Download or read book Newcomb s Problem written by Arif Ahmed and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-11 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Which of two boxes to select for a monetary award; or, to select both? Someone else has predicted your choice.
Download or read book Paradoxes of Rationality and Cooperation written by Richmond Campbell and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 1985 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology, the first to bring together the most importantphilosophical essays on the paradoxes, analyses the concepts underlyingthe Prisoner's Dilemma and Newcomb's Problem and evaluates theproposed solutions. The relevant theories have been developed over thepast four decades in a variety of disciplines: mathematics, economics,psychology, political science, biology, and philosophy. And theproblems these paradoxes uncover can arise in many different forms: indebates over nuclear disarmament, labour-management disputes, maritalconflicts, Calvinist theology, and even in the evolution of diseasethrough the "cooperation" of microorganisms. Thepossibilities for application are virtually limitless.
Download or read book Newcomb s Problem written by Arif Ahmed and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-03 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Newcomb's problem is a controversial paradox of decision theory. It is easily explained and easily understood, and there is a strong chance that most of us have actually faced it in some form or other. And yet it has proven as thorny and intractable a puzzle as much older and better-known philosophical problems of consciousness, scepticism and fatalism. It brings into very sharp and focused disagreement several long-standing philosophical theories on practical rationality, on the nature of free will, and on the direction and analysis of causation. This volume introduces readers to the nature of Newcomb's problem, and ten chapters by leading scholars present the most recent debates around the problem and analyse its ramifications for decision theory, metaphysics, philosophical psychology and political science. Their chapters highlight the status of Newcomb's problem as a live and continuing issue in modern philosophy.
Download or read book Essays in Honor of Carl G Hempel written by N. Rescher and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-09 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The eminent philosopher of science Carl G. Hempel, Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University and a Past President of the American Philosophical Association, has had a long and distinguished academic career in the course of which he has been professorial mentor to some of America's most distinguished philosophers. This volume gathers together twelve original papers by Hempel's students and associates into a volume intended to do homage to Hempel on the occasion of his 65th year in 1970. The papers are grouped around the unifying topic of Hempel's own interests in logic and philosophy of science, the great majority dealing with issues on inductive logic and the theory of scientific explanatio- problems to which Hempel has devoted the bulk of his outstandingly fruitful efforts. With the approach of 'Peter' Hempel's 65th birthday, an editorial committee sprang into being by an uncannily spontaneous process to prepare to commemorate this event with an appropriate Festschrift. The editors were pleased to receive unfailingly prompt and efficient coopera tion on the part of all contributors. The responsibility of seeing the work through the press was assumed by Nicholas Rescher. The editors are grateful to all concerned for their collaboration. ALAN ROSS ANDERSON PAUL BENACERRAF ADOLF GRUNBAUM GERALD J. MASSEY NICHOLAS RESCHER RICHARD S. RUDNER TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE V PAUL OPPENHEIM: Reminiscences of Peter 1 w. v. QUINE: Natural Kinds 5 JAAKKO HINTIKKA: Inductive Independence and the Paradoxes of Confirmation 24 WESLEY c.
Download or read book Evidence Decision and Causality written by Arif Ahmed and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most philosophers agree that causal knowledge is essential to decision-making: agents should choose from the available options those that probably cause the outcomes that they want. This book argues against this theory and in favour of evidential or Bayesian decision theory, which emphasises the symptomatic value of options over their causal role. It examines a variety of settings, including economic theory, quantum mechanics and philosophical thought-experiments, where causal knowledge seems to make a practical difference. The arguments make novel use of machinery from other areas of philosophical inquiry, including first-person epistemology and the free will debate. The book also illustrates the applicability of decision theory itself to questions about the direction of time and the special epistemic status of agents.
