Your analogy is flawed; the point is that you can't see the 300 undergraduates to check whether they are computer science majors. In fact, you are alone in the dining room, you are not a computer science major, and and you have concluded that since all known undergraduates are not computer science majors, there are no computer science ma…
Your analogy is flawed; the point is that you can't see the 300 undergraduates to check whether they are computer science majors. In fact, you are alone in the dining room, you are not a computer science major, and and you have concluded that since all known undergraduates are not computer science majors, there are no computer science majors. After all, if the other 299 were all CS majors, odds are 299:1 that you'd be one of them instead of yourself.
And you haven't addressed Carroll's point. You are a scientist, and you have decided, pace Hume, to accept the principle of induction. You believe that the universe follows regularities and laws, and that you can work out what these laws are by observation and reasoning. Your observations and reasoning lead you to conclude that you are overwhelmingly likely to be a Boltzmann Brain, which never made any observations at all. The Boltzmann Brain theory is self-refuting.
And and and the whole edifice is a construct of fairy dust and moonbeams in the first place. The "standard model of cosmology" is not the standard model of physics, and does not have the same ontological status. That's why there are competing cosmological models which coexist alongside the "standard" one and cannot be refuted scientifically. Carroll is a cosmologist, and a philosopher, so of course he is going to take this seriously. That doesn't mean we have to.
Your analogy is flawed; the point is that you can't see the 300 undergraduates to check whether they are computer science majors. In fact, you are alone in the dining room, you are not a computer science major, and and you have concluded that since all known undergraduates are not computer science majors, there are no computer science majors. After all, if the other 299 were all CS majors, odds are 299:1 that you'd be one of them instead of yourself.
And you haven't addressed Carroll's point. You are a scientist, and you have decided, pace Hume, to accept the principle of induction. You believe that the universe follows regularities and laws, and that you can work out what these laws are by observation and reasoning. Your observations and reasoning lead you to conclude that you are overwhelmingly likely to be a Boltzmann Brain, which never made any observations at all. The Boltzmann Brain theory is self-refuting.
And and and the whole edifice is a construct of fairy dust and moonbeams in the first place. The "standard model of cosmology" is not the standard model of physics, and does not have the same ontological status. That's why there are competing cosmological models which coexist alongside the "standard" one and cannot be refuted scientifically. Carroll is a cosmologist, and a philosopher, so of course he is going to take this seriously. That doesn't mean we have to.