[ExI] a doubt concerning the h+ future

Lee Corbin lcorbin at rawbw.com
Wed Jun 6 03:00:38 UTC 2007


Russell writes

> > On 6/5/07, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
> > For example, I do not think it *possible* for John Grigg
> > as you know and love him (that is, as you know and
> > love yourself) to have been born in any other time!
> > Any fertilized egg that was identitcal to yours of a half 
> > century ago or whenever you were conceived, simply
> > would not have turned out to be *you* if raised, say,
> > during the time of the Roman Empire. It would have
> > spoken a different language, been completely unfamiliar 
> > with our technology, embraced a different religion, and
> > so on to such an extent that it simply would have been
> > a different person.
> 
> My answer to the Doomsday Argument was along similar lines:
> it doesn't make sense to say I (as opposed to someone else with
> my DNA) could have been born in a different century, so the
> probability under discussion is essentially the probability that I
> am me; and the probability that X = X is a priori unity. 

Quite right!  That's always been the flaw in the Doomsday Argument
so far as I could see.    Any defenders of the DA out there?

Lee




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