Download or read book Paradox Lost written by Michael Huemer and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-06-28 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paradox Lost covers ten of philosophy’s most fascinating paradoxes, in which seemingly compelling reasoning leads to absurd conclusions. The following paradoxes are included: The Liar Paradox, in which a sentence says of itself that it is false. Is the sentence true or false? The Sorites Paradox, in which we imagine removing grains of sand one at a time from a heap of sand. Is there a particular grain whose removal converts the heap to a non-heap? The Puzzle of the Self-Torturer, in which a series of seemingly rational choices has us accepting a life of excruciating pain, in exchange for millions of dollars. Newcomb’s Problem, in which we seemingly maximize our expected profit by taking an unknown sum of money, rather than taking the same sum plus $1000. The Surprise Quiz Paradox, in which a professor finds that it is impossible to give a surprise quiz on any particular day of the week . . . but also that if this is so, then a surprise quiz can be given on any day. The Two Envelope Paradox, in which we are asked to choose between two indistinguishable envelopes, and it is seemingly shown that each envelope is preferable to the other. The Ravens Paradox, in which observing a purple shoe provides evidence that all ravens are black. The Shooting Room Paradox, in which a deadly game kills 90% of all who play, yet each individual’s survival turns on the flip of a fair coin. Each paradox is clearly described, common mistakes are explored, and a clear, logical solution offered. Paradox Lost will appeal to professional philosophers, students of philosophy, and all who love intellectual puzzles.
Download or read book On the Brink of Paradox written by Agustin Rayo and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to awe-inspiring ideas at the brink of paradox: infinities of different sizes, time travel, probability and measure theory, and computability theory. This book introduces the reader to awe-inspiring issues at the intersection of philosophy and mathematics. It explores ideas at the brink of paradox: infinities of different sizes, time travel, probability and measure theory, computability theory, the Grandfather Paradox, Newcomb's Problem, the Principle of Countable Additivity. The goal is to present some exceptionally beautiful ideas in enough detail to enable readers to understand the ideas themselves (rather than watered-down approximations), but without supplying so much detail that they abandon the effort. The philosophical content requires a mind attuned to subtlety; the most demanding of the mathematical ideas require familiarity with college-level mathematics or mathematical proof. The book covers Cantor's revolutionary thinking about infinity, which leads to the result that some infinities are bigger than others; time travel and free will, decision theory, probability, and the Banach-Tarski Theorem, which states that it is possible to decompose a ball into a finite number of pieces and reassemble the pieces so as to get two balls that are each the same size as the original. Its investigation of computability theory leads to a proof of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, which yields the amazing result that arithmetic is so complex that no computer could be programmed to output every arithmetical truth and no falsehood. Each chapter is followed by an appendix with answers to exercises. A list of recommended reading points readers to more advanced discussions. The book is based on a popular course (and MOOC) taught by the author at MIT.
Download or read book Socratic Puzzles written by Robert Nozick and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the foremost philosophers of our time, Robert Nozick continues the Socratic tradition of investigation. This volume, which illustrates the originality, force, and scope of his work, also displays Nozick's trademark blending of extraordinary analytical rigor with intellectual playfulness. As such, Socratic Puzzles testifies to the great pleasure that both doing and reading philosophy can be. Comprising essays and philosophical fictions, classics and new work, the book ranges from Socrates to W. V. Quine, from the implications of an Israeli kibbutz to the flawed arguments of Ayn Rand. Nozick considers the figure of Socrates himself as well as the Socratic method (why is it a "method" of getting at the truth?). Many of these essays bring classic methods to bear on new questions about choice. How should you choose in a disconcerting situation ("Newcomb's Problem") when your decisions are completely predictable? Why do threats and not offers typically coerce our choices? How do we make moral judgments when we realize that our moral principles have exceptions? Other essays present new approaches to familiar intellectual puzzles, from the stress on simplicity in scientific hypotheses to the tendency of intellectuals to oppose capitalism. As up to date as the latest reflections on animal rights; as perennial as the essentials of aesthetic merit (doggerel by Isaac Newton goes to prove that changing our view of the world won't suffice); as whimsical as a look at how some philosophical problems might appear from God's point of view: these essays attest to the timeliness and timelessness of Nozick's thinking. With a personal introduction, in which Nozick discusses the origins, tools, and themes of his work, Socratic Puzzles demonstrates how philosophy can constitute a way of life.
Download or read book Modeling Rationality Morality and Evolution written by Peter Danielson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1998-10-29 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection focuses on questions that arise when morality is considered from the perspective of recent work on rational choice and evolution. Linking questions like "Is it rational to be moral?" to the evolution of cooperation in "The Prisoners Dilemma," the book brings together new work using models from game theory, evolutionary biology, and cognitive science, as well as from philosophical analysis. Among the contributors are leading figures in these fields, including David Gauthier, Paul M. Churchland, Brian Skyrms, Ronald de Sousa, and Elliot Sober.
