From: Keith M. Elis (zarathustra_winced@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Apr 24 2003 - 09:41:22 MDT
Here's a thought that must have been raised by someone, but I haven't the
breadth of experience to know.
The Doomsday argument concludes, as it must, that the sum total of humans
who will live is not much larger than the number of humans who have already
lived. By Bayes' theorem, we must update our beliefs to incorporate the
statistical likelihood that our civilization's end is in sight. On another
track, the Fermi paradox suggests that either life is very uncommon in the
universe, or we are relatively advanced as a technological civilization.
In short, the two propositions 'life is common in the universe' and 'we are
a typical civilization' are not compatible. As Fermi asked, if life is
common, where is it? We must conclude that if life is common, most life is
not technologically advanced enough to be detectable. If this is true, we
are atypical.
One can also approach it from the other direction. If we are a typical
civilization, then most life in the universe is detectable. As we have not
yet detected any other life, then we must conclude that detectable life is
relatively uncommon.
This is simplified reasoning and not entirely contiguous, but it does relate
the empirical data of evolution to a Doomsday Counter-Argument. If evolution
does happen as quickly and easily as it appears to have on this planet, then
we should assume that this typical in the universe. Thus, life is common in
the universe. If so, then detectable life is atypical, and we cannot be said
to be a typical civilization. If it's true we are an atypical civilization
in any one respect, then otherwise airtight statistical conclusions (such as
the conclusions of the Doomsday argument) break apart.
Keith
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Apr 25 2003 - 13:03:53 MDT