• DOI:10.1007/s11098-019-01404-y
• Corpus ID: 214109116

Does my total evidence support that I’m a Boltzmann Brain?

@article{Dogramaci2019DoesMT,
  title={Does my total evidence support that I’m a Boltzmann Brain?},
  author={Sinan Dogramaci},
  journal={Philosophical Studies},
  year={2019},
  volume={177},
  pages={1-7}
}

• Sinan Dogramaci
• Published 1 December 2020
• Philosophy
• Philosophical Studies

A Boltzmann Brain, haphazardly formed through the unlikely but still possible random assembly of physical particles, is a conscious brain having experiences just like an ordinary person. The skeptical possibility of being a Boltzmann Brain is an especially gripping one: scientific evidence suggests our actual universe’s full history may ultimately contain countless short-lived Boltzmann Brains with experiences just like yours or mine. I propose a solution to the skeptical challenge posed by these countless actual Boltzmann Brains. My key idea is roughly this: the skeptical argument that you’re one of the Boltzmann Brains requires you to make a statistical inference (most Fs are Gs, this is an F, so it’s probably a G), but the Principle of Total Evidence blocks us from making the inference (because I also know this F is an FH, and most FHs are not Gs). I discuss how my solution contrasts with a recent suggestion, made by Sean Carroll and David Chalmers, for how to address the skeptical challenge posed by Boltzmann Brains. And I discuss how my solution handles certain relevant concerns about what to do when we have higher-order evidence indicating that our first-order evidence is misleading.