[PhilPhys] Warsaw Spacetime Colloquium: John Norton (25 February on Zoom)

[Antonio Vassallo]

(With apologies for cross-posting)

On Friday, 25 February, John Norton (University of Pittsburgh) will give a
talk titled "Eternal Inflation: When Probabilities Fail" (abstract below).

The meeting will be online on Zoom (17:00-19:00 CET). If you have not
registered yet, you can do so here <https://forms.gle/qpb8vVjtrF4y2nZ76>.

The Colloquium is organized by the Philosophy of Physics Group at the
Faculty of Administration and Social Sciences, Warsaw University of
Technology. The program for the summer semester is here
<https://ssqg.ans.pw.edu.pl/en/index.php/warsaw-spacetime-colloquium-2021-2022-online/>.
The videos of the previous meetings are available on YouTube
<https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLM-1yNCyvJJC0KUgEqXTsFA38luoSiqXo>.

You can address any inquiry to antonio.vassallo at pw.edu.pl.

ABSTRACT
In eternally inflating cosmology, infinitely many pocket universes are
seeded. Attempts to show that universes like our observable universe are
probable amongst them have failed, since no unique probability measure is
recoverable. This lack of definite probabilities is taken to reveal a
complete predictive failure. Inductive inference over the pocket universes,
it would seem, is impossible. I argue that this conclusion of impossibility
mistakes the nature of the problem. It confuses the case in which no
inductive inference is possible, with another in which a weaker inductive
logic applies. The alternative, applicable inductive logic is determined by
background conditions and is the same, non-probabilistic logic as applies
to an infinite lottery. This inductive logic does not preclude all
predictions, but does affirm that predictions useful to deciding for or
against eternal inflation are precluded.
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