Download or read book Classic Problems of Probability written by Prakash Gorroochurn and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-05-02 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2012 PROSE Award for Mathematics from The American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence. "A great book, one that I will certainly add to my personal library." —Paul J. Nahin, Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering, University of New Hampshire Classic Problems of Probability presents a lively account of the most intriguing aspects of statistics. The book features a large collection of more than thirty classic probability problems which have been carefully selected for their interesting history, the way they have shaped the field, and their counterintuitive nature. From Cardano's 1564 Games of Chance to Jacob Bernoulli's 1713 Golden Theorem to Parrondo's 1996 Perplexing Paradox, the book clearly outlines the puzzles and problems of probability, interweaving the discussion with rich historical detail and the story of how the mathematicians involved arrived at their solutions. Each problem is given an in-depth treatment, including detailed and rigorous mathematical proofs as needed. Some of the fascinating topics discussed by the author include: Buffon's Needle problem and its ingenious treatment by Joseph Barbier, culminating into a discussion of invariance Various paradoxes raised by Joseph Bertrand Classic problems in decision theory, including Pascal's Wager, Kraitchik's Neckties, and Newcomb's problem The Bayesian paradigm and various philosophies of probability Coverage of both elementary and more complex problems, including the Chevalier de Méré problems, Fisher and the lady testing tea, the birthday problem and its various extensions, and the Borel-Kolmogorov paradox Classic Problems of Probability is an eye-opening, one-of-a-kind reference for researchers and professionals interested in the history of probability and the varied problem-solving strategies employed throughout the ages. The book also serves as an insightful supplement for courses on mathematical probability and introductory probability and statistics at the undergraduate level.
Download or read book Philosophical Papers Volume II written by David Lewis Professor of Philosophy Princeton University and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1987-03-26 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This second collection of essays by Lewis focuses on causation probability, dependence and decision, and several other related topics. The thirteen papers are a major contribution to philosophy by one of the most influential and imaginative of contemporary American philosophers.
Download or read book Good and Real written by Gary L. Drescher and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining a series of provocative paradoxes about consciousness, choice, ethics, and other topics, Good and Real tries to reconcile a purely mechanical view of the universe with key aspects of our subjective impressions of our own existence. In Good and Real, Gary Drescher examines a series of provocative paradoxes about consciousness, choice, ethics, quantum mechanics, and other topics, in an effort to reconcile a purely mechanical view of the universe with key aspects of our subjective impressions of our own existence. Many scientists suspect that the universe can ultimately be described by a simple (perhaps even deterministic) formalism; all that is real unfolds mechanically according to that formalism. But how, then, is it possible for us to be conscious, or to make genuine choices? And how can there be an ethical dimension to such choices? Drescher sketches computational models of consciousness, choice, and subjunctive reasoning--what would happen if this or that were to occur? --to show how such phenomena are compatible with a mechanical, even deterministic universe. Analyses of Newcomb's Problem (a paradox about choice) and the Prisoner's Dilemma (a paradox about self-interest vs. altruism, arguably reducible to Newcomb's Problem) help bring the problems and proposed solutions into focus. Regarding quantum mechanics, Drescher builds on Everett's relative-state formulation--but presenting a simplified formalism, accessible to laypersons--to argue that, contrary to some popular impressions, quantum mechanics is compatible with an objective, deterministic physical reality, and that there is no special connection between quantum phenomena and consciousness. In each of several disparate but intertwined topics ranging from physics to ethics, Drescher argues that a missing technical linchpin can make the quest for objectivity seem impossible, until the elusive technical fix is at hand.
