The Universe Had One Chance

Abstract

In a deterministically evolving world, the usefulness of non-trivial probabilities can seem mysterious. I use the 'Mentaculus' machinery developed by David Albert and Barry Loewer to show how all probabilities in such a world can be derived from a single, initial chance event. I go on to argue that this is the only genuine chance event. Perhaps surprisingly, we have good evidence of its existence and nature. I argue that the existence of this chance event justifies our epistemic reliance on non-trivial probabilities.

The Nomic Likelihood Account of Laws

“…Dynamical chances, or transition chances, are chances of the world evolving from some state S at one time into another state S′ at another. Non-dynamical chances are chances that can't be thought of in this way; chances of the initial conditions being a certain way are a standard example (though see Demarest 2016 for a discussion of how to reinterpret such chances dynamically).…”

Generalizing the Problem of Humean Undermining

“…The crucial feature of the Mentaculus, as far as our chancy counterfactuals are concerned, is that it posits further structure-namely, measures-over the worlds under consideration. The Humean can take those measures over sets of worlds to be chances for particular events, 27 See Demarest (2016; for further discussion.…”

Interpretive analogies between quantum and statistical mechanics

“…A Humean of Loewer's stripe only claims that the best, objective systematization of the actual, occurrent facts about the world allows one to describe the world theoretically in just this way. Evidently, though, setting such Humean scruples aside, one can give a realist interpretation of these chances as well Demarest (2016).…”