By this logic, why do we believe anything is real at all? The odds of any set of atoms coming to rest in the configuration that allows you and I to be communicating over a site called lesserwrong.com is even more astronomically small than you winning the Euromillions lottery.
One of the points of this post is that “this isn’t real” hypotheses get penalised by more than you’d expect. Yes, the various positions of atoms corresponding to this are incredibly unlikely; but you have a lot of evidence that they are in the right configuration (ie, your entire life experience).
And that hypothesis is one that Anthropic decision theory whacks. It ignores Boltzmann brains, not because they’re unlikely (though they are, arguably, less likely that the standard evolution of life on Earth), but because your decision makes no difference if you’re Boltzmann brain, so you may as well ignore that possibility.
By this logic, why do we believe anything is real at all? The odds of any set of atoms coming to rest in the configuration that allows you and I to be communicating over a site called lesserwrong.com is even more astronomically small than you winning the Euromillions lottery.
One of the points of this post is that “this isn’t real” hypotheses get penalised by more than you’d expect. Yes, the various positions of atoms corresponding to this are incredibly unlikely; but you have a lot of evidence that they are in the right configuration (ie, your entire life experience).
This is called the Boltzmann Brain hypothesis.
And that hypothesis is one that Anthropic decision theory whacks. It ignores Boltzmann brains, not because they’re unlikely (though they are, arguably, less likely that the standard evolution of life on Earth), but because your decision makes no difference if you’re Boltzmann brain, so you may as well ignore that possibility.