hal.domain.name.hidden wrote:
> Fritz Griffith, <fritzgriffith.domain.name.hidden>, asks about the Doomsday
> argument. I suggest looking at http://www.anthropic-principle.com/,
> a whole web site on this topic, by Nick Bostrom. We have had some
> discussion here, and I think the result was that in an all-universe model
> the argument loses its strength because you are more likely to be in a
> universe which has an infinite future than one with a limited future,
> and this effect exactly counterbalances the reasons the Doomsday argument
> gave for believing in a limited future.
I don't think that it means anything to say whether one is in a universe with
an infinite future or not: In an all-universe model there are many universes
which have identical copies of 'you' in them and there is no meaning to saying
which one of these universes 'you' are in.
Of course one could argue that the set of universes that are like 'this' one up
til
now and go on to be infinte outweigh in some reasonable measure those universes
which go
on to be limited. *Is* that what you have argued? I'd like to see your reasoning
because I suspect this hypothesis to be false. (In fact I suspect it to be
irrelevant, but that's another matter).
Jerry
Received on Tue Dec 07 1999 - 09:02:31 PST