of conditionalization. I will argue that the counter-example doesn't hit its target. The problem is that Howson mis-describes the total evidence the agent has. In particular, Howson overlooks how the restriction that the agent learn 'E and nothing else' interacts with the de se evidence 'I have learnt E'.

How should we respond to evidence when our evidence indicates that we are rationally impaired? I will defend a novel answer based on the analogy between self-doubt and memory loss. To believe that one is now impaired and previously was not is to believe that one’s epistemic position has deteriorated. Memory loss is also a form of epistemic deterioration. I argue that agents who suffer from epistemic deterioration should return to the priors they had at an earlier time. I develop (...) this argument regarding memory loss then extend it to cases of self-doubt. (shrink)

I argue that the Oxford school Everett interpretation is internally incoherent, because we cannot claim that in an Everettian universe the kinds of reasoning we have used to arrive at our beliefs about quantum mechanics would lead us to form true beliefs. I show that in an Everettian context, the experimental evidence that we have available could not provide empirical confirmation for quantum mechanics, and moreover that we would not even be able to establish reference to the theoretical entities of (...) quantum mechanics. I then consider a range of existing Everettian approaches to the probability problem and show that they do not succeed in overcoming this incoherence. (shrink)

Principles of expert deference say that you should align your credences with those of an expert. This expert could be your doctor, the objective chances, or your future self, after you've learnt something new. These kinds of principles face difficulties in cases in which you are uncertain of the truth-conditions of the thoughts in which you invest credence, as well as cases in which the thoughts have different truth-conditions for you and the expert. For instance, you shouldn't defer to your (...) doctor by aligning your credence in the de se thought 'I am sick' with the doctor's credence in that same de se thought. Here, I generalise principles of expert deference to handle these kinds of problem cases. (shrink)

The Snow White problem is introduced to demonstrate how learning something of which one could not have learnt the opposite (due to observer selection bias) can change an agent’s probability assignment. This helps us to analyse the Sleeping Beauty problem, which is deconstructed as a combinatorial engine and a subjective wrapper. The combinatorial engine of the problem is analogous to Bertrand’s boxes paradox and can be solved with standard probability theory. The subjective wrapper is clarified using the Snow White problem. (...) Sample spaces for all three problems are presented. The conclusion is that subjectivity plays no irreducible role in solving the Sleeping Beauty problem and that no reference to centered worlds is required to provide the answer. (shrink)

We provide a derivation of the Born Rule in the context of the Everett (Many-Worlds) approach to quantum mechanics. Our argument is based on the idea of self-locating uncertainty: in the period between the wave function branching via decoherence and an observer registering the outcome of the measurement, that observer can know the state of the universe precisely without knowing which branch they are on. We show that there is a uniquely rational way to apportion credence in such cases, which (...) leads directly to the Born Rule. Our analysis generalizes straightforwardly to cases of combined classical and quantum self-locating uncertainty, as in the cosmological multiverse. (shrink)

Bayesian Epistemology is a general framework for thinking about agents who have beliefs that come in degrees. Theories in this framework give accounts of rational belief and rational belief change, which share two key features: (i) rational belief states are represented with probability functions, and (ii) rational belief change results from the acquisition of evidence. This dissertation focuses specifically on the second feature. I pose the Evidence Question: What is it to have evidence? Before addressing this question we must have (...) an understanding of Bayesian Epistemology. The first chapter argues that we should understand Bayesian Epistemology as giving us theories that are evaluative and not action-guiding. I reach this verdict after considering the popular ‘ought’-implies-‘can’ objection to Bayesian Epistemology. The second chapter argues that it is important for theories in Bayesian Epistemology to answer the Evidence Question, and distinguishes between internalist and externalist answers. The third and fourth chapters present and defend a specific answer to the Evidence Question. The account is inspired by reliabilist accounts of justification, and attempts to understand what it is to have evidence by appealing solely to considerations of reliability. Chapter 3 explains how to understand reliability, and how the account fits with Bayesian Epistemology, in particular, the requirement that an agent’s evidence receive probability 1. Chapter 4 responds to objections, which maintain that the account gives the wrong verdict in a variety of situations including skeptical scenarios, lottery cases, scientific cases, and cases involving inference. After slight modifications, I argue that my account has the resources to answer the objections. The fifth chapter considers the possibility of losing evidence. I show how my account can model these cases. To do so, however, we require a modification to Conditionalization, the orthodox principle governing belief change. I present such a modification. The sixth and seventh chapters propose a new understanding of Dutch Book Arguments, historically important arguments for Bayesian principles. The proposal shows that the Dutch Book Arguments for implausible principles are defective, while the ones for plausible principles are not. The final chapter is a conclusion. (shrink)

