RE: Measure, Doomsday argument

From: Jonathan Colvin <jcolvin.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 21:14:18 -0700

Russell Standish wrote:

>This argument is a variation of the argument for why we find
>so many observers in our world, rather than being alone in the
>universe, and is similar to why we expect the universe to be
>so big and old.
>
>Of course this argument contains a whole raft of ill-formed
>assumptions, so I'm expecting Jonathin Colvin to be warming up
>his keyboard for a critical response!

Ok, if you insist :)

I think the above are two disparate arguments. It is simpler by Occam to
assume that there should be many observers rather than only one (similar
argument to favouring the multiverse over only one big-bang). Once you admit
the possibility of one observer, it takes extra argument to say why there
should be *only* one.

But we expect the universe to be old for cosmological reasons (takes stars a
long time to cook up the needed elements, observer take a long time to
evolve). Simplicity does not seem to be a factor here. A big universe does
not seem much simpler either.

Jonathan Colvin
Received on Wed Jun 22 2005 - 00:15:50 PDT