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The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Advance Access originally published online on February 7, 2006
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 2006 57(1):47-67; doi:10.1093/bjps/axi155
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© The Author (2006). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of British Society for the Philosophy of Science. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Philosophical Implications of Inflationary Cosmology

Joshua Knobe

Philosophy Department, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544-1006, USA jknobe{at}Princeton.edu

Ken D. Olum and Alexander Vilenkin

Department of Physics and Astronomy, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, USA kdo{at}cosmos.phy.tufts.edu vilenkin{at}cosmos.phy.tufts.edu

Recent developments in cosmology indicate that every history having a non-zero probability is realized in infinitely many distinct regions of spacetime. Thus, it appears that the universe contains infinitely many civilizations exactly like our own, as well as infinitely many civilizations that differ from our own in any way permitted by physical laws. We explore the implications of this conclusion for ethical theory and for the doomsday argument. In the infinite universe, we find that the doomsday argument applies only to effects which change the average lifetime of all civilizations, and not those which affect our civilization alone.

  1. Introduction
  2. Physics background
    2.1 The number of possible histories is finite
    2.2 The universe is infinite
    2.3 Every possible history occurs an infinite number of times

  3. Frequency and probability
  4. Inflation contrasted
    4.1 Modal realism
    4.2 Actualism
    4.3 Eternal recurrence

  5. Ethical implications
  6. Universal doomsday
    6.1 Application to our civilization in particular
    6.2 Universal vs. particular dooms
    6.3 Practical applications

  7. Concluding remarks


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