About a decade ago, Adam Elga introduced philosophers to an intriguing puzzle. In it, Sleeping Beauty, a perfectly rational agent, undergoes an experiment in which she becomes ignorant of what time it is. This situation is puzzling for two reasons: First, because there are two equally plausible views about how she will change her degree of belief given her situation and, second, because the traditional rules for updating degrees of belief don't seem to apply to this case. In this dissertation, (...) my goals are to settle the debate concerning this puzzle and to offer a new rule for updating some types of degrees of belief. Regarding the puzzle, I will defend a view called "the Lesser view," a view largely favorable to the Thirders' position in the traditional debate on the puzzle. Regarding the general rule for updating, I will present and defend a rule called "Shifted Jeffrey Conditionalization." My discussions of the above view and rule will complement each other: On the one hand, I defend the Lesser view by making use of Shifted Jeffrey Conditionalization. On the other hand, I test Shifted Jeffrey Conditionalization by applying it to various credal transitions in the Sleeping Beauty problem and revise that rule in accordance with the results of the test application. In the end, I will present and defend an updating rule called "General Shifted Jeffrey Conditionalization," which I suspect is the general rule for updating one's degrees of belief in so-called tensed propositions. (shrink)

Contemporary arguments for and against the existence of God are often formulated within a broadly Bayesian framework. Arguments of this sort focus on a specific feature of the world that is taken to provide probabilistic evidence for or against the existence of God: the existence of life in a ‘fine-tuned’ universe, the magnitude of suffering, divine hiddenness, etc. In each case, the idea is that things were more likely to be this way if God existed than if God did not (...) exist—or the other way around. Less attention, however, has been paid to the deeper question of what it takes for something to count as evidence for or against the existence of God. What exactly is being claimed when it is said that some feature of the world is more or less likely given the existence of God, and how should we go about assessing such a claim? This paper is about epistemological issues—and in particular, certain potential cognitive errors—that arise when we reason probabilistically about the existence of God. The moral is not that we should refrain from reasoning in this way, but that we should be mindful of potential errors when we do. (shrink)

We develop a Bayesian framework for thinking about the way evidence about the here and now can bear on hypotheses about the qualitative character of the world as a whole, including hypotheses according to which the total population of the world is infinite. We show how this framework makes sense of the practice cosmologists have recently adopted in their reasoning about such hypotheses.

This paper proposes a new explanation for the paradoxes related to anthropic reasoning. Solutions to the Sleeping Beauty Problem and the Doomsday argument are discussed in detail. The main argument can be summarized as follows: -/- Our thoughts, reasonings and narratives inherently comes from a certain perspective. With each perspective there is a center, or using the term broadly, a self. The natural first-person perspective is most primitive. However we can also think and express from others’ perspectives with a theory (...) of mind. A perspective’s center could be unrelated to the topic of discussion so its de se thoughts need not to be considered, e.g. the perspective of an outside observer. Let’s call these the third-person perspective. First-person reasoning allows primitive self identification as I am inherently unique as the center of the perspective. Whereas from third-person perspective I am not fundamentally special comparing to others so a reference class of observers including me can be defined. It is my contention that reasonings from different perspectives should not mix. Otherwise it could lead to paradoxes even independent of anthropic reasoning. The paradoxes surrounding anthropic reasoning are caused by the aforementioned perspective mix. Regarding the sleeping beauty problem the correct answer should be double halving. Lewisian halving and thirding uses unique reasonings from both first and third-person perspectives. Indexical probabilities such as “the probability that this is the first awakening” or “the probability of me being one of the first 100 billion human beings” also mixes first- and third-person reasonings. Therefore invalid. Readers against perspectivism may disagree with point 1 and suggest we could reason in objective terms without the limit of perspectives. My argument is compatible with this belief. Objective reasoning would be analytically identical to the third-person perspective. My argument would become that objective reasoning and perspective reasonings should not mix. In the following I would continue to use “third-person perspective” but readers can switch that to “objective reasoning” if they wish so. (shrink)

