RE: Doomsday vs Diaspora

From: Emlyn O'regan (oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au)
Date: Thu Apr 24 2003 - 03:26:28 MDT

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    Well, if I have to fall back to the Doomsday Argument, I would argue that I,
    at least, find it likely that in all of existence (which is where we must
    scope our vision, when talking about "random placement" of conscious
    beings), unless it is finite or the resources in Existence (with a big E)
    are finite, there are an infinite number of capable observers in the
    universe. This is the argument about an infinite civilisation, but expanded
    to encompass Everything. In this situation, can you make any arguments about
    the probability of turning up anywhere in particular?

    Emlyn

    > -----Original Message-----
    > From: Hal Finney [mailto:hal@finney.org]
    > Sent: Thursday, 24 April 2003 3:31 PM
    > To: extropians@extropy.org
    > Subject: RE: Doomsday vs Diaspora
    >
    >
    > Emlyn writes:
    >
    > > For example, I happen to be born as a white westerner in
    > the 20th century,
    > > with all the attendant privelage. Am I to conclude that the average
    > > situation of all people is mine; most people live a life, and find
    > > themselves in circumstances, similar to mine? I would be wrong; my
    > > situation, the accident of my birth, is rather unusual and
    > uncommon; it
    > > seems improbable.
    >
    > And yet, if everyone reasoned that way, most people would be right.
    > Most of them would say, I was born as a poor Chinese or
    > Indian peasant.
    > And indeed, that is the most common circumstance for a human
    > being today.
    >
    > Just because a statistical argument doesn't work in every case is no
    > reason to reject it. If you flip 100 coins, you expect about
    > 50 heads.
    > That is a valid argument even though some people will see many more
    > or fewer.
    >
    > In the same way, assuming that one is a relatively typical human being
    > will be correct for the majority of human beings, who are by
    > definition
    > relatively typical. You personally are an exception; you are like the
    > person who flips coins and gets 100 out of 100 heads. I won't claim
    > that the exception proves the rule, but at least it fails to
    > invalidate
    > it.
    >
    > Hal
    >



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