From: Robin Hanson (hanson@econ.berkeley.edu)
Date: Mon Aug 24 1998 - 22:48:55 MDT
Nick Bostrom writes:
>> Doomsday argument folks also seem to want talk about the possibility
>> that I might have been some other human at some other place in
>> space-time.
>
>That is only shorthand. You can replace this phraseology if
>you find it problematic. Instead you can talk about the possibility
>that Robin Hanson, while remaining Robin Hanson, could forget certain
>facts, and about what probabilities RH would then assign to the
>hypothesis that RH is living in such-and-such a place and time.
>That's actually quite simple.
It's not at all simple for me. I could sortof accept the idea that I
might have been someone else instead. But I find it very hard to believe
that you could make Robin hanson forget not so much that he was no longer
Robin Hanson, *and* enough so he couldn't tell he wasn't a Martian living on
Hermes in 2200. And even if you could I don't see the relevance of that poor
hypothetical creature and what I should infer from what I know. If you're
going to rest the DA on this construction, it seems implausible from the
get go.
>I don't see why you should would want to stick to that view. You can
>admit that only observers can enter the reference class while still
>holding on to your view that we should accept the SIA and thereby
>cancel the DA.
I'm not sure the SIA is sufficient to deal with all the cases of
interest. I'd rather instead accept an approach to defining states
and priors.
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