From: Doug Bailey (Doug.Bailey@ey.com)
Date: Sat Aug 15 1998 - 20:31:40 MDT
Nick, I wanted to reiterate my request since I think
it might have gotten lost in the thread. The problem I
have with the DA is that it appears to me that any
member of any species that applies the DA to its situation
will always conclude that their species faces extinction
in the near term. If Bayes' theorem is telling us only
99.999% of the species that analyze the DA should conclude
imminent doom but in practice 100% are then I begin to
wonder if we are overlooking something, we're screwing
something up in the application of Bayes' theorem, or
drawing wrong conclusions.
With that in mind, can you describe an individual that
could apply to DA to its situation and not conclude
doom was imminent? What can we say about that individual?
The items I would like to know are:
What would such an individual know(i.e., about its species,
its relative position, etc.)?
What is that individual's situation that would lead it to
conclude doom was not imminent?
Could another individual sitting next to this individual
reach a different conclusion?
Could another individual of the same species at an earlier
or later point in time apply the DA and reach a different
conclusion? (The answer would seem to be "yes" unless there
was some reason to believe the species' existence was
indefinite.) If the answer is "yes", what qualitative or
quantitative differences would there be between the knowledge
of the individual in question and the ancestor/descendant?
Doug
doug.bailey@ey.com
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