From: Robin Hanson (hanson@econ.berkeley.edu)
Date: Fri Aug 28 1998 - 11:20:15 MDT
Nick Bostrom writes:
>> 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?
It is just the effect we have been discussing, that the fact that one is
alive suggests we are in a universe with more life. The probability
of a universe with N people, relative to a universe with M people, is
enhanced by a factor of N/M.
Robin Hanson
hanson@econ.berkeley.edu http://hanson.berkeley.edu/
RWJF Health Policy Scholar, Sch. of Public Health 510-643-1884
140 Warren Hall, UC Berkeley, CA 94720-7360 FAX: 510-643-8614
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:49:31 MST