How to Predict Future Duration from Present Age
Kierland, Brian and Monton, Bradley (2005) How to Predict Future Duration from Present Age.
Full text available as: |
Abstract
Physicist J. Richard Gott has given an argument that, if good, allows one to make accurate predictions for the future longevity of a process, based solely on its present age. We show that there are problems with some of the details of Gott’s argument, but we defend the crucial insight: in many circumstances, the greater the present age of a process, the more likely a longer future duration.
| Keywords: | Copernican principle, delta t arugment, doomsday argument, Jeffreys prior, scale invariance, location invariance, Elliott Sober, Nick Bostrom, Ken Olum, Carleton Caves |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences: Probability/Statistics General Issues: Decision Theory |
| ID Code: | 2279 |
| Deposited By: | Monton, Bradley |
| Deposited On: | 27 April 2005 |
| Additional Information: | This is the penultimate version of a paper forthcoming in _Philosophical Quarterly_. Please do not cite this version. |