[extropy-chat] something rather than nothing

[Stathis Papaioannou]

Hi Jeffrey,

..."if the probability of
> > observers arising or surviving
> > decreases as time increases, it can turn out that
> > there is a high
> > probability that an observer would find himself in
> > the first n years of the
> > universe's existence."
>
> True. Or the potential decrease could be the result of
> a voluntary aggregation/assimilation of individuals
> into a smaller number of "discrete" consciousnesses,
> which is what I hope that the Doomsday Argument is
> indicating, above any of the alternatives.
>

Actually your whole question could be taken as a form of Doomsday Argument
reasoning: it would seem more likely that I am one of few (few species, few
observer moments, few historical eras) rather than one of many, especially
one of infinitely many. The paradox is, even if the space of all observer
moments is infinite, making the measure of each individual observer moment
infinitesimal, that doesn't mean that each observer moment should assume it
doesn't exist. Reality trumps probability every time.

Stathis Papaioannou
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