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Anthropic Bias: Observation Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy (2002) is a book by philosopher Nick Bostrom.Bostrom investigates how to reason when one suspects that evidence is biased by "observation selection effects", in other words, when the evidence presented has been pre-filtered by the condition that there was some appropriately positioned observer to "receive" the evidence.
Nick Bostrom (/ ˈ b ɒ s t r əm / BOST-rəm; Swedish: Niklas Boström [ˈnɪ̌kːlas ˈbûːstrœm]; born 10 March 1973) [4] is a philosopher known for his work on existential risk, the anthropic principle, human enhancement ethics, whole brain emulation, superintelligence risks, and the reversal test.
For Bostrom, Carter's anthropic principle just warns us to make allowance for anthropic bias—that is, the bias created by anthropic selection effects (which Bostrom calls "observation" selection effects)—the necessity for observers to exist in order to get a result. He writes:
The reversal test is a heuristic designed to spot and eliminate status quo bias, an emotional bias irrationally favouring the current state of affairs.The test is applicable to the evaluation of any decision involving a potential deviation from the status quo along some continuous dimension.
Global Catastrophic Risks is a 2008 non-fiction book edited by philosopher Nick Bostrom and astronomer Milan M. Ćirković. The book is a collection of essays from 26 academics written about various global catastrophic and existential risks .
Philosopher Nick Bostrom has argued that data are filtered not only by study design and measurement, but by the necessary precondition that there has to be someone doing a study. In situations where the existence of the observer or the study is correlated with the data, observation selection effects occur, and anthropic reasoning is required. [16]
Bostrom goes on to use a type of anthropic reasoning to claim that, if the third proposition is the one of those three that is true, and almost all people live in simulations, then humans are almost certainly living in a simulation.
Human Enhancement (2009) is a non-fiction book edited by philosopher Nick Bostrom and philosopher and bioethicist Julian Savulescu. Savulescu and Bostrom write about the ethical implications of human enhancement and to what extent it is worth striving towards. [1] [2] [3]