From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Mon Apr 28 2003 - 22:35:52 MDT
gts wrote:
> The problem, theoretically, is that you are not one of those supposed people
> you mention of the distant past who might have in theory considered the
> doomsday argument. Instead you are you and you only. You are Ramez Naam of
> 2003, and no one else. You must, at least according to DA theory, accept
> that you, Ramez Naam of 2003, are a single random sample taken from the
> population of all humans ever to live past or present.
> If you are a random sample of all humans past or present,
then the
> probability that you are a random human taken from a small
population
> destined to go extinct soon is much greater than the
probability that you
> are a random human taken from a larger population destined to
go forth into
> the cosmos and multiply. If the human species is likely to
number over time
> in the 10's of trillions, for example, then the probability
of having been
> born in the first 100 billion is pretty low. Therefore having
given that you
> have been born in the first 100 billion is pretty good
evidence that the
> human species will not end in the 10's of trillions.
>
The argument is utterly flawed. There is no such thing as a
human picked at random from all those that will ever be in all
time when the choosing is done *at a particular point in time*.
At that particular point by definition one can only pick a
human alive at that time. Therefore talking about the
probability of what time the supposed random sample came from
relative to what cannot be sampled at all (the complete set of
all past, present, future humans) is bogus.
- samantha
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