Re: my objection to the Doomsday argument

From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Tue Apr 29 2003 - 14:46:00 MDT

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    gts wrote:
    >
    > I don't believe the analogy breaks down for the reason you cite. All you
    > know initially is that 1) you are a ball, that 2) there are two sequences of
    > balls, one long and one short, and that 3) you come from one of those two
    > sequences. You look at your birth order and see that you are ball #4 in your
    > sequence. The question then is: "Am I from the short sequence or from the
    > long sequence?"
    >
    > It is reasonable to conclude that you came probably from the short sequence,
    > because the probability of finding yourself to be the 4th ball in the long
    > sequence is small by comparison.

    Suppose we implement this rule.

    There are two fourth balls. The fourth ball from the short sequence looks
    at itself, follows your argument, and says, "I must be in the short
    sequence!" The fourth ball from the long sequence looks at itself,
    follows your argument, and says, "I must be in the short sequence!"

    We therefore find that the gts-conclusion "I must be in the short
    sequence!" calibrates to an actual 50% chance of being in the long sequence.

    -- 
    Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
    Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
    


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