From: Eugene Leitl (eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)
Date: Tue Oct 24 2000 - 23:09:29 MDT
Jason Joel Thompson writes:
> Sure it does. It doesn't shed as much light as TWO observations that
> intelligent life exists, but it sheds a helluva lot more than ZERO
> observations that intelligent life exists, which is why it's got a lot more
> going for it as a theory than belief in a supernatural creator.
Look, it can't be that difficult to understand that due to anthropic
principle you're getting a blip even if we're alone in the whole
frigging universe. It's a bias the size of Manhattan.
> And to come at this from the other direction, if you don't believe that ONE
> observation that intelligent life exists is useful data, then the
> observation of, for instance, one -other- intelligent life won't help you
> out either (towards predicting the existence of additional intelligent
> life.)
Wrongo. The second data point is not biased. It's still a lousy data
set, but the second data point is not biased.
> I'm curious actually-- for those who don't believe that one instance of
> intelligence is a basis for theorizing about other occurences, do you
> believe that two instances woud be? If so, what is the distinction? If
> not, is there a point at which we -can- start to theorize about other
> occurences?
Yes, two blips are very much different from one blip. I recommend to
ask google for "anthropic principle".
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