161 research outputs found
The Doomsday Argument Without Knowledge of Birth Rank
The Carter-Leslie Doomsday argument, as standardly presented, relies on the assumption that you have knowledge of your approximate birth rank. I demonstrate that the Doomsday argument can still be given in a situation where you have no knowledge of your birth rank. This allows one to reply to Bostrom's defense of the Doomsday argument against the refutation based on the idea that your existence makes it more likely that many observers exist
The Doomsday Argument Without Knowledge of Birth Rank
The Carter-Leslie Doomsday argument, as standardly presented, relies on the assumption that you have knowledge of your approximate birth rank. I demonstrate that the Doomsday argument can still be given in a situation where you have no knowledge of your birth rank. This allows one to reply to Bostrom's defense of the Doomsday argument against the refutation based on the idea that your existence makes it more likely that many observers exist
Existence is not Evidence for Immortality
Michael Huemer argues, on statistical grounds, that ``existence is evidence for immortality". On reasoning derived from the anthropic principle, however, mere existence cannot be evidence against any non-indexical, ``eternal'' hypothesis that predicts observers. This note attempts to advertise the much-flouted anthropic principle's virtues and workings in a new way, namely by calling attention to the fact that it is the primary intension of one's indexically-described evidence that best characterizes one's epistemic position
Too Early? On the Apparent Conflict of Astrobiology and Cosmology
An interesting consequence of the modern cosmological paradigm is the spatial
infinity of the universe. When coupled with naturalistic understanding of the
origin of life and intelligence, which follows the basic tenets of
astrobiology, and with some fairly incontroversial assumptions in the theory of
observation selection effects, this infinity leads, as Ken Olum has recently
shown, to a paradoxical conclusion. Olum's paradox is related, to the famous
Fermi's paradox in astrobiology and SETI studies. We, hereby, present an
evolutionary argument countering the apparent inconsistency, and show how, in
the framework of a simplified model, deeper picture of the coupling between
histories of intelligent/technological civilizations and astrophysical
evolution of the Galaxy, can be achieved. This strategy has consequences of
importance for both astrobiological studies and philosophy.Comment: 14 pages, no figure
Nuclear Fine-Tuning and the llusion of Teleology
Recent existential-risk thinkers have noted that the analysis of the fine-tuning argument for God’s existence, and the analysis of certain forms of existential risk, employ similar types of reasoning. This paper argues that insofar as the “many worlds objection” undermines the inference to God’s existence from universal fine tuning, then a similar many worlds objection undermines the inference that historic risk of global nuclear catastrophe has been low from the lack of such a catastrophe having occurred in our world. A version of the fine-tuning argument applied to nuclear risk, The Nuclear Fine-Tuning Argument, utilizes the set of nuclear close calls to show that 1) conventional explanations fail to adequately explain how we have survived thus far and 2) the existence of many worlds provides an adequate explanation. This is because, if there are many worlds, observers are disproportionately more likely to reflect upon a world that hasn’t had a global nuclear catastrophe than upon one that has had a global nuclear catastrophe. This selection bias results from the catastrophic nature of such an event. This argument extends generally to all global catastrophic risks that both A) have been historic threats and B) would result in a significantly lower global population
- …