marc.geddes.domain.name.hidden wrote:
>
> On Sep 27, 2:15 pm, "Wei Dai" <wei....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
>
>> Yes. So my point is, even though the subjective probability computed by ASSA
>> is intuitively appealing, we end up ignoring it, so why bother? We can
>> always make the right choices by thinking directly about measures of
>> outcomes and ignoring subjective probabilities.
>>
>>
>
> OK, new thought experiement. ;)
>
> Barring a global disaster which wiped out all of the humanity or its
> descendents, there would exist massively more observers in the future
> than currently exist.
> But you (as an observer) find you born amongst the earliest humans.
> Since barring global disaster there will be massively more observers
> in the future, why did you find yourself born so early? Surely your
> probability of being born in the future (where there are far more
> observers) was much much higher than your chances of being born so
> early among a far smaller pool of observers?
> The conclusion appears to be that there is an overwhelming probability
> that we are on the brink of some global disaster which will wipe out
> all humanity, since that would explain why we don't find ourselves
> among the pool of future observers (because there are none).
> Is the conclusion correct?
>
No, because (under your assumptions) the argument is time-translation
invariant.
Brent Meeker
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list.domain.name.hidden
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list-unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Received on Fri Sep 28 2007 - 15:43:18 PDT