----- Forwarded message from Wei Dai <weidai.domain.name.hidden> -----
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 13:28:43 -0700
From: Wei Dai <weidai.domain.name.hidden>
To: extropians.domain.name.hidden
Subject: Re: Nature Article
On Thu, Aug 15, 2002 at 12:45:17AM -0400, Spudboy100.domain.name.hidden wrote:
> Dyson, L., Kleban, M. & Susskind, L. Disturbing implications of a
> cosmological constant. Preprint <http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/hep-th/0208013>,
> (2002).
This is a variant on the Doomsday argument. The core argument of the paper
is this:
If we live in a world with a true cosmological constant, then the
observers whose observable universe is macroscopically indistinguishable
from ours are a tiny fraction of all observers. Therefore "the only
reasonable conclusion is that we do not live in a world with a true
cosmological constant."
Compare this with the Doomsday argument (see
http://www.anthropic-principle.com/primer1.html):
If we live in a world without a doomsday in the near future, then the
observers whose birth ranks are similar to ours are a tiny fraction of all
observers. Therefore the only reasonble conclusion is that we do not live
in a world without a doomsday in the near future.
So you should accept the conclusion of this paper only if you think
the Doomsday type of argument is sound.
----- End forwarded message -----
Received on Thu Aug 15 2002 - 13:37:15 PDT