How should our beliefs change over time? The standard answer to this question is the Bayesian one. But while the Bayesian account works well with respect to beliefs about the world, it breaks down when applied to self-locating or de se beliefs. In this work I explore ways to extend Bayesianism in order to accommodate de se beliefs. I begin by assessing, and ultimately rejecting, attempts to resolve these issues by appealing to Dutch books and chance-credence principles. I then propose (...) and examine several accounts of the dynamics of de se beliefs. These examinations suggest that an extension of Bayesianism to de se beliefs will require some uncomfortable choices. I conclude by laying out the options available, and assessing the prospects of each. (shrink)

Imagine slicing your hand with a steak knife. Inevitably, this leads to a characteristic unpleasant sensation, and just as reliably, to a withdrawal of the wounded limb. But can this rather mundane fact--and other similar facts--shed any light on the mind-body problem or the issue of the role of experience in causing behavior? In my dissertation, I explore this issue head on, and in the process clarify and criticize the arguments of philosophers who have given an affirmative answer to this (...) question--philosophers such as William James and Herbert Spencer. These arguments have coupled evidence like the above with the fact that human beings have evolved, in order to make the case that epiphenomenalism with respect to qualia is false. My first task will be to formulate a rigorous version of a James-Spencer style argument, which will occupy us in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 is dedicated to answering a number of objections to the argument, in an effort to show that if there is a problem with it, this problem lies elsewhere. Chapter 3 explores alternative arguments in the spirit of the original one formulated in Chapter 1, and discusses any resulting effects on the plausibility of the conclusion. Chapter 4 is the capstone chapter of the dissertation. In it, I discuss a crucial objection to all arguments in the spirit of that given in the first chapter--namely, that physicalism has analogous flaws to epiphenomenalism where accommodating the relevant evidence is concerned. My conclusions in this final chapter are twofold. First, that even if there is no fatal flaw in the general strategy the evolutionary argument employs, it works against all forms of dualism, not just epiphenomenalism. And second, the accusations made in the objection are correct; physicalism suffers from problems analogous to those faced by epiphenomenalism. Although the primary findings of the dissertation are negative, there are many lessons we can take from them along the way. Most prominent among them is an improved perspective on the appropriate roles of empirical findings and armchair philosophical theorizing in debate over the mind-body problem. (shrink)

I restate the Sleeping Beauty probabilistic paradox and offer an overview of the ongoing discussions that aim at resolving the problem. I summarize and eventually criticize briefly the various views: neutral position, Bayesian thirdism, non-Bayesian thirdism, traditional halfism, as well as the new halfism of credence conservation, a somewhat neglected but interesting point of view. I try at the same time to clarify some essential notions, to introduce the main actors of the debate, and to anticipate its evolution.

Reasoning that takes into account self-locating evidence in apparently plausible ways sometimes yields the startling conclusion that rational credences are such as if agents had bizarre causal powers. The present paper introduces a novel version of the Sleeping Beauty problem—Choosing Beauty—for which the response to the problem advocated by David Lewis unappealingly yields this conclusion. Furthermore, it suggests as a general desideratum for approaches to problems of self-locating belief that they should not recommend credences that are as if anyone had (...) anomalous causal powers. Adopting this desideratum, as the paper shows, yields uniformly plausible verdicts on the most-discussed problems of self-locating belief. (shrink)

A large number of essays address the Sleeping Beauty problem, which undermines the validity of Bayesian inference and Bas Van Fraassen's 'Reflection Principle'. In this study a straightforward analysis of the problem based on probability theory is presented. The key difference from previous works is that apart from the random experiment imposed by the problem's description, a different one is also considered, in order to negate the confusion on the involved conditional probabilities. The results of the analysis indicate that no (...) inconsistency takes place, whereas both Bayesian inference and 'Reflection Principle' are valid. (shrink)

Technical criticism of Jacob Ross's "Sleeping Beauty, Countable Additivity and Rational Dilemmas" and Double Halfing.

How should our beliefs change over time? Much has been written about how our beliefs should change in the light of new evidence. But that is not the question I’m asking. Sometimes our beliefs change without new evidence. I previously believed it was Sunday. I now believe it’s Monday. In this paper I discuss the implications of such beliefs for philosophy of language. I will argue that we need to allow for ‘dynamic’ beliefs, that we need new norms of belief (...) change to model how they function, and that this gives Perry’s (1977) two tier account the advantage over Lewis’s (1979) theory -/- . (shrink)

Unremarkable earlier draft of "Sleeping Beauty: A Critical Survey".

Parodic earlier draft of "Sleeping Beauty: why violations of probability laws are `Deal' breakers".