ou buy the Boltzmann brain argument? How did you calculate the probabilities? Nobody knows the probability of what seems to be our universe formingThat's not the right probability to be concerned about
and certainly nobody knows the probability of a Boltzmann brain forming in a universe of unknown size and age.Emphasis added by me.
Again, you're asking about the wrong thing. Limiting the analysis to a single universe misses the point and -- as you rightfully object -- reduces the hypothesis to what is nearly a necessarily false statement. But there's no reason to limit analysis to a single universe.
Can you even state, explicitly, what it is that you mean by 'universe'?
My Bloggingheads.tv interview with Jaron Lanier is up. Reductionism, zombies, and questions that you're not allowed to answer:
This ended up being more of me interviewing Lanier than a dialog, I'm afraid. I was a little too reluctant to interrupt. But you at least get a chance to see the probes I use, and Lanier's replies to them.
If there are any BHTV heads out there who read Overcoming Bias and have something they'd like to talk to me about, do let me or our kindly producers know.