The Great Filter

From: Robin Hanson (hanson@hss.caltech.edu)
Date: Mon Sep 23 1996 - 21:04:10 MDT

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"David Musick" writes:
> I don't see why The Great Filter would be at any particular
>stage in the evolution of life on Earth. Couldn't the *entire
>sequence of events* simply be so unlikely that it almost never
>happens, even with Darwinian evolution?

The expected time to go through the sequence of events is the sum
of the expected times of each step, if they are independent.
So it makes sense to ask which of the steps contain most of the
filter.

Robin D. Hanson hanson@hss.caltech.edu http://hss.caltech.edu/~hanson/

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