Adam Elga

And then just empty silence, meaning the theory that just doesn't say anything about the case.

All right.

You could do that.

But what I want is a case that, um,

gives us the kind of rationality verdicts that we ordinarily thought we were going to have you know the scientists should they run is this particle accelerator worth 600 billion dollars to build or not right that's a question that should have an answer

In consistency, I am forced to answer yes, though I don't like it.

That's the real, that's the honest truth.

This is an instance of what, I mean, look, we can't not talk about presumptuousness at this point.

To use your phrase in one of your papers, let us don the robes of the presumptuous philosopher.

The cosmologists come in with two theories.

One theory says there's just an ordinary universe, just one instantiation of someone who's having experiences like yours.

The other theory, there are many instantiations.

Someone who is attracted to the third or type view or equivalently to the view according to which possible worlds that involve many instantiations of your experience, your state of mind, get a kind of boost.

That kind of person is committed to saying that

Theory B, in this case, gets a big boost.

And there they are sitting in their philosopher's chair and how presumptuous.

And so that's, I say it in a jokey way, but I take this as a real serious weighty criticism.

It seems like a disaster to have to let the cosmological determination depend on that factor so much.

There's plenty of presumptuousness to go around, just as a matter of terminology and to tie things together a little bit.

I want to label some of the things we've been talking about using the terms that are customary in this literature.