Causation, Indexical facts &Self-sampling

From: Nick Bostrom <bostrom.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 12:37:55 +0000

The Self-Sampling Assumption (SSA), the idea that you should reason
as if you were a random sample form the set of all observers,
underlies many of the discussions we have had on this list. About
half a year ago I discovered some paradoxical consequences of this
assumption. It seems to imply that weird backwards causation and
psychokinesis(!) is feasible in our world. In this small paper I
describe these possible counterexamples and discuss whether they
really are as paradoxical as they appear at first blush:

http://www.anthropic-principle.com/preprints/cau/causation.doc

Comments?


Nick Bostrom
http://www.hedweb.com/nickb n.bostrom.domain.name.hidden
Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method
London School of Economics
Received on Tue Apr 13 1999 - 04:40:07 PDT

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