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Existential Bias

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2023

Casper Storm Hansen Open the ORCID record for Casper Storm Hansen [Opens in a new window]
Casper Storm Hansen*
Affiliation:
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Philosophy, Beijing, China
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Email: casper_storm_hansen@hotmail.com
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Abstract

To ascertain the rational credences for the epistemic agents in the famous cases of self-locating belief, one should model the processes by which those agents acquire their evidence. This approach, taken by Darren Bradley (Phil. Review 121, 149–177) and Joseph Halpern (Ergo 2, 195–206), is immensely reasonable. Nevertheless, the work of those authors makes it seem as if this approach must lead to such conclusions as the Doomsday argument being correct, and that Sleeping Beauty should be a halfer. I argue that this is due to an implicit existential bias: it is assumed that the first step in those processes is the determination that the agent in question must necessarily exist. It is much more reasonable to model that determination as contingent and a result of other, earlier, steps in the process. This paper offers such alternative models. They imply an endorsement of what has mockingly been called “presumptuous” reasoning, and a massive shift of credences in favor of (1) the existence of a multiverse and (2) the Everettian interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Keywords

Self-locating beliefDoomsday argumentSleeping Beautyquantum mechanicsfine-tuning argumentprotocolsselection effects
Type
Article
Information
Episteme , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , September 2023 , pp. 701 - 721
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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