In another thread Rolf mentioned a variant of the Doomsday Argument where the universe is infinite:
<< ...This variant DA asks, "if there's currently a Galactic Empire 10000 Hubble Volumes away with an immensely large number of people, why wasn't I born there instead of here?" >>
The implication of the question seems to be that the questioner (Q) could have been born in either of the two populations at random, and, assuming the number of people in the Galactic Empire is sufficiently immense, the probability that he could have been born on Earth is close to nil.
But Q could not have been born in either of the two populations; he could only have been born on Earth, and his failure to realize this suggests that he has ignored his own material and biological nature.
Q is a material object and a living organism. He is composed of atoms from Earth's interior that could in no way be part of a remote Galactic Empire. Q's birth occurred because humans reproduce sexually, and his birth occurred on Earth because his parents lived on Earth. Q could not have been born in the Galactic Empire because he could not have been born anywhere but on Earth.
If Q could only have been born on Earth, then the probability that he would have been born on Earth is 100%. The answer to Q's question, "...why wasn't I born there instead of here?", is that the probability of his having been born there is 0%.
Gene Ledbetter
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Received on Sat Nov 17 2007 - 15:34:04 PST