From: Nick Bostrom (bostrom@ndirect.co.uk)
Date: Fri Aug 28 1998 - 11:08:34 MDT
Robin Hanson wrote:
> Consider an exponential model of the time to evolve life on a planet,
> where the probability of life evolving t years after the planet forms
> is proportional to exp(-t/h) within the window [0,T]. The average
> number of planets with life is then proportinal to 1 - exp(-T/h).
> The observation that t ~ T/2 exponentially suppresses the posterior,
> relative to the prior, for h << T. Values of h >> T are only linearly
> suppressed if one expects one is more likely to appear in a universe
> that has more life. In my paper I was focusing on the exponential,
> not the linear, suppression, but I admit both effects are there.
Could you elaborate a little on how this linearly suppression comes
about?
_____________________________________________________
Nick Bostrom
Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method
London School of Economics
http://www.hedweb.com/nickb n.bostrom@lse.ac.uk
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