Adlam, Emily (2024) Against Self-Location. [Preprint]

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Abstract

I distinguish between pure self-locating credences and superficially self-locating credences, and argue that there is never any rationally compelling way to assign pure self-locating credences. I first argue that from a practical point of view, pure self-locating credences simply encode our pragmatic goals, and thus pragmatic rationality does not dictate how they must be set. I then use considerations motivated by Bertrand's paradox to argue that the indifference principle and other popular constraints on self-locating credences fail to be a priori principles of epistemic rationality, and I critique some approaches to deriving self-locating credences based on analogies to non-self-locating cases. Finally, I consider the implications of this conclusion for various applications of self-locating probabilities in scientific contexts, arguing that it may undermine certain kinds of reasoning about multiverses, the simulation hypothesis, Boltzmann brains and vast-world scenarios.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Adlam, Emily eadlam90@gmail.com
Keywords:	self location; rationality; epistemology; credences
Subjects:	General Issues > Confirmation/Induction General Issues > Decision Theory General Issues > Evidence
Depositing User:	Dr Emily Adlam
Date Deposited:	26 Apr 2024 22:40
Last Modified:	26 Apr 2024 22:40
Item ID:	23315
Subjects:	General Issues > Confirmation/Induction General Issues > Decision Theory General Issues > Evidence
Date:	23 April 2024
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/23315

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