[extropy-chat] Doomsday argument

[Lee Corbin]

Robin writes


>>"What would it be like for me if I were a bat" is, as you know, a bad question.
>>Likewise, we can't "find ourselves" as you write, in the 14th century (unless
>>someone had... simulations or hidden societies going on back then).
> 
> I don't agree that it matters what your identity is or whether it 
> holds constant.
> The issue is what beliefs are appropriate given the *info* available in a
> situation.   That could include info, or lack of info, about any aspect of your
> identity [!], as well as info about anything else.    So it can make sense to ask
> what you should believe if you had the info a bat has, or what you should
> believe if you had the info that people had in the 14th century.

Yes, I could conceivably have the info that a bat has at a certain time
and place. But I could not *be* a bat. That is, "I" could not have
different info---contrary to what you write above---concerning the
critical factors of my identity, the things that make me who I am.

The Doomsday Argument asks about chances of *being* an individual
living over certain periods, and the point here is that almost all historical
periods are inadmissable because you can't be anyone else.

Lee