Talk by Casey McCoy at MCMP (Wed 20th)

[Dardashti, Radin]

Speaker: Casey McCoy (UCSD)
Date: Wed., May 20
Location: Ludwigstr. 31, ground floor, room 021
Time: 16:15 -⁠⁠⁠⁠ 17:45

Title: Cosmological Probabilities: General Relativity and Statistical 
Mechanics Writ Large

Abstract:
Physicists and philosophers have occasionally advanced arguments
concerning the probabilities of possible universes, based on, for 
example,
the so-called Past Hypothesis and GHS measure from cosmology. Although 
it
may seem dubious to treat the entire universe as a random event, one 
might
suppose that these arguments may be justified by extrapolating 
successful
applications of probability in physics, such as statistical mechanics, 
to
the universe. I argue that these justifications, when based on 
statistical
mechanical probabilities, fail to be adequate.