FW: FIN too

From: Charles Goodwin <cgoodwin.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 09:37:41 +1200

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jacques Mallah [mailto:jackmallah.domain.name.hidden]

> >The problem is that the probability isn't 0% that you'd find yourself at
> >your current age (according to the QTI - assume I put that after every
> >sentence!). Because you HAVE to pass through your current age to reach
> >QTI-type ages, the probability of finding yourself at your current age at
> >some point is 100%.
>
> At some point, yes. At a typical point? 0%.

My (ahem) point is, though, that none of us ARE at a typical point (again, assuming QTI). In fact we're in a very atypical point,
just as the "era of stars" might be a very atypical point in the history of the universe - but it's a point we (or the universe)
HAVE TO PASS THROUGH to reach more typical points (e.g. very old, no stars left...). Hence it's consistent with QTI that we find
ourselves passing through this point...

I'm not arguing for QTI here, but I do think that you can't argue from finding yourself at a particular point on your world-line to
that world-line having finite length, because you are guaranteed to find yourself at that particular point at some (ah) point. So
I'm rejecting, not Bayesian logic per se, but the application of it to what (according to QTI) would be a very special (but still
allowable) case.

The basic problem is that we experience observer moments as a sequence. Hence we *must* experience the earlier moments before the
later ones, and if we happen to come across QTI before we reach "QTI-like" observer moments then we might reject it for lack of
(subjective) evidence. But that doesn't contradict QTI, which predicts that we have to pass through these earlier moments, and that
we will observe everyone else doing so as well.

I wish I could put that more clearly, or think of a decent analogy, but do you see what I mean? Our observations aren't actually
*incompatible* with QTI, even if they do only cover an infinitsimal chunk of our total observer moments.

Charles
Received on Mon Sep 03 2001 - 14:36:18 PDT