From: rickmeisner@mchsi.com
Date: Wed Jun 04 2003 - 10:29:38 MDT
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>Extrapolating trends from the past definitely can predict future
>states. As such, our ever-expanding civilization predicts that we will grow
>larger and older indefinitely into the future. This is the opposite
>conclusion than DA reaches. The reason is that DA is not using past data to
>predict future trends. It tries to use past data samples to represent
>future data sampling, which fails.
I like this analysis.
Not many animals have been cloned so far. Can we use Doomsday-style reasoning
to conclude that not very many animals will ever be cloned?
Consider any other new effective technology, only a few instances of which
exist so far, and you'll find Doomsday reasoning leading to the strange
conclusion that not very many instances of that great new technology will ever
exist. Why does Doomsday reasoning seem misguided in these cases?
Doomsday reasoning works fine for independent balls in urns. Pick a small
number, and you're more likely to have picked from the less numerous
collection.
But Doomsday reasoning doesn't seem to work for things that are likely to
proliferate themselves and/or be proliferated, such as useful new technologies,
and clever new sentient species.
Perhaps someone more statistically sophisticated than I can explain more
clearly the reason why this is so. Or why it isn't so.
Rick Meisner
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jun 04 2003 - 10:41:00 MDT