[extropy-chat] Doomsday argument

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sun, Oct 15, 2006 at 10:27:20PM -0400, George Dvorsky wrote:

> Self-sampling most definitely gives strength to the Doomsday Argument. 

I find it interesting that so many subscribe to the SSA religiously.
You don't have any degrees of freedom at all in this experiment
of self-observation.

> The fact that I find myself as an individual in pre-Singularity 

Wherever you go, there you are. You're not an omniscient
external observer, randomly picking items from the same
reference class. You're only observing an infinitely self-biased
sample of one: yourself.

> existence is a very troubling observation, particularly given the 

I only find it troubling, that people are taking number games
religiously.

> assumption that there should be far more post-Singularity individuals 
> than in a pre-Singularity civ. It also indicates that the most probable 
> observation of a civ is pre-Singularity and not post, a possible 
> indicator that there are no post-Singularity civs.

Only if you build on invalid premises.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820            http://www.ativel.com
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 191 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20061016/88522e95/attachment.bin>