Re: Objection to the Doomsday Argument?

Darin Sunley (dsunley@yahoo.com)
Mon, 17 Aug 1998 22:00:30 -0700 (PDT)

---Hal Finney <hal@rain.org> wrote:

>

>
> Consider something like a growing fad, say the Tamagotchi toys. By
the
> time you see someone playing with one, chances are the fad is near the
> end of its lifetime. It may have grown quietly for years and you
never
> heard of it. Your chances of seeing someone with one are greater, the
> more people have them. By the time you see one the fad has neared its
> peak. In fact, Tamagotchis are passe now, I am told by my kids.
>

This is the fundamental problem with the DA. When WE look at a Tamagotchi, odds are that we are fairly close to the end of the fad. But if a Tamagotchi were to look at the population of tamagotchis about it it would have no real way of assigning a probability as to it's position within the Tamagotchi birth-order.

You are right in that "Your chances of seeing someone with [a Tamagotchi] are greater, the more people have them [i.e. the more time has passed].", but OUR odds of seeing other humans do NOT vary over time. They are 1:1, assuming a population of more then 1.

Darin Sunley
dsunley@yahoo.com



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