From: gts (gts_2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Apr 29 2003 - 21:36:13 MDT
Ramez Naam wrote:
[gts wrote:]
>> Your argument fails Eliezer because there are not two fourth
>> balls. There is only you, the observer.
>
> If that's the case, then mustn't the whole DA fail because it
> depends on hypothetical entities?
We make analogies (dueling ball machines, etc) to make the problem easier to
consider, but in my view Eliezer was exploiting the analogy and/or taking it
too literally. The hypothetical "other" long or short sequence of balls does
not exist in real 4 dimensional space-time.
In final reality there is only one sequence with one ball as you as the
observer. Perhaps the sequence is long or perhaps it is short. Given that
you are the observer of your own birth order status as #4, the best bet is
that it's short.
> So far in time, on this planet, the DA has been
> wrong every single time it's been invoked.
Really? Modern peoples have no evidence that DA is wrong. And moderns make
up the vast majority of humans ever to have lived.
If every human so far to live were to consider and accept DA, it is quite
possible that the overwhelming majority would be correct.
-gts
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