Download or read book Decision Making Under Risk and Uncertainty written by J. Geweke and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As desired, the infonnation demand correspondence is single valued at equilibrium prices. Hence no planner is needed to assign infonnation allocations to individuals. Proposition 4. For any given infonnation price system p E . P (F *), almost every a E A demands a unique combined infonnation structure (although traders may be indifferent among partial infonnation sales from different information allocations, etc. ). In particular, the aggregate excess demand correspondence for net combined infonnation trades is a continuous function. Proof Uniqueness fails only if an agent can obtain the same expected utility from two or more net combined infonnation allocations. If this happens, appropriate slight perturbations of personal probability vectors destroy the equality unless the utility functions and wealth allocations were independent across states. Yet, when utilities and wealths don't depend on states in S, no infonnation to distinguish the states is desired, so that the demand for such infonnation structures must equal zero. To show the second claim, recall that if the correspondence is single valued for almost every agent, then its integral is also single valued. Finally, note that an upper hemicontinuous (by Proposition 2) correspondence which is single valued everywhere is, in fact, a continuous function. [] REFERENCES Allen, Beth (1986a). "The Demand for (Differentiated) Infonnation"; Review of Economic Studies. 53. (311-323). Allen, Beth (1986b). "General Equilibrium with Infonnation Sales"; Theory and Decision. 21. (1-33). Allen, Beth (1990). "Infonnation as an Economic Commodity"; American Economic Review. 80. (268-273).
Download or read book An Introduction to Decision Theory written by Martin Peterson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-30 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive and accessible introduction to all aspects of decision theory, now with new and updated discussions and over 140 exercises.
Download or read book Asymmetries In Time written by Paul Horwich and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1987-04-01 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Time is generally thought to be one of the more mysterious ingredients of the universe. In this intriguing book, Paul Horwich makes precise and explicit the interrelationships between time and a large number of philosophically important notions. Ideas of temporal order and priority interact in subtle and convoluted ways with the deepest elements in our network of basic concepts. Confronting this conceptual jigsaw puzzle, Horwich notes that there are glaring differences in how we regard the past and future directions of time. For example, we can influence the future but not the past, and can easily gain knowledge of the past but not of the future. Moreover we see a profusion of decay processes but little spontaneous generation of order; time appears to "flow" in one privileged direction, not the other; and we tend to explain phenomena in terms of antecedent circumstances, rather than subsequent ones. Horwich explains such time asymmetries and examines their bearing on the nature of time itself. Asymmetries in Time covers many notoriously difficult problems in the philosophy of science: causation, knowledge, entropy, explanation, time travel, rational choice (including Newcomb's problem), laws of nature, and counterfactual implication—and gives a unified treatment of these matters. The book covers an unusually broad range of topics in a lucid and nontechnical way and includes alternative points of view in the philosophical literature.
Download or read book Taking Chances written by Jordan Howard Sobel and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1994-04-29 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: J. Howard Sobel has long been recognized as an important figure in philosophical discussions of rational decision. He has done much to help formulate the concept of causal decision theory. In this volume of essays Sobel explores the Bayesian idea that rational actions maximize expected values, where an action's expected value is a weighted average of its agent's values for its possible total outcomes. Newcomb's Problem and The Prisoner's Dilemma are discussed, and Allais-type puzzles are viewed from the perspective of causal world Bayesianism. The author establishes principles for distinguishing options in decision problems, and studies ways in which perfectly rational causal maximizers can be capable of resolute choices. Sobel also views critically Gauthier's revisionist ideas about maximizing rationality. This collection will be a desideratum for anyone working in the field of rational choice theory, whether in philosophy, economics, political science, psychology or statistics. Howard Sobel's work in decision theory is certainly among the most important, interesting and challenging that is being done by philosophers.
Download or read book Probability Choice and Reason written by Leighton Vaughan Williams and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2021-09-15 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much of our thinking is flawed because it is based on faulty intuition. By using the framework and tools of probability and statistics, we can overcome this to provide solutions to many real-world problems and paradoxes. We show how to do this, and find answers that are frequently very contrary to what we might expect. Along the way, we venture into diverse realms and thought experiments which challenge the way that we see the world. Features: An insightful and engaging discussion of some of the key ideas of probabilistic and statistical thinking Many classic and novel problems, paradoxes, and puzzles An exploration of some of the big questions involving the use of choice and reason in an uncertain world The application of probability, statistics, and Bayesian methods to a wide range of subjects, including economics, finance, law, and medicine Exercises, references, and links for those wishing to cross-reference or to probe further Solutions to exercises at the end of the book This book should serve as an invaluable and fascinating resource for university, college, and high school students who wish to extend their reading, as well as for teachers and lecturers who want to liven up their courses while retaining academic rigour. It will also appeal to anyone who wishes to develop skills with numbers or has an interest in the many statistical and other paradoxes that permeate our lives. Indeed, anyone studying the sciences, social sciences, or humanities on a formal or informal basis will enjoy and benefit